Finding What You Love
The last few days have been eaten up with me editing and placing the content for the next gallery newsletter in its professionally designed but malleable template. The newsletter has been around for at least ten years and throughout those years has veered between being just a newsletter to being much more like a magazine or publication a person might actually want to pick up and read. Being the over-achiever that I am, I am taking it in a whole new direction from the current events listing on tabloid size paper that is has turned into with a slick new design that actually looks like a professional magazine, and a whole roster of what I hope are engaging feature stories, some written by me, some by others.
I love it! It's been driving me crazy and the source of many, many hours of overtime but I can't remember ever feeling so fulfilled doing anything work related in my life. I love the gratification of managing this little project and ending up, four times a year, with a real, tangible, publication that I have created from virtual scratch. I love the power of editing copy with a red marker. I love the creativity of trying to rearrange things so that I can fit text and the image that I desperately want people to see. I LOVE IT ALL SO MUCH THAT I AM DIZZY.
When I was eighteen years old I sent an email to an indie literary journal on the west coast and inquired whether they might be interested in me spending my summer with them as an editorial intern. As it turned out, they were interested, but I couldn't go because they couldn't pay me and not only did I need money for school in the fall but apart from living in an empty refrigerator box on the streets of Vancouver, I couldn't afford to go. As school and jobs progressed, I kind of forgot about working for a magazine until now, as it comes crashing back upon me like a tidal wave, or nausea. This is what I should be doing. Maybe not this exact publication for all time, but I need to keep going with this, whether I be an editor for a magazine, a journal or a publishing house. Editing, designing and the wonderful feeling of holding a lovely thing you've built in your hands. Of having people read it.
What more could a person want in life?
I love it! It's been driving me crazy and the source of many, many hours of overtime but I can't remember ever feeling so fulfilled doing anything work related in my life. I love the gratification of managing this little project and ending up, four times a year, with a real, tangible, publication that I have created from virtual scratch. I love the power of editing copy with a red marker. I love the creativity of trying to rearrange things so that I can fit text and the image that I desperately want people to see. I LOVE IT ALL SO MUCH THAT I AM DIZZY.
When I was eighteen years old I sent an email to an indie literary journal on the west coast and inquired whether they might be interested in me spending my summer with them as an editorial intern. As it turned out, they were interested, but I couldn't go because they couldn't pay me and not only did I need money for school in the fall but apart from living in an empty refrigerator box on the streets of Vancouver, I couldn't afford to go. As school and jobs progressed, I kind of forgot about working for a magazine until now, as it comes crashing back upon me like a tidal wave, or nausea. This is what I should be doing. Maybe not this exact publication for all time, but I need to keep going with this, whether I be an editor for a magazine, a journal or a publishing house. Editing, designing and the wonderful feeling of holding a lovely thing you've built in your hands. Of having people read it.
What more could a person want in life?
I know exactly how you feel. I used to work for a weekly newspaper. It was a very small upstart specialty paper, so I wore many hats... editor, writer, comics, ad design, layout, typesetting (because it was before the days of WYSIWYG desktop publishing)... And every week, I had something I could hold in my hands and say, "I did this! I made this thing!" No better feeling in the world. Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days... :-(
Posted by
Saru-San |
2:23 p.m.
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