Pre-performance jitters, for writers.

I went to my first pitch meeting for my school's small news magazine a couple weeks ago. I've been meaning to go for ages, but never got around to it and recently I've been thinking more and more about how I ought to be building up my portfolio of clips, and practicing. So I went, pitched a couple ideas and even though neither one was accepted, they gave me another story. 800-1200 words. A great vote of confidence in me, considering I'd never written anything for them before.

So I set to work. It took over the time I should have been devoting to school work, but I get really into it. I had to stop myself from extending past the limits of this particular story. And then I put it all together and emailed it in.

"It sucks," I groaned at Adrian, one day this week, as I passed by the KSU office. Adrian, in addition to being KSU exec, kickass DJ and generally cool guy, is the copy editor of the watch.

"I read your piece. It isn't shitty," he responded today, as he passed me in line for theatre tickets.

I am relatively sure I got a goofy look on my face and said something to the effect of a breathless "Really?".

But I am freaking out. There is nothing I can do. It's done. People are going to read it, and judge me, and talk to one another about the piece. They will, I do that all the time. The Watch exec are, at this moment, in the Watch office laying out the piece, my story and the picture I took. They assure me it looks good. My name in print - I hope it look good.

Well, at least I'm getting paid for this work. Getting paid is nice. For everything else (public opinion, judgments, and discussion) wish me luck.