If I had come along (and written) another day...

[I Should Coco]

Once in a while I will read something I wrote a day or two after I wrote it and feel like I knew what I was doing and it's a good piece of work.

In a business that usually provides only negative feedback, that's a nice feeling.

Even better: Going through old boxes of clips (because someone, aka my wife, is beyond ready to throw them out), stumbling upon an old news or sports story I wrote in, say, 1995, and finding that the writing still holds up.

That's why you save all those boxes, envelopes and folders of old clips!

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I wish I sucked up to editors more, was more ambitious and quit waiting around for them to "discover" what a great writer I was. Honestly, I had an editor come in who allowed us to submit stuff for a contest (the previous editor tended to pick and choose stuff he was personally involved with, reporters he supervised, Sunday package type deals) - felt kind of good to win a statewide award, suddenly editors treated me better. I honestly think a lot of editors never actually read the paper - they are so invested in the bark on the tree, they never see the forest. With my skill set, I would have been a great columnist. Not a "This is what I think" type columnist, but a "You should know about this" type columnist.

I knew I was working for ship heels when I won one and their treatment was just as bad as it always was. They begrudgingly congratulated me.