Despite several... warnings about taking on this particular magazine and editor/publisher, Mike, I haven't felt anything more than nervousness upon my first day's completion. I think Mike is a great writer and editor, and a hard boss, which most likely will make me both a better writer and stronger person. Though I don't expect this to be easy in any way, my first few assignments have been received with little to no kickback, and I find myself anticipating what's to come next.
My first project was assigned by Mike upon accepting me as an intern -- I was to take a "How Far Will You Go" photo in the Dominican Republic (I was going for a few days) as well as submit ideas for the spring issue of the magazine. The next issue was set to be released in mid March, so the sunny environment of the Dominican helped me get in the mood to be thinking about spring in Bozeman. I submitted a series of ideas, of which I'm most looking forward to a running guide. It still seems strange, when paging through the most recent issue of Outside Bozeman, that the ideas I just submitted could be published, immortalized in print, on the pages I'm turning. My words may take up space there some day soon... that's the hope, right? What I find most appealing about the suffrage I know will go into these next few months, is that at the end of it all, I'll be a published writer. That's worth more than anything they can throw at me.
Speaking of, my next few assignments have been tedious and, I'm sure, designed to inundate me with boring, administrative tasks. Chris, the sales manager, gave me the job of paging through the online edition of the winter issue and fault-checking the hyperlinks. I needed to consider both placement of the link on the page and the effectiveness of the hyperlink itself. After meticulously checking 128 pages of the issues (~140 hyperlinks) and having hand written their placements, I noticed an attachment on the email from Chris. I really wish I had seen it three hours earlier, as he included all the information I have been writing down manually, as well as specific locations he wanted the links to be. So, first lesson learned: always double check everything, or you end up wasting time.
I met with Mike last night and got a key to the office, a work email, O/B swag, etc., but the most exciting moment was when we sat down and he ripped apart my resume and sample writings. I actually loved every minute of it because it's such an invaluable experience to be able to sit down with an editor and hear first hand what he liked and didn't like and be able to utilize his experiences to better my writing. Though he categorized much of my writing as verbose, he said he was willing to continue reading because he enjoyed my style (score!).
In this first and quick meeting, I learned the differences between hyphens, en dashes and em dashes, and became embarrassingly aware of my tendency to be inconsistent in voice and tone. Mike helped me look through some of my writing about the Patagonian dam systems and pointed out choice words that were too strong, that carried too much of an agenda, and he helped me hear how words like beautiful and intricate carried two different implications. Honestly, I learned a lot in just this first meeting which gives me hope for those that will follow. I've started what I'm calling a "survival guide" to editing, and trying to update it each day when I learn something from this experience. Today I found E.B.White through the mouth of Zinsser to be most encouraging " You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And be willing to defend what you've written " (On Writing Well 298).
Let the obsession begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment