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How once woman went from being a SAHM of four to a published freelance science journalist |
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I'm revising this intro after more than 15 years to better reflect my intention When I started this blog in 2004, I was a stay at home mom to two small children, a college graduate with a degree in English and Astrophysics. By 2007, I had four small children, ages newborn, 2, 4, and 6. For several years, Writing.com was how I kept my sanity. This blog began, first as a way of staying connected. Later, when I worked on a novel, I used it to stoke the writing fires as I plotted out short stories and the next step of my novel. Ultimately, I moved my writing preparation to "Invalid Item"  In 2010, I became a single mom who had homeschooled her children for several years. I had a 2, 4, 6 and 8 year old and had never had a "real" full time job, since I was married while in college. Everyone told me that I would have to buckle down and take on a "real" job. Instead, I decided to attempt to live my dream: to make it as a writer. I knew that if I didn't try then, I would never really dive in. I counted my money and set a deadline. If I hadn't began making a decent (defined) amount of money after so many months, I would suck it up and get a J-O-B. After some thought, I decided to play to my strengths. I served an internship at Sky & Telescope magazine while in college and enjoyed writing about space and astronomy. With an astrophysics degree, I thought I would be able to sell myself more easily, and a small niche should be easier to penetrate. It's been about ten years since I was first paid for an article on Space.com. In that time, writing - journalism - has been my primary moneymaker. I've often thought about setting up a blog on my website - www.astrowriter.com - but just haven't gotten around to it. There are a few things I would like to share for those who are interested in scientific journalism in general. Now that I'm back on WDC, there's no reason not to combine the two and use the site blog for that sort of interaction. There are certainly plenty of folks on this site interested in the publication process. So while I'll probably meander around some, that's the intention of of this blog: to share some of my struggles as a published journalist and to help answer oft-asked questions. |
I just responded to a comment from Kåre Enga in Montana   about blogging in general, and the way this website has evolved over the last decade and a half. Kare pointed out that more people are chasing the $$ from writing and doing less of the fun, and that's likely one cause in the drop in the community presence. I can relate because that's one reason I stopped writing on the site. Ten years ago (you can skip if you've heard before), I was a single, self-employed, homeschooling mom of four. Over the last few years, my business has dramatically improved and my kids have grown up. One went off to college (homeschooled the entire way through) and two of the remaining three decided to opt for public school for high school. That reduces a lot of the workload in my day; not to mention the youngest is 13 and so able to do far more herself than she did at 8 or even 10. I suppose like everyone else, I have a lot of constraints on my time, even with my kids getting bigger. My biggest time suck for the last two years has been a relationship. He jokes that I have cut seriously into his reading time, but it's a true statement; now he's predominantly 'reading' audiobooks. My reading is still in gear but my TV time dropped and I stopped playing Warcraft, something that used to suck up my 'down' time. I had already stopped that before we started dating, but hadn't really replaced it with anything. I'm currently back to working on my memory palace. I have this idea that one day I'll be able to reach television proportions of memorization that I know is unrealistic. What I would love to do, however, is to be able to remember press release information, or at least research. There are some things that stick much more easily than others. I can't tell you how many times I've met someone at a conference that whose research I had previously written an article on, yet I forgot the topic and name completely. In addition to general facts and discoveries, I'd really like to hold onto people's names. These two together are my big motivation for memory work. And I'd also like to get back to my novel, though the truth is that at night I'm just worn out still. I should work on it now but the thought exhausts me. In fairness, I had three phone interviews today for a feature I'm working on for Sky & Telescope magazine. One of the researchers mentioned a paper by a fourth person that I looked at and thought would be good for a story, so then I pitched it; that took an hour, going through all the research, making a list of further reading, and then of course crafting the perfect pitch. I sent it to an editor I haven't really worked with before, so it was an added level of tenseness. Much easier to pitch folks who have said yes in the past. Anyway, I'm going to head over and do some memory work and then try to get to bed early, or at least at a reasonable time. At least, that's the theory! |
| Congratulations on making it to the last day of the competition! What was your favorite prompt from the last month? What was the most rewarding aspect of participating in the competition? What did you learn? Well, of course I hit technical difficulties on the last day of the competition. I had originally re-upped my membership through points for a month to determine if I was going to stick around or not. I decided to stick around, but my membership expired a few hours before I thought it would, so I missed entering the last day of the competition. Unfortunately, I was away from home, and from the credit card I needed to use to re-up. Annoyingly, I was about 1500 gps short of using gps to renew for another month. Ah well. Now I have gift points!! So, the blogging competition. I enjoyed the time spent blogging daily, although I'm not sure it's quite for me. I have a deliberate direction I planned for my blog, and the competition prompts did seem to get in the way of that somewhat. I wanted to write more about publication and didn't think about the fact that having set prompts would actually change some of that focus. Something learned. My favorite prompt? Hmm, I'd have to look back over the month, hold please. I suppose my favorite prompts were along the lines of "objects other than electronics that you are important" or the "fork in the road." I didn't particularly like the list of values because, honestly, it was just a long list to review. I did a better job coming up with my own, although the list helped supplement them. But ten felt like too many. I suppose if you were just going to do a one sentence explanation it would be fine, but that seems to me the opposite of blogging; aren't we supposed to expound on our thoughts? The most rewarding part, I think, was the interaction with other folks. It has been good to see people that I knew from my original stint on the site. I've been a member since 2003, so longer than half of my kids have been alive and within two or three years of the site kicking off. I was touched that Kåre Enga in Montana still had me on their favorites even after I'd been away for a decade, and that they were kind enough to come back by.What did I learn? Well, blogging is a different type of writing than I usually do, and prompts are definitely different. Most of my writing nowadays is more structured. I learned that I still enjoy cutting loose. I also learned that, if I am writing-for-work during the day, blogging is a bit more than I can handle if I hope to work on my fiction techniques. I think I entered the Cramp once but I had hoped to do it a few more times. Commenting on the blogs, while helping to build some of the community and while I enjoyed what was said, meant less time spent reading and reviewing, which is something I also enjoy. R&Ring seems to help me polish my own writing, and is a big reason I returned to the site. I also learned that reviewing must be really low on the site. I did a little bit but dropped way back after I started blogging. Somehow I still got a top #100 reviewer merit badge for the month. Do folks just not review anymore?! That blows my mind. That was one of the biggest pluses of the site to me. Overall, I enjoyed the time spent. I probably won't continue to blog daily, though I might occasionally pick up the prompt if I think it's interesting. I appreciate the judges and can't imagine reading each blog daily, though I think it might be somewhat interesting to do. |
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