Writing is amazing. If you are a good writer you can make a lot of people dream, wish, cry, fall in love, suffer, scream from happiness, and you can even get a lot of money if a company decides to buy the rights to your book (Harry Potter anyone?).

Joining the Odyssey has been a great experience, our writing skills have improved like crazy, I personally think my jokes and sarcasm come to life now after trying them week after week, and it looks great on a resume.

But as surprising as it sounds, us Odyssey writers don’t always live that glamorous life that you’d expect. You would think people would be running down the street to get our autograph after submitting our last article but we actually live a pretty normal life, just like all of our readers.

To be honest it isn’t such an easy lifestyle, we struggle quite a bit.

First article vs 22nd article

Yes, your first few weeks you are on a roll! So many ideas coming out of you, but those ideas only last for the first few months. After that, thinking about anything that hasn't been done before is a real killer.

All of us are already quality writers, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have this job, so writing is easy for us; but it is coming up with a solid idea EVERY week that is difficult. You want an idea of high quality because your name is attached to it and we all strive for our cash prize of a whopping $20 if we get the most shares on our team.

Sadly, though, our brains can’t always produce those great hits. We occasionally have those articles that even we aren’t that proud of but hey, we got to get the job done.

Saturday

Saturdays = death. Saturdays at midnight are just our designated deadlines, which means most articles get written and submitted for editing on Saturday night. Some people who are organized and smart probably get it done before then. But we all have our lazy days and weeks where we are having fun and relaxing and then suddenly at 9 pm you remember you haven’t written the weekly article yet…. uh oh.

(Guilty... there has been an article or two sent at 12:03 am. Sorry editors!)

Shares

Your first few articles get the most amounts of shares because you have those supportive friends and family members that always got your back. Then suddenly they start to drop, sad face. And after the first few, the majority of the people who share your articles are just your family members…. Love you too ma.

It can get a little discouraging, well actually really discouraging, but you gotta keep going! That is the only way to eventually end up sipping out a banging article that goes viral (my goal, so keep an eye on my articles).

Blowing up Facebook

Speaking of shares, we apologize for blowing up your Facebook feed.

One Odyssey writer shares their one article once a week; imagine being friends with 10 Odyssey writers! Then other Odyssey writers share each other’s posts. Then out of nowhere you can’t tell if you are on your Facebook feed or the Odyssey website itself.

We honestly feel bad for our Facebook friends but it’s what we have to do. So, when we are begging and pleading for our friends to share my article, it’s really because we want to win $20.

The worst is some of the articles don’t even pertain to my Facebook Friends. I don’t expect my friends to all share my One Tree Hill inspired article but I would love it if they did! I have to blow up all their feeds and I feel like I might be losing Facebook friends because of it, but too bad, I’m just trying to do my job.

Listicles

When in doubt, list it out, kidding, well sort of.

Lists are pretty easy and most people enjoy them because they are easy to read. However, when you are writing a list article, you are required to have more than 10 points, so basically at least 11 points on your list. Okay now, this might not seem to difficult, but sometimes its harder then you think to reach that goal. You will probably have a solid 7 or 8 points and then you make some "not so great" ones just to reach your quota.

Serious articles

We all as readers like to read funny and sarcastic articles, they are hilarious and make you want to share it with all your friends. Sadly, we aren't all comedians so we also tend to write an article that focuses on other things like politics, problems overseas, different points of view on a topic, etc. As a writer, you feel like your article is not going to get the attention it deserves or even enough attention so you might end up just going for a different topic that might make people laugh.

Publishing dates

Articles are usually published on Mondays but sometimes that doesn't go as planned and your article ends up getting published on Tuesday. Now you're probably thinking "oh wow get over it" but it actually makes a big difference for us writers! That means it is one less day of possible shares that count for the week.

We all know Monday is a prime Facebook day and if your article isn't out, you are missing out.

Sorry Editors

I wouldn't doubt that our editors secretly can't stand us. They have to read over everyone's article before Monday and some of us writers don't make their job that easy.

We are given a handbook to follow but most Odyssey writers read it the first day and haven't read since then. We have probably all submitted an article without reading it over first, which I can only imagine makes the editors want to toss their computers across the room. Then when there is a mistake that gets missed when they are published, we are the first to freak out at them. So here is an official apology for any past and future mistakes.

So the truth is out, we aren't superstars. We are just college students who love to write. We struggle generating ideas, making deadlines, and forcing people to share our articles. Overall though we love Odyssey and all the great things that has come out of it. Wouldn't change it even if we could.