%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
How once woman went from being a SAHM of four to a published freelance science journalist |
|
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. |
| Write about something awkward or embarrassing that happened in public - it can be something that happened to you, or something you witnessed happen to somebody else. How did they react? For the last few years, maybe a decade, I've been doing memory stuff. You've probably heard about memory palaces from shows like Sherlock and the Mentalist, among others. It seems to have been a thing. I picked it up from a friend of mine, and then subsequently read Moonwalking with Einstein, Josh Foer's book on how he went from someone who knew nothing about memory stuff to winning the championship. I've got a pretty good handle on it, and I'm good at memorizing random lists, magazines, and of course actual information that I want to save in my head, like the presidents of the US and the states from largest to smallest/state flowers/year they entered the Union. Best Actress winners. Fun things like that. Anyway, I was at a singles conference a few years ago, and they were hosting a talent show. I thought it would be cool to have the audience develop a list of 20 random words that I would memorize on the spot. I practiced with my kids and felt comfortable with it. However, what I failed to take into account was the stage fright that would go with it. I'm standing up on stage, having collected a list. The first one - I still remember this like 5 years later - was cookie. But then my brain froze, and I couldn't remember anything else. What I should have done - I realized once I was off stage - was make a joke about how the thought of a cookie distracted me and left to laughter. Instead, I just sort of fumbled my way off the stage and bawled like an idiot. The worst part is that I had asked if the audience if they wanted me to repeat the list forwards or backwards. A friend of mine yelled out, "Just list the odd ones!". Then I realized that I had lost the list entirely and, subsequent embarrassment. Later, he came up to me and apologized; he felt really bad for throwing me off. And other people also told me that it was him that had thrown me. In both cases, I corrected them and reassured them that I should have been able to do it, it just went to fast. I told the guy that he could make it up to me and that the next year, we could do it again in the talent show and he could be my assistant in a fancy leotard! I actually think that having an assistant write the list on a chalkboard behind me could have helped because it would have given me a few more seconds to lock the image in my mind. But there was no talent show the following year, probably a good thing lol. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
