I've been given a chance to do something. And I feel like I'm about to walk on stage knowing all my lines and choke. Just stand there with a deer-in-the-headlights look. If you saw me tonight, you'd see it too.
Some of my earliest blog readers will remember a time I nearly choked tears out of a blog over an injustice in my very own hometown of Herriman, Utah, after realizing they were holding soccer games at the cemetery where my Miranda is buried. No one would listen to me. So I offered to write a story for the Herriman Herald, a brand new newspaper in the city, so I could have my voice heard. The soccer games were stopped shortly after.
I continued writing for this newspaper as a volunteer. I didn't need money. I did it for several reasons. First, I liked having my thoughts read by other people and I liked even more when people would come up to me and tell me what they thought about what I wrote, whether they agreed with me or not. Second, I love writing. Third, I was keeping my resume current (you know a person out of the workforce loses 50 percent of her earning potential after two years) and building my portfolio. Fourth, it's something to focus on when my main other focus was grieving over my daughter.
But last month, I wrote an article on a city production of Bye, Bye Birdie. Not only did I think the musical wasn't very good, but I felt it was painful to sit through. I'd seen high school productions that were more professional. It was painful to watch, but not as painful as trying to sound optimistic while writing an article about it. I tried to bring out its good points (which were few) and leave out its bad (which were many). I turned it in. Several weeks later, the paper appeared in my mailbox. The front page was a glowing review of Bye, Bye Birdie with two full pages of color pictures from the play. The article wasn't my article at all. Wait, I take that back. One paragraph, which was my synopisis of the Bye-Bye-Birdie storyline, was mine. Nothing else. But the real problem was that my name was on this article, along with the man's who runs the paper.
I emailed him explaining how upset I was that my name was attached to something that didn't represent my feelings at all. The email back implied that I wasn't enthusiastic enough about the production and they felt they needed to spice it up a little. That's fine, but don't put my name on it.
Then Sunday night, a very thoughtful and very-well-connected neighbor called me and suggested I write for a paper that is credible and will actually pay me to write for them. I was all ears. Of course that's a better situation. I jumped on it. He called a friend of his, an editor for the Salt Lake Tribune's Close Up section in my area, and suggested I free lance for him. I called the editor the very next day and he sent out contractor paperwork for me to fill out.
The papers came yesterday. I leafed through them and was excited. Now I'm starting to get anxious: I have not a thought in my head. I don't know what it is--the pressure, the chance I have to write for something credible, but I'm drawing a blank. I'm supposed to come up with story ideas about my community, specifically the Herriman area, and the one piece of advice is "Think People." I want to have some great ideas, but everything that comes to my mind has already been done or isn't good enough to land me a return offer to write for them. I'm having writer's bloc, and I haven't even started writing yet.
I'm skeptical. Maybe I should just stay where there's no pressure, no money, and no credibility. Am I good enough for this? Sometimes I think it's my chance to get somewhere better, sometimes I think I'm going to flop. Right now, I think you can probably guess what I'm thinking. I need ideas. I need a good story. And I need . . . some confidence.
