It’s funny how often my own thought-life feels like I am simply talking to myself. I hope that’s not what doctors mean when they refer to crazy people hearing “voices” inside their head. Sometimes I wonder why hipsters are trying so hard to be different from everyone else, when every too-cool hipster fool is exactly the same as the next. Freaking howling wolf t-shirt with suspenders and plaid pants, give me a break. Other times I wonder why bacon has become so popular lately, when it has been delicious ever since God created pigs and fire. I’m tempted to lick the hot pan after bacon is fried like it’s frosting on an electric mixer. Damn, bacon’s good…but I digress. My point is that I think many thoughts, of wildly varying quality…clearly.
The other day, post-delicious bacon fantasies, I was browsing Craig’s List job postings for writers. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not a professional writer, would need significantly more education to come close to that, and I have a job I don’t plan on leaving any time too soon. However, this little blog project can clearly be served as evidence that I have been kindling a tiny flame of desire for putting words together in a thought-provoking, and hopefully, passably entertaining way. Fingers crossed on that one. So, I was riding a thought wave of what employers would be looking for in a budding wordsmith. I’m sure that simply pasting a link to this blog on my resume would be insufficient in proving my abilities, as high-larious and profesh as my work here may be.
Why am I qualified? Well, I have written, like, four opinion pieces on WordPress. Not to mention the “cats with laser swords in space” fiction from my elementary school years…
I was browsing away, clicking through post after post of Orange County area businesses needing writers for web content, social media marketing, etc. After my 30th post perusal that wasn’t looking for a sarcastic, plain-speaking wanna-be blogger, I figured I would need to research what actual big boy writers did to prepare a portfolio of writing samples. It was this scenario that got me thinking about how written articles are formed. How do writers choose topics? Where does “news” come from? I felt like a child asking mommy and daddy about babies for the first time. I started googling things that had never been typed on my keyboard before. Alien terms, like “Associated Press” and “News”. I was truly spiraling down into the rabbit hole now. I also decided to ask my Dad. He was near me during this brain safari, and he just so happens to read every newspaper known to man, every day. The look on his face when I said, “Dad, where do news reporters hear about the news?” was pretty priceless. He ended up going into an explanation about informants, press releases, field reporting, researching…stuff that, no joke, sounded like a butt-load of work.
So I let this information percolate and I continued to analyze what I read every day as “news” stories, in the areas of interest I hold. Entertainment news. Video game journalism. What made this stuff news? Then it hit me. I made it news. Me. This little guy. The reader. People. We make the news important. Holy insightful revelation, bro. It isn’t some wild stork in the sky that chooses what makes the journalism cut, it’s what a writer feels is important to a reader. The only thing that separates my neighbor’s awkward life updates from things published in the New York Times is how much the listener actually cares about the information. There is a mutual bond that exists between a writer and a reader, just as there is between a homeowner and a construction contractor. Or a consumer and a retail store. A consumer is interested in a thing. A writer/contractor/retailer wants to provide a thing. All of the sudden it didn’t seem as complicated. I think there are some economic principles at work here too, but I don’t remember enough of my Junior College experience to elaborate.
The bottom line is that life is very interesting. There are things going on that people want to hear about, whether it be current and late-breaking news stories, entertainment updates on a socialite’s party excursions, or reviews on the latest games, movies or television shows. People thirst to know things, and the ability to potentially share those things in an understandable and insightful way is what makes someone a writer. I had the weird, backwards thought in my mind that there was some news guru out there who chose what was newsworthy. After some searching, and, more importantly, questioning, I am realizing that there is no bespectacled journalist in the sky determining the important issues of the day.
If I am going to write anything at all, it simply needs to be something that I feel people want to read about. I need to create an informative and relatable article. A reader needs to have something to take away with them. The point of all this news we read and watch every day is to not only be aware of what is going on around us, but to use the information we gather to help us live our every day lives. All too often I read articles, listen to sermons at church, or hear interviews on the radio or tv, and the information that literally just went in to my brain never sticks around longer than five minutes. If I don’t ask myself why information is important, and I don’t take a few minutes to think about how I can be a more productive and informed person through that information, then what is the point at all? I might as well be thinking about annoying sub-cultures and bacon all day.
I have written a few items over the last couple weeks, and for the most part the purpose has been simple. Pump myself up. Put my own insights down on a sheet of virtual paper in an attempt to look at life a little bit differently. It’s been selfish to the max, which is sort of okay, considering this is my website, after all. Unfortunately, I’m just not that interesting on my own. I titled this blog “Uncertainly Awesome” for a reason. My awesomeness isn’t certain, is what I’m saying. I am going to take the new few hours, days, weeks…whatever it takes, to think about what I want to share. What is going on in this great, wide world of ours that I want to talk about? Time to consider a potential audience, maybe a potential publisher or employer…what is going to inform and/or entertain a demographic that goes beyond me?
Uncertainly Awesome 