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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. |
| Hey all! The next couple of days are going to be scantily blogged because, like a fool, I mistimed things. Then again, there's not a lot of wiggle room in a bimonthly contest! As I'm sure you know, this weekend is Mother's Day. What you *don't* know is that Saturday is my birthday! I'm going to be a million years old. Well it feels like that. So I might actually have all four of my kids in my house for the first time in awhile. That seems crazy given that we're in the middle of a worldwide lockdown, so let me explain. My kids have some cousins-albeit-complex* that are roughly their age, just a few months younger. Those cousins also homeschool like we do. Since homeschooling in a nonpandemic world gives more flexibility to travel than public school, we often went to visit them, especially when they lived only three hours away. So both of my girls, at least, are close to their corresponding cousins, and have great relationships with the ones that are not as close to them in age. When they canceled college, but before the states went into lockdown, my girls decided to go visit their cuzes. My college daughter actually decided that if she was going to be out of school, she would rather be up there where she had space to work instead of down here. :( I am hoping that has to do more with her relationship with her dad and his family, since we have a great one. She also said that, after being on her own as an 'adult', she wasn't psyched about moving back home for 6+ months. :( So my girls were in SC when Georgia and SC both locked down. I did a terrible thing and drove to see them for my younger daughter's birthday. I don't think that broke either state, but I didn't stop for gas so it should be fine. A month later, they are coming down for my double days. They arrived this afternoon and will be here at least through Sunday. So I'll be somewhat incommunicado for those days, brief posts notwithstanding. This lovely post about my family and my descendants ties in very well to today's topic, which asks us to talk about something that isn't worth a lot of $$ but has a lot of value to me. Well, it specifically notes an object. That's probably a good limitation, because I could range from my kids to my talent to my testimony in God, but none of those would be considered 'objects' (I suppose in another age my daughters would but that's a different story). Of course, there are a handful of sentimental things. I'm not quite as crazy as my dad - I might even come back to that - but I tend to save things. Right now in my dresser sock drawer, I have a ziploc bag full of baby teeth from my kids, but don't worry, I won't talk about them. (Also, creepy murder story in my brain.) I have photographs and drawings from my kids. One of my favorites is a photo collage birthday card made by my oldest son; it's hanging on my cork board right now. But the thing I'm most excited about is a relatively new acquisition, only recently received from my aunt although I've had my eyes on it for years (and she promised to give it to me when she died [I didn't ask, she just promised because she knew I would appreciate it]). It's the wedding certificate for my grandmother's parents. When I was 18, the genealogy bug hit me hard, and I started digging into my family tree. The internet was helpful, but it was also fairly new at the time; like I said, I'm pushing a bazillion. I interviewed my grandmother and aunts and uncles and did all kinds of document digging. Most marriage certificates are pretty bland. They are about as fancy as your college or high school diploma. And most people don't frame and post them because, what the heck. So in that case, they are even blander than said diplomas. And for some genealogy stuff, a wedding record might be one line on a page of entries about the married parties. Not my great-grandparent's wedding certificate, though. I don't know if they paid extra or what, but it is a gorgeous, almost scroll-like document. Framed, it's just shy of three feet.tall, and maybe two feet across. It's beautifully decorated, with drawings of birds and ribbons. It's a family heirloom that is also beautiful. I have it hanging on the wall over my piano, and I love it. *Actually, it's not my kids' cousins but their father's cousins. Their father is 45 this year, and the youngest not-cuz is 9. (There are other, even younger, not-cuzes but they aren't part of this particular family.) My ex-mother-in-law was the oldest of seven kids. Her brother Joe is about 14 years younger than she is, and they have another sister who is only three years older than my ex-husband.No one ever believed them. Joe has five kids, some of them younger than my own. |
| Today is going to be a nod to the prompt. I haven't really read any news stories today. But I wrote one! Also, side note, I got to talk to Bruce Campbell today. Not the actor, the planetary scientist. I've interviewed him a couple times but I still giggle when I hear the name. Or say it. Hopefully only a small percentage of you are too young to get the joke. So, news story. Here's one that ticks me off. There was a story that went out of the LA Times about a mutant form of coronavirus that is, essentially, bubkus. The paper, not the COVID. The journalist is clearly not a science journalist, which lets me hit my age old rant. It's about knowing the field and knowing the subject and knowing the players. Sure, you can read a paper and report on it, but that's not always enough. As one of my editors said on Twitter, "Sometimes you just gotta know something about the subfield you're covering and how they operate, sorry." It's also helpful to have an established rep so that researchers are more likely to tell you if they think something is wrong. Additionally, you're more familiar with what's going on in the field and the technical vocabulary. Crap, I am so disjointed. |
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