This summer while working with Odyssey I’ve gained some new perspective on writing for the internet. I’ve learned you have to make a click-bait worthy caption for people to even read the first few sentences. I’ve become inherently more aware of the painful groan people make when they see “so-and-so started a new blog.” I’ve learned the embarrassment of typos making me seem illiterate. Gosh, I’ve just been constantly reminded the terror of using the wrong “there.” I’ve learned it is not easy sharing your written down thoughts with strangers. Let alone your best friends, professors, family, and Facebook acquaintances you knew in high school. It’s hard to write because we want people to think that we’re funny...but also smart and thoughtful. And not to mention – we want people to think that we don’t care very much about what they think of us --- while also not being lame. If you are someone who doesn’t think those things. I sure as hell do.
I’ve also learned it’s hard to write in your own voice when you have generally colorful language. A lot of backspace, re-word.
With all of these factors, I learned it is difficult to share things that I’ve written down and are to become permanent. Improv is so fun to me because there is no planning and no editing. There’s something really spooky about printing your thoughts for the world to not just judge you once, but reference back on to make assessments about you (forever). That’s freakin' terrible. Ew, I hate that I even just wrote that because now I'm thinking about it.
Anyways. While learning to write more and for the internet, I've had to get creative on what I felt was worth writing about. I'm someone who doesn't like to read articles shared on Facebook, but somehow always click on them, just in case. This summer I’ve had a lot of thoughts or conversations where I thought, “This could be an Odyssey article!” So I write them down in my phone and wait for the next week to reference them and try to pick what I want to write about. But there were some that no matter how much I workshopped the thought, I couldn’t find the word count or appropriate language to flesh the idea out into a full article. I hope to one day take these ideas and show the internet what I really think. So here are my iPhone notes of potential articles:
- Why People Who Dip Their French Fries In Mayonnaise Should Still Be Respected
- A Chic-Fil-A Employee's Guide To Pleasure
- An Open Letter To The Tumbling Team That Lives Upstairs
- What It Means To Have A "Thing"
- Not Being In A Sorority: Why Life Literally Will Go On And You Literally CAN!
- An Open Letter To Myself When I Wasn’t Myself But Was Looking To Find Myself In Being True To Who I Am
- Peezing: Peeing Just A Little When You Sneeze
- What It Truly Means To Be A Daddy's Girl: What It's Like To Have A Sugar Daddy
- How Justin Bieber Influenced My Faith
- why don't hipsters use capital letters?
- 36 Reasons Why Bumble Caused My Grandparents To Split Up: An Article About Click Bait
- 13 Crevices You Wouldn’t Want To Live Without (And 3 You Would!)
- A Shoutout To My Ex-Boyfriends
- A Dramatic Re-Telling Of My Trip To Spain In 2011
- How Not Watching 'Game Of Thrones' Cost Me Several Friendships
- Making America Grate Again: Why We’ve Become Lazy With Our Cheeses
- The Best Public Restrooms In Waco
- An Open Letter To The 27 Girls Named Rachel I Met Freshman Year
- 30 Reasons Marie, Nicole, And Renee Are The Only Middle Names That Matter
- My Great Great Great GrandBig: Thank You
- 525,600 Reasons To Sing In The Shower When You Are Staying At Your Friend's House
- Why I Want To Try Stand-Up, But Common Grounds Open-Mic Night May Not Be The Right Crowd
- How Ikea Furniture Turned My House Into A Home
- I Lost My Mind At Kinko's, But Found My Soul
- Why Basketball? Boston Red Socks, Touchdowns, And Scores: Making Points For Teams With Matching Shirts Who Are Sweaty
- What A Nuva Ring Taught Me Studying Abroad
- 12 Reasons I Actually Took A Pill In Ibiza, And 15 Reasons I Would Do It Again
- How K-Pop Revolutionized My Sleeping Schedule
- The Truth About Stage Management: A Murder Mystery
- How I Swallowed a Dime When I Was Six And Lived To Tell The Tale
- Being Hungry Without Parental Supervision: The Risks And Rewards
- This List Could Go On Forever: Making Yourself Laugh Until your Word Count Looks Good
