I love my profession, I love my people. (I hate the industry, but that can be changed.)
One month ago, I got the news, and today I am loafing in bed, just letting my mind settle after the most incredible four days of passionate journalists and storytellers from literally all over the world being wonderful and great. (Short list of friends made from: Haiti, Singapore, Lithuania, Ukraine, Brazil, Panama, Nigeria, Poland.) The Yale campus is really, really gorgeous, though it's more Christopher Wren than UChicago-Gothic. (Less Brutalism, though, so snaps for that.) My workshop group was so -- it was so good! I got applause after my presentation, like, what! (They were good for many, many more reasons than that.) My leader, who you have almost certainly heard reporting on Israeli-Palestinian stuff at NPR at some point in the last two decades, was so kind and insightful and encouraging. (She told me multiple times how impressed she was with the feedback I was giving!) We got to hear from the creators/leaders of Snap Judgment and The Moth, from a young This American Life producer (Stephanie Foo is SUPER PUNK ROCK, you guys!), from an incredible illustrator whose work you've definitely seen, from former/fired NYT executive editor Jill Abramson, from these people at the forefront of VR. Like -- inspired doesn't begin to cover it.
Also encouraging as hell: a huge, huge portion of attendees were in periods of huge transition too. Several had quit their jobs right before coming, and some of them were moving to/staying in the United States or to New York right after the workshops ended. I think we all left going, "Okay, I'm going to make a podcast, and a video, and a comic, and a story, once a week! I'm just gonna do it!" I really needed this, and it went so, so well.
I think today I just want to sit with it all and make some plans. (I also, uh, ran out of groceries right before my dad came to visit, so that... needs to be replenished at some point.) Apparently it's going to be cool and sunny all day, and
ssrconfidential stories go live in a few hours, and that'll be my first fic since Yuletide (plus, ahhhh, gift fic!), and I get to tell my therapist tonight how well all this stuff I was so scared of went. Maybe the biggest payoff is having a concrete thing to call back to whenever I slide into depressive thoughts, proof that I can do this and I have good ideas and people love my work and believe in me. I'm good with that.
This was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where it has
comments. I would love to hear from you at DW! If you can see this post, you can comment here using OpenID. Thanks!
Also encouraging as hell: a huge, huge portion of attendees were in periods of huge transition too. Several had quit their jobs right before coming, and some of them were moving to/staying in the United States or to New York right after the workshops ended. I think we all left going, "Okay, I'm going to make a podcast, and a video, and a comic, and a story, once a week! I'm just gonna do it!" I really needed this, and it went so, so well.
I think today I just want to sit with it all and make some plans. (I also, uh, ran out of groceries right before my dad came to visit, so that... needs to be replenished at some point.) Apparently it's going to be cool and sunny all day, and
ssrconfidential stories go live in a few hours, and that'll be my first fic since Yuletide (plus, ahhhh, gift fic!), and I get to tell my therapist tonight how well all this stuff I was so scared of went. Maybe the biggest payoff is having a concrete thing to call back to whenever I slide into depressive thoughts, proof that I can do this and I have good ideas and people love my work and believe in me. I'm good with that.
This was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where it has
comments. I would love to hear from you at DW! If you can see this post, you can comment here using OpenID. Thanks!