ink of my future goals and aspirations in a completely new way.She was driving me to her house in the truck she's been driving since she was 16. This past week I've been trying to get over a terrible cold and just needed to get out of my stuffy, sick infested apartment and into the springtime air. Along the way, our discussion was on writing for magazines and my writing in general.
Now I have a confession.
For the last three years, I have absolutely abhorred writing.
As a senior high school, I wrote a 200 plus, single spaced novel. This was quite an accomplishment for the girl who hid this hobby from her closest friends.
When I packed up half a year later and went to college, it was as if my creativity completely burnt out and ran away screaming. The massive amounts of papers drowned me in words that I had absolutely no interest in.
And the articles I had to write for the few journalistic writing classes I was required to take?
Talk about complete loathing.
Newspaper writing and that in strict AP Journalistic style is something I can't stand reading, let alone think of writing.
Until this semester.
Upon my return to the States, I was signed up for a required Interviewing and Reporting Skills class. The transition back to the states and the fact that I found myself sitting in a class I absolutely didn't want to take was enough for me to throw myself into a panic attack.
To make a long story short, I dropped the class and found out when I was scheduling for the spring that it was only available in the fall. Thanks to a great adviser and Department Head, I was able to substitute another writing course in its place...but this time it was in an area that I'm obsessed with: magazines. I was still a wreck walking into that class, knowing my fellow classmates had years of journalistic writing for the paper under their belts and I had a lousy few stories here and there.
But it didn't matter.
Because it turns out that writing for magazines isn't the uptight writing that one reads in a newspaper.
And I fell in love with the style.
Thus my love/hate relationship with writing turned towards love again, thanks in large part to the fact that my witty, sarcastic, black humor was welcomed in these new articles.
Back story over, fast forward to yesterday's conversation in my friend's truck.
"You should look into writing, you know," she told me. "I can see you being a funny, dark humored Communist."
Completely baffled, I looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Well you just seem to really like writing these strange articles."
I cannot tell you how long I sat there thinking over her words. How did my writing make her think that I'd be a great Communist? Did she think I should write regime papers? Had my terrible sense of humor been mistaken for some strange Communist philosophy? What was it about me that just screamed 'RED PARTY! RED PARTY!' to everyone?
I listened as she talked a little longer before it clicked in my head. I'd horribly misunderstood the conversation. Either she hadn't enunciated enough for me or my ears were horribly plugged from being sick, but I clearly had misheard something important.
"Did you say Communist or columnist?" I asked, already knowing what she'd say.
"Columnist, you dumbass."
And shaking my head, all I could think was: Wouldn't this be a great blog entry explaining the reason why I began this blog to begin with?
Since I've grown steadily closer to graduation, the thought of what comes next has increasingly began to freak me out.
This class has only managed to fuel me to start a career in magazines...and the thought of writing as a job no longer scares me shitless.
How's that for a misunderstood conversation epiphany?
--J
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