Life of A Writer

Yesterday was my first day to write the updates for Soaps.com. I was eager and ready to get started until it came time to post the update. When I went to post my first update on "As the World Turns," I ran into a few problems. First, the update (a.k.a. recap) of yesterday's episode was suppose to be on the Web site 4:00 p.m., and I had just finished writing out the update at that time. I knew right then I was late, and the editor was already communicating with me through ICQ; in case I needed help posting through their system (I was new to the system).

I started to panic. It was my first day, and I didn't want to make a bad impression on my first day. Besides, I had a reputation for meeting deadlines on time, and I was hurting it by being late.

I logged into the admin area to post my update, and I copy and pasted (from Notepad) my recap of the episode, but as soon as I went to send it through the editor ICQed me to tell me it wasn't correct. Turns out, she sent me this message at the same time that I was starring at a screen that asked me to add the new paragraph. My panic suddenly turned worse!

The editor was kind and she said it happens to many writers on their first day. She was even kind enough to call me on the phone to walk me through the system, and finally, at around 7:00 p.m. I had the update posted, the pics were up and the job was complete! I was very thankful Chrissi was there to walk me through. She didn't have to take time out of her busy schedule to help me figure out --what turned out to be -- a simple system, but she did take time to help and for that, I was grateful!

Chrissi is wonderful to work with, and I must say, I think she has a lot more patience than I do, because I lost patience with myself yesterday. All of this just goes to show you editors are willing to help. After all, they're people too.

Their system wasn't my only delay though. My other holdup was writing the update. I'm so use to writing updates on other shows, and those updates can be rather lengthy, but for Soaps, I found their updates aren't as long, so I worked as fast as I could to take about 10 pages of content and put it into three or four pages. To top it off, I have a habit of going back to edit what I write, and I done that too.

After I got everything done I was ashamed of myself, and I was down in the dumps for the rest of the evening. I'll admit, I almost threw my whole writing career out the window last night, but when I went back to Soaps a few hours later I read some of comments on my update, and this made me feel a whole lot better. I actually thought my writing would be awful because I had shortened it, but I guess I underestimated myself.

I'm now learning to write a little less while still keeping it interesting, and I'm still learning bits and pieces of their system. Although, I am happy to report I got the update posted on time today and done over 80% of system on my own. Chrissi did help me post the pictures, but I believe I can do it all on my own tomorrow. Drop by again and I'll let you know if that 80% increases to 100% :)

Never give up on your dreams -- work toward them,
Misti Sandefur, freelance writer/editor

Posted by Misti Sandefur, Christian author/freelance writer at 11:02 PM