Start a blog (check)
Email writing samples to Baruch professor about fall workshop (check)
Email latest pieces to Winn for Monday's meeting (check)
(I'm usually never so on top of things, and given that today is St. Patrick's Day, this either means I'm incredibly lucky, or I have no life whatsoever.)
I meant to start this blog a while ago, like when I first started my internship at WABC. But one thing got in the way of another, and I'm nearly 2 months into this internship, and just starting to blog now. No worries, though.
If I had been writing this blog from when I wanted to start it, this post would have a context. As it is, I'm just going to start from here and work backwards over spring break. So. Jumping in. My first post.
Had an incredible conversation today with Scott at WABC as he was putting together the 5 and 6 o'clock promos. About writing, about jobs, about life post college. He asked me where I see myself going with writing, a question that makes me a little uncomfortable (read: terrifies me) but that I love to talk about anyway. When someone asks "What do you want to do with your writing/what do you want to do with your life" and actually lets me talk about it, it makes me feel like I'm not crazy for wanting to be a writer.
I think the concept of what a writer is (or, perhaps more precisely, what a writer does with all her damn time) has changed, and for the better. All I know about my future is that I want to be writing something, anything (well, almost anything) every day.
The reason my dad gets so nervous when I talk about "being a writer," I think, is because he pictures me living in a tiny apartment, with peeling paint, no heat, water that is consistently brown and unusable, and heroin addicts for neighbors. In this nightmare of my fathers, I will be skinny because I can't afford food and my hair will perhaps be falling out. I might be an alcoholic. We might have to go on "Intervention." I will spend my days making no money whatsoever and becoming steadily depressed as my rejection slips pile up (but at least I can burn them for heat, I suppose!) but nevertheless I will keep poking away at a typewriter (a typewriter, Dad, really?) and hyperventilating in the dark.
But that's not what a writer is. I don't even know if that's even what a writer ever was, actually, and in any case, that's not the type of writer I want to be.
I've been thinking a lot about my future. What kind of career do I want, where do I want to live, when should I go to grad school. I have some time left...a little over a year, actually, which ties my stomach into knots but also makes me so incredibly excited. Mostly I feel nauseous, though, especially when I think about how shitty our economy is. One of the few downsides of interning at WABC is that I now read the newspaper. I actually know what's going on now. I've learned the hardway that ignorance really is bliss. And boy is our economy in the shitter. What if I don't get a job?
ANYWAY. Being a writer is a lot more lucrative than I had originally thought. Scott was telling me that reading, writing, and being able to communicate is vital, and those are the things I like to do best. I'm writing promos right now, and I wouldn't mind writing promos, its creative in a way that I'm not used to, and I like it. But with writing...there aren't really any limitations. I could write promos. I would write menus. I could write scripts or short stories. I could write poems.
Scott said something that I haven't really heard too many people say, and actually mean. He said something like, "If this is what you like, then go for it. And keep going for it." He told me about a comedian who said he never wanted to come up with a Plan B, because that would make it too easy to give up on Plan A. So Plan B became "Keep working on Plan A." And that's the approach I want to take with my writing. I'm going to have a job that I enjoy, that forces me to be creative, and to write. And while I maybe might still end up an alcoholic, I'm going to make it work.
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