The Writing Writer

Time to write. I'm sitting in class right now, and I'm waiting for things to print instead of memorizing lines. I've been relocated in my duties right now, so I'll take the time to be productive.

All semester I've been in this immersive learning class, and we've created a lot of things for it. Magazines, programs, invitations, and our presentation Thursday night. We're all kind of feeling the end of the semester. We've been around each other the whole semester, and we're looking at Thursday as a relief from the stress.

Through this class I've realized that there is a definite need to have different people around you, and different classes as well. Doing the same thing day in and day out gets tedious after awhile, and seeing the same people does the same. Differing ideas make it hard to compromise, and stubborn people make it even more so.

It's been a good time, but I'm definitely ready to get back to my journalism classes. Sure, I want to keep advocating for our program after I'm done with this semester (and with school), but I want to get back to magazine writing. I want to interview people. I want to write their stories. I want to be surrounded by people who have an idea of what they're doing. I want people who have studied magazines (or at least read them on a fairly consistent basis) telling me what I should and should not do. I need people who understand the process to be around me.

I never realized how much I actually love my major until a few weeks ago. Sure, it's great to write things, and talk to people, and be charged with the task of telling their story. I knew I already loved those parts. But being told that I was an inspiration, that what we created was inspirational to one person, was more than enough. Seeing everyone's faces when we brought the proof back, and watching them light up when they went through it, made me feel worth it. They didn't even linger on their own stories.

None of them had seen what it would look like as a whole, and watching them gaze at the final product in awe was amazing. We didn't even have it printed on the correct paper, and they wanted more. They finally realized that it was all worth it, that we should have printed as many as we did, and that we should have spent all that time and money getting through it.

Knowing that these 12 people were amazed by it fuels me to work that much harder in my final year in college. I know it was a new idea, a new concept, but knowing that they got joy out of it makes me want to do so much next year and leave my mark. Everyone knows about Ball Bearings, you get an issue when you come for freshman orientation. I want to be a part of it, finally. I want to be on the writers list. I want my ideas to be written by me. I want my name in the magazine.

I want to have an internship where I can get a lot of experience talking to people, writing about them, and hearing from them. I'm fine with feedback, positive or negative. I've had to deal with negative in the past few weeks, but I've learned how to deal with that. I want to be working on deadline, to be helping with the design process, to be out there taking my own pictures. I want to write.

I want to be a magazine writer. I want my own magazine. And some day, I'll check those off my to-do list.