OH GOD SHE'S IN PRINT RUN AWAY *flails*
Today's Thursday, which means that the latest issue of the St. Helens Star was released. Guess whose article ended up both in the paper and on the website?
This is big. Nay, this is huge for me. This is the first ever piece of writing I've ever had published, in all my years of scribbling. It's not the sort of writing I do normally, but it's still words, still penned by me. There's a piece of writing out there, being viewed by other people, with my name on it. On paper.
A few other bits and pieces of mine ended up in the paper, as well; filler bits here and there. Next week there may be even more, as they've started easing me into bigger stories. I've had a few news features given to me today, for instance, and today I was given a couple of articles that'll keep me occupied for a whole day as I need to contact people to get details. One of them, about the Camp America scheme, will probably benefit from an interview. I'll be trying to set one up tomorrow, definitely.
There's one thing I've definitely been finding challenging about this placement, and that's been talking to people on the phone. For some reason, I'm a bundle of nerves when it has to be done. Maybe it's just that I feel a bit awkward about phoning people to ask questions - like I might get it wrong and ask something that touches a nerve. It's unlikely with all the stories I've been given - usually entertainment stories or fillers or nice stories about awesome people doing voluntary work.
And then, as I was reading 'The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim' by Jonathan Coe, I realised it could be something else. In this age of e-mail and text messaging and Facebook, could it be that human beings are slowly ousting more personal contact from their lives? It might be especially true for people my age or younger, who are some of the first to have grown up in such a world.
The past few days, I've only ever phoned someone if I absolutely couldn't find an e-mail address. I have loads of friends - Sian being a notable example - who seem to hate phoning people; preferring to text; for no clear reason. It used to be that phoning was considered a nice, impersonal way to avoid face-to-face contact - could it be that even just hearing someone's voice crackling across the world is getting too personal?
A bit of a waffle there, and certainly not an original point. My point is I've found a challenge to overcome. The work has been mostly easy, if a bit different from my usual writing, but now I've got the employment equivalent of a 'Boss Battle' to tackle. I'm going to kick its arse.
Mild tangent; speaking of boss battles, I got royally flattened the other night by a boss on Final Fantasy VII. If I were at any other point in the game, it might not be too bad; I could just re-load, walk around bashing things to level up and then try again. Only I'm in Wutai, at the point where Don Corneo captures Yuffie and Elena and I have to fight that dragon thing to get them back. Consequently I have no materia (so no cure spells! WHY) and I can't run around levelling up because a) I've become too dependent on materia so I'll get killed and b) If I try to do anything, everyone's gonna be like 'BUT OMG CLOUD WE GOTTA SAVE YUFFIE [/bad translation]'
So, I have a choice. Either fight the boss and get killed, try to level up and get killed, or just leave the game for six months to forget my plight, go back to it and get killed.
I've opted for the latter.
So, back to the point. My weird, undiagnosed issue with phoning people. How do I plan on overcoming it? By phoning people, of course! Desensitising myself! The thing is, I've made a few calls already about stories, and once I've gotten into them... well, I've forgotten my worries. Tomorrow, I have a few calls to make here and there to these Camp America people - James Robert Mellen, Elys Jones and Anthony Trantum - to see if they're willing to do an interview. I might have to call them several times, in fact, to see if I can get them all together at once.
As for work today, it was much the same. Researching, drafting, making a few calls here and there (but nobody was answering their phones!), trimming articles to meet word count limits, finding pictures to accompany some articles... but, like I said, I'm being given more and more news and entertainment features as time goes on. Perhaps next week I'll be given something really exciting to do - I hope so!
This is big. Nay, this is huge for me. This is the first ever piece of writing I've ever had published, in all my years of scribbling. It's not the sort of writing I do normally, but it's still words, still penned by me. There's a piece of writing out there, being viewed by other people, with my name on it. On paper.
A few other bits and pieces of mine ended up in the paper, as well; filler bits here and there. Next week there may be even more, as they've started easing me into bigger stories. I've had a few news features given to me today, for instance, and today I was given a couple of articles that'll keep me occupied for a whole day as I need to contact people to get details. One of them, about the Camp America scheme, will probably benefit from an interview. I'll be trying to set one up tomorrow, definitely.
There's one thing I've definitely been finding challenging about this placement, and that's been talking to people on the phone. For some reason, I'm a bundle of nerves when it has to be done. Maybe it's just that I feel a bit awkward about phoning people to ask questions - like I might get it wrong and ask something that touches a nerve. It's unlikely with all the stories I've been given - usually entertainment stories or fillers or nice stories about awesome people doing voluntary work.
And then, as I was reading 'The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim' by Jonathan Coe, I realised it could be something else. In this age of e-mail and text messaging and Facebook, could it be that human beings are slowly ousting more personal contact from their lives? It might be especially true for people my age or younger, who are some of the first to have grown up in such a world.
The past few days, I've only ever phoned someone if I absolutely couldn't find an e-mail address. I have loads of friends - Sian being a notable example - who seem to hate phoning people; preferring to text; for no clear reason. It used to be that phoning was considered a nice, impersonal way to avoid face-to-face contact - could it be that even just hearing someone's voice crackling across the world is getting too personal?
A bit of a waffle there, and certainly not an original point. My point is I've found a challenge to overcome. The work has been mostly easy, if a bit different from my usual writing, but now I've got the employment equivalent of a 'Boss Battle' to tackle. I'm going to kick its arse.
Mild tangent; speaking of boss battles, I got royally flattened the other night by a boss on Final Fantasy VII. If I were at any other point in the game, it might not be too bad; I could just re-load, walk around bashing things to level up and then try again. Only I'm in Wutai, at the point where Don Corneo captures Yuffie and Elena and I have to fight that dragon thing to get them back. Consequently I have no materia (so no cure spells! WHY) and I can't run around levelling up because a) I've become too dependent on materia so I'll get killed and b) If I try to do anything, everyone's gonna be like 'BUT OMG CLOUD WE GOTTA SAVE YUFFIE [/bad translation]'
So, I have a choice. Either fight the boss and get killed, try to level up and get killed, or just leave the game for six months to forget my plight, go back to it and get killed.
I've opted for the latter.
So, back to the point. My weird, undiagnosed issue with phoning people. How do I plan on overcoming it? By phoning people, of course! Desensitising myself! The thing is, I've made a few calls already about stories, and once I've gotten into them... well, I've forgotten my worries. Tomorrow, I have a few calls to make here and there to these Camp America people - James Robert Mellen, Elys Jones and Anthony Trantum - to see if they're willing to do an interview. I might have to call them several times, in fact, to see if I can get them all together at once.
As for work today, it was much the same. Researching, drafting, making a few calls here and there (but nobody was answering their phones!), trimming articles to meet word count limits, finding pictures to accompany some articles... but, like I said, I'm being given more and more news and entertainment features as time goes on. Perhaps next week I'll be given something really exciting to do - I hope so!