I try and I try...

and I fail. You know why? BECAUSE I am obsessive compulsive, anxiety-ridden, attention deficit, learning disabled and quite simply put...SLOW. (WARNING: There will PROBABLY be a lot of cussing coming up. If you don't want to see me in a rage...please x-out of this blog now...) As I said before, ALL I FREAKING DO IS WRITE. I've always said I loved writing and you a-holes have all LIED to me all these years and made me believe that I am. Well, screw you. You know why? Because I'm not... I am perpetually taught how to write from different perspectives in every avenue of my life. In college, I WAS TRAINED to write as a literary critic. I SUCKED for a little...but then...I was good...or those jerks that were getting paid thousands of dollars to TEACH me at least TOLD me I was good. Then, I was a poet. Always came naturally---IF ONLY THIS WOULD MAKE A LIVING FOR ME--so I would transition my style to fit poetry. But when most of my college career was spent in front of a god damn computer writing in informative, wistful, articulate and sometimes emotional language for papers of 15 pages or more...I TOOK MY TIME. IT WAS AN ART.

You know what is NOT an art? Journalism. It is NEWS. Well thats how it is for my beat. I'm writing about real things that happen to real people that doesn't have any room for fluff or bullshit. By night..I am a journalist. Plugging away at the keyboard about Brighton happenings...usually serious. THEN...I go to my internship where I write what are technically press releases and ALL THE RULES FLY OUT THE WINDOW. It takes me forever..every morning to adjust to the style of writing....remembering that I can use fluffy words like "outstanding" and "destroyed" and "fired it in" and that in order for it to be entertaining to read...i need to use a shitload of that crap. And once I'm done with that...I go back to the rigidity of news reporting where EVERY idea must have a source, nothing should lie outside of FACT and as far as I go....I don't exist. My thoughts, my feelings, my opinions are entirely and necessarily irrelevant. I have no voice in news writing. Yet...I am supposed to acquire a voice. What the hell.

I didn't sleep last night...I spent 22 hours over the course of 2 and 1/2 days writing 500 words!

I get some of the best interviews, some of the BEST quotes, some of the best stories of anyone in my class..according to my professor. But then...I BLOW IT by writing a crap ass lead to a story. And I quote from my Professors email to me... 

MORGAN!!!! 

How many times this semester have I said that leads:

a) Are usually a single sentence and never more than two.

b) Start with the news.

Your lead here starts with "according to," then gives me a bunch of names

and stuff,

and finally -- about 100 words in -- starts to focus on news.

..."But the grade is C+. You've got to focus in on the news!" 

Hi, My name is Morgan and I don't GET Cs. Thanks. But by the time I got his email...he had already sent me another one bumping it up to a B-...and he published it online. The message here? Hey Morgan, I'm gonna publish this because it's one of the best stories in the class, but I'm gonna mess with your head and give you a low grade because if you don't stop writing like an asshole, you're never gonna make it. Mixed messages? Yes. What I needed? Certainly. 

I love this guy. His name is Jerry. He is a (sorry again) Bitch. But he is the best Professor I've had so far here because..well...he's HONEST. Stop tip-toeing around the issue everyone else. STOP telling me it is good. Tell me what is WRONG. And that is precisely what he did. He proposed another way of starting off my story and gave specific reasons for the changes. 

And you know what he said when I emailed him in a sleepless rage like this one? "I love your attitude Morgan. You are going to be fine."

So...we shall see about this week's article. Will another one bite the dust? Only time will tell.