I Miss the Ink

There was one point in my life when I was going to dedicate myself to journalism - I was all in.  So in, in fact, that  I went to get a master's in journalism and believed that, armed with the knowledge Stanford professors tried to shove into my brain, I could handle any city council meeting or football practice.  I was hoping to eventually end up as a long-form journalist, following in the footsteps of Buzz Bissinger & Joe Posnanski.  I was going to embed myself in some town to report on a story that was going to make waves and my Stanford profs would smile and nod when they read my byline..."We did that," they'd say.

Oh, the dreams of a young journalist.

Almost immediately after I graduated with a master's, the journalism industry started to crumble.  Papers weren't hiring and in fact, a good many of them were letting people go.  For a girl who just wanted to write long-form, off-the-beaten-path-sports stories, I was out of luck.  It was either move to Wisconsin to cover local politics or find something else to do with my excellent grammar skills.

Nowadays, most of the writing I'm doing is in clipped, email form.  Sure, I always put the comma in the right spot and try to make my sentences exciting, even if they are just explaining the intricacies of a specific project.  And I yes, I'm doing my darndest to try to post on this blog regularly.  And I've even started to write for some of our content packages at work, so I guess I can say I'm doing some reporting.  But believe me, writing about video games and cooking for one isn't exactly mind-blowing stuff.

There have been moments lately when I crave a good interview.  I reflect on that one time when I interviewed Billy Beane.  Or when I met with a climber who had fallen 100 feet off a cliff wall, which disintegrated his vertebrate and left his right leg a tangled mess (he'd later decide to amputate it so that he could continue living an active lifestyle).  I miss seeing the pain, the joy and enthusiasm, the defeat and success of people.  I want to hear people's stories, what makes them tick, why the did what they did and how it turned out.  A good story will always prevail, but sometimes I feel like those good stories are passing me by.  I want to be writing them, not reading them.

I've made myself a life goal of writing a book.  And I'm hoping that one day, that will happen.  But between work and the puppy and running and going out with the boy...

Until I get to the point when I can fully dedicate myself to researching and reporting and writing a book, I'm going to continue to write as much I can, whenever I can.  I'm going to continue to read the bests, and learn from their sentence structure and writing prowess.  That way, when that perfect story comes my way, I'll be ready.