Hot off the Press!

Whoooo, well, as you can see, it's been a while since my last post. I finished finals but the next week I started school back up again with my Spring semester classes. I'm taking a media writing class and a principles of journalism class. It's busy because since the semester is shorter they pack a weeks worth of material into one class, and the classes are usually 2-4 hours long, twice a week. It's a bit exhausting doing that and working, especially at 7 and 8 in the morning, but I like it, I'm happy.

The content in the classes itself has been a little more difficult than I've anticipated. Writing's always come pretty naturally to me but in these classes you have to worry about all the rules and the story structure and the word choice and the way you phrase your sentence etc. etc. etc.. It's tough stuff sometimes. But it's not too bad and I'm learning.

The other thing that has been different for me is not being able to just write and write and write whatever I want. I like creative writing. I like taking words and manipulating them to say what I want them to say. I like being able to use big descriptive adjectives and trying to sound like I'm more smart and refined than I actually am. In Journalism, they just want the facts and they want it in as few words as possible.


The other day I got to report on a session of Women's Conference. I felt so cool walking right on up the the front of the line, flashing that fancy pass of mine and walking right on in. I sat right up front on the side so I could have a good view of the speaker as well as the audience. I interviewed a woman in the audience and I felt so cool being able to say "I'm a reporter..." although it felt a wee bit unnatural. I kinda felt like I was a little kid again, playing dress up, but it was still really fun!

Here's where you can view the article I wrote:
http://universe.byu.edu/beta/2013/05/03/collette-blackwelder-and-jennifer-rockwood-you-are-closer-to-heaven-than-you-suppose/