Sunday, July 26, 2009

The 'What's up in writerland' official report

I'm a newspaper reporter now. I've been to the county jail and sat with murderers, to the county fair to celebrate kids and animals. To a hip-hop festival filled with musicians, children and members of Portland's gang task force.

Getting a decent reporting job was my goal when I left my friends and family in Prescott, but I took a circuitous route to get there - months as a de facto au pair (am I mixing language metaphors?), months pitching magazines and selling almost nothing. Months turned inward, learning about my mental equpment. Necessary months, in other words.

In June, three weeks before my job offer, it was totally unclear what was going to happen. I'd slacked off on looking for a reporter job because I wanted to focus on freelancing. But that was going only so-so because I needed more structure. I was at the point where I was looking forward to travelling in August as a vacation from the entirety of my flagging life. It was then I wrote the following in my journal.
So what now? Now that I'm 34, now that the negative space is revealing the form of a life, for better or worse? The most elegant choice is to continue. Failed or succeeded, it will be a life with form, a life resolute. And clearly a life fully lived.
Here's what I know, I'll be at this job for as long as it takes to get my kitchen chops, the reinforcement of journalism basics. I'll keep writing a bunch of stories every week and I'll get stronger as a non-fiction writer. And, six years into a writing career, I'll respect the sculpted form my life has taken and from there, I'll pretty much continue writing till I'm worm food.

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