Lightbulb Moment Needed

It seems like my prayers have turned into pleas.

I know God is probably like, “Be patient. I heard you the first time. I know where I’m taking you. Be faithful where you are.”

Dang. I guess I can understand how my 3 year old feels when he wants his way and I’m taking too long to accomodate him.

He does this little foot stomp routine that really annoys me. “Stop that tap dancing!” I tell him. “You’re not gonna get what you want from me by being all frustrated.”

Damn.

Point taken.

I have two stories up for publication this weekend in the Herald. One on Saturday and one on Sunday. The Sunday story will appear in the Home & Design section and I first heard back from an assistant editor who had questions about my piece.

She emailed me asking me to add details here and there. I was a little nervous, thinking that my story wasn’t good enough. Then a couple of days later she told me she wanted me to fully revise it and add more depth because it was selected as the LEAD FEATURE story in the section for the EASTER SUNDAY paper!!! YAY!!!

Today I heard back from my editor about my other story. She offered this advice, “In general, when you find yourself describing things with a lot of adjectives, you’re probably off-track (g). It’s always better when you can get the sources to tell the story rather than fill in yourself.”

Duly noted. I’ll be sure to carry that piece of advice with me like a lucky charm.

My story is all chopped up (edited) and in desperate need of a revival if I want it to make it to print this Saturday. But…I can’t do anything unless I get return phone calls from the sources. It’s due tomorrow at noon which means it’s really due tonight because I have to go to work tomorrow and I can’t work on my story at work.

That’s the tricky part about writing features. You can’t make things up. You can’t make up quotes. Somehow, someway, the source has to pull out an interesting anecdote and feed it to you.

And with this particular story (LOL!) my source has been kinda uncooperative. Lord! LOL! Something crazy happens during EACH story I write!

But that’s the challenge of bringing a story to life.

I welcome it.

I seek correction.

I hunger to be in a place where I can just be free to use my gift.

I feel like one of those temperamental artists who throws chairs over when they are disturbed during their creative process.

Today I was asked to write a piece for our company’s website. The piece had to be about health and it had to be done in 3 hours.

Health.

Hmmm…

Health…

Read a little.

Thought a little.

Hmmm…

I got it! It’s going to be an inside look at the attitudes of African Americans toward diet choices.

Wait. I can’t write this piece in an hour. It’ll take me a few days to research and gather data and THEN I’ll need time to construct everything and THEN I’ll massage and nurture my words until they are healthy and vibrant.

ONE HOUR LEFT!

Man, I can’t rush my genius.

This story will enlighten, educate and inspire. But that’s not what they want. They want me to throw something together to fill space on the website.

Throw something together?

Me?

I feel insulted.

Don’t I have more of a mind than that? Aren’t I capable of so much more?

~weeping~ I don’t think I can just throw something together…

It’s not in me to write such simple stories….

I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. I’ve been hired to do a job that requires very simple stories and announcements/press releases and it boggles my mind to do them.

I can craft an award winning sonnet, a haiku or even a song. My poetry shakes the heart and wets the soul yet I can not even THINK when I am sitting in front of my computer charged with an assignment like a press release.

Sometimes I feel like such a failure. And it’s not like anyone at my job offers training. They just give you the assignment and tell you to go do it. You can ask questions as you go along but if you don’t get it, they just take the assignment and give it to someone else as if you just weren’t good enough.

But I know I’m a fantastic writer. I know I have my weaknesses but overall I was born to write and explore the attitudes and habits of human nature.

But this job… This job has me feeling like I can’t cut it as a writer. Or maybe I just don’t belong in Public Relations.

Whatever it is, something needs to happen soon. Either I get a lightbulb moment about this type of writing or I move on.

I’m starting to feel that dread. That awful dread that you feel when you know it’s time to move on and you have no idea where to go.