Perfecting Practice

I’ve got this thing coming up. I’ve been asked to write the May installment of “Blog World” for the San Diego Reader.

It’s not normally very nerve racking to write my blog. But when I start to think more about what I’m going to write for the Reader it makes me a little edgy. I’ve never had anything I’ve written published before outside of this blog.

Let me back up a little to give some background.

A few weeks ago I started this blog. On one of my earlier entries I received a comment from someone who claimed they wanted to pay me to write in a San Diego based publication.

My first thought was, “This is spam.” I researched the information left on the comment a little further. Turns out that the comment appeared legitimate and I thought “How nice that someone would like to publish my thoughts.”

I emailed back and forth with the editor in charge of “Blog World”, Judith Moore. She gave me a few details as to how long each piece should be, how I should introduce myself to the readership, how they would like me to write about the upcoming wedding, and of course when the deadlines were.

I went on to do some more research by reading several of the entries on the archive page for “Blog World”. They are all very interesting stories and some even led me to the personal blog of each of the writers. In particular the guy who moved from New York to Slovenia has a catchy writing style. (And I thought I made a big move). What I noticed mostly is that a majority of the bloggers had made a major migration at one point or another during their life. For example, EliSabeth La CoQuette in Paris, France was raised in Florida and Morenike Akinlawon in Rhode Island was born in Nashville and has since moved to Rhode Island via Africa. This trend is just something I personally picked up on and it certainly does not appear to be a prerequisite in blogging for the Reader.

They want me to introduce myself and give some brief information about my family and work and how I got to be who I am. That has been requested in 400 words or less. After that I’m “free to write about whatever I want” but am asked to “try to stay close to the getting married topic.” And that is fine with me. I know that it is a privilege to be selected for this. It is also a chance for me to highlight, at least in part, the process of becoming a married man. I think it also gives me a chance to reflect on what is going on before the wedding. For anyone who has not been through the process, there is a difference between getting married and having a wedding. I’ve enjoyed the process of having a wedding and I’m looking forward to being married. It is a personal bonus to chronicle both during the month preceding the wedding.

The Reader is a weekly publication that is distributed every Thursday and has a reported four week readership of approximately 797,000. It appears to be a West Coast version of The Phoenix which has two major publications out of Boston and Providence. The Phoenix is a free publication and caters to those with a slightly more liberal lifestyle. It gives a push to performing arts and supports the “renaissance” that Providence has been undergoing over the last decade or so. However, the Phoenix also appeals to a younger reader as its demographic centers around mainly students attending Brown, Johnson and Wales, RISD, and Providence College.

I’ve been asked by several people if I feel pressure. I guess my answer is yes and no. Yes, that is ambiguous, but it is also accurate. For the “yes” part of it I just don’t want to write or say anything that would embarrass myself or make readers embarrassed for me. The “no” comes from my personal beat that I have been marching to for as long as I can remember. That part of me doesn’t really care what others think of me, but not intentionally. It’s not that I’m not concerned about what others think because I am. It’s that I’ve always been of the opinion that not everyone has to march to the beat of my drum and that thinking they will is in itself unreasonable

I know what I need to write about and I’m good under a deadline. So I guess I know when I need to write by and what it needs to be related to. Now it is about my words that need to come together to form a mental picture in the reader’s head. All I have to do is figure out how to break down the pictures in my head, put them into words, and make sure those words build the same pictures in someone else’s head.

So now that I’ve explained all this, I’d like to follow up with my first draft. An example that I’d like to fine tune before my first deadline appears on a calendar.

Coming soon to a blog near you, Jeremy in Rhode Island.