Wednesday, September 19, 2007

My First Month

I started college in 2004 with no clear idea of what I wanted to major in. I'd been reading books about freelance journalism since the age of about fourteen, and had even written a few queries and immediately thrown them out. Fiction was my medium, but a Creative Writing major seemed dull and pointless.

I figured in my freshman year to apply to several pratical sounding programs. Advertising, Journalism, and the coveted Fine Arts Film Production program, assuming that I would probably get into one of them, minor in mag journalism, and just end up doing that for a living. Well, I got into film, which was great. I spent the next three years learning all about the Film biz, and planning my future career in the industry.

Occasionally I'd play the write-a-query-throw-it-out game, but that didn't matter, because film was where I was going to end up. This summer, however, one of our ever-present Film emails came with a headline that got the old juices flowing, "Boxoffice.com Looking for Writers." I emailed in immediately with a quick sample about the adaptation of one of my favorite books, and got an encouraging response. I should mention here that if the author herself didn't keep a blog, I wouldn't have even had an interesting enough stance to write the sample. (http://livejournal.com/users/libba_bray)

Once I'd secured a column, the urge to start working was back. I discovered Deborah Ng's freelance job board, and started applying for jobs left and right. The first emails were probably a bit embarassing in retrospect, but I've crafted a fairly good cover letter (I think), and the work is becoming steadier.

I've been intending to start a blog about this for a few weeks, but now that my first publications are up, as a blogger for gearlive on http://tvenvy.com and http://filmcrunch.com I feel comfortable making my first post.

Check out my posts linked on the bottom of the page. Don't read the first one if you're sensative to Lost spoilers. I should have some boxoffice.com stuff up soon, and news on whether or not they'll be sending me to ShowEast (I hope, I hope, I hope) on assignment. I also have stuff coming in for a College Tips site and possibly for Dvisible magazine.

Keep checking the gearlive blogs for posts, and I'll update publications here. I'd love feedback on my work, and advice on where I should go next.

Thanks to everyone for reading -
Shannon


Dom Monaghan Back on the Big Screen
Sassy Girl Remake
(there's a very strange typo in this one after Elisha Cuthbert's name, I'm assuming the editor made an oops while tagging it or that I can't accept my own shortcomings).

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