... About Being a Real Fake Journalist

I like to plan ahead, Reader. Case in point: Maren and I went on a little roadtrip up to Boise this weekend. We were gone for approximately 28 hours, but we starting making the plans for this trip over a month ago. Another case in point: about two years before I went to London I started perusing "must-see" guides and tube maps. Yet another: I spent the last three years slowly accumulating everything I would need for my new apartment, so that when I moved this weekend I hardly had to go out and buy anything.

I utilized the same kind of forward-thinking with my education. In 8th grade we had an assembly where we talked about our upcoming high school experience. They explained to us about credits and required courses and electives, and I thought to myself, 'Hey, if I take my required classes early and save up my electives, I can goof off my entire senior year!' Genius!

It was that kind of brilliant planning that landed me the sweetest schedule possible for my senior year. I had no math, no science. I pretty much played all day every day - Japanese, Lit Mag, cooking, sewing, seminary, film & literature.... I even took a typing class. I could type 85 wpm, so I finished the entire semester's worth of assignments in the first week and then spent all of 7th period napping for the rest of the year. I'd always liked school, but my senior year was by far the most fun time I'd ever had.

It was also the year I learned I never wanted to be a journalist.

One of the few "real" classes I took was journalism. I love writing, so I thought it would not only be fun but would actually be beneficial, career-wise. That year I was also interning at the WJ Chamber of Commerce, writing business spotlight articles for the local free weekly, the Chronicle. I quickly discovered that I hated journalism. I craved the freedom to write what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted. I didn't want to write about the grand re-opening of some factory that nobody had ever heard of. I didn't want to have to fit a specific word-count and use the inverted pyramid method. I didn't want to leave out all expression and style and strip stories down to the Joe-Friday-"just the facts, ma'am"-leave-your-feelings-on-the-subject-at-the-door structure. I wanted to be creative! I wanted to bend the rules of grammar! I wanted to use exclamation points!

Now, I realize that this is not how all journalism works. But that was my experience with it, and it totally turned me off the idea of ever working for a newspaper. Unfortunately, that made it very difficult for me to ever realize my career-dream of being a professional writer. The odds of being a successful novelist or screenwriter are... well, not good. Essentially, the only way to make a life for myself by doing what I love, writing, would be to do it in a way I hate, journalism. It reminds me of that Woody Allen quote:

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness."

Sigh. Sophie's choice, right?

Flash forward to seven years later (I hope you wore your seatbelt), when I discovered there was a way to get the best of both worlds. Enter The Regal Seagull. The perfect combination of fiction and journalism (second only to the New York Post!), and the brainchild of an avid 'Onion' enthusiast who realized the need for a weekly publication that lovingly mocks Utah culture. He and I are clearly meant to be friends.

So I took up a post with Utah's #1 News Source and am now proud to call myself a staff writer. I'll post links to all of my Regal Seagull articles on the sidebar, so that when you tire of reading my blogs over and over and over and over and over again (and we both know that you do, Reader) for your primary source of entertainment, you will be only a click away from your new secondary source of entertainment.

You're welcome, Reader.

I've only been writing for the Seagull for a couple of weeks now, and the site itself is only a couple weeks older than that. But we all have high hopes for it in the future. Soon the Regal Seagull will be available in print, and then it's only a matter of time before the Seagull nabs the Democratic nomination and becomes the first-ever independent publication-turned-President of the Known Universe and then...!

Sorry, Reader. I was just planning ahead.