I just beat my deadline last night. I barely managed to do so. I've only done a couple of articles yet I feel the pressure is really getting into me. I didn't have problems finishing the very first article for the magazine I'm writing for. Ok maybe I did. Just run into some problems with names though but I was able to submit the goods before the deadline. That's good news for me. Then came my second assignment. It was the most important of all. And all of a sudden, things don't go your way.
Being a rookie writer, is really tough. You never know what's gonna happen whether in an interview or while trying to finish your article. Now I fully understand what this industry is all about. I'm just lucky that my editor is a little bit lenient and I'm not getting yelled at on the phone like most editors do. But I sure don't want to take my chances on his slight leniency. True enough that writing for a sports magazine can be pretty much demanding.
At some point in time, when things go wrong you tend to panic and point the blame on your editor. That's the last thing you wanna do if you're just starting your career. The only person you can blame is yourself. I know there are some circumstances that happen while trying do an article. Let's just say, some "accidents" do occur in such situations. Like what happened to me about a couple of days ago, I was about to send my article on Quinito Henson when I accidentally deleted my article while doing my spelling check on Microsoft Word. I don't know how it happened, believe it or not. I'm still trying to figure out how spell checks on Word can delete your document completely (my article just went blank after the spell check though it never prompted that it was already done or it has some sort of error in it). Worse, the document recovery feature didn't have my article saved. I was like "what the fuck just happened?!!!" Deep in my head I was screaming "noooooooooooooooo!!!!!"
I had to start from scratch. The good news was the recorded interview was already encoded. The good stuff I wrote was completely gone and it was a long one at that. talk about bad luck. No matter what, I did submit the article but it wasn't as dope as the one that was originally written. I just didn't want to disappoint my editor and cooperate with him. So, that's exactly what I did. Yet I wasn't satisfied I had to redeem myself somehow. I updated the previous article I sent to my editor and I was glad I remembered some of the stuff I had written on the original document that was deleted. I was determined to make the article as good as possible as I also didn't want to disappoint my Idol in sports writing, Quinito Henson. And the only way for my to make for all the bad vibes, so to speak, that had transpired is to update the article and make it better somehow.
When I did my interview with Mr. Henson, things were already going well when my mp3 player, which is also my voice recorder didn't have enough memory to record the other half of the interview. I was disappointed of course but alas, the good stuff and most important info was recorded. I'm just glad Mr. Henson was still nice and accommodating despite having recorded the session only 50% of it. Of course, I was as nervous as hell while I did the interview.
Anyways, I've learned a lot in this experience. I know I have a long way to go and I have absolutely so many things to learn along the way. One of those I've learned is that, you have to be able to compromise. Use whatever information you have for your article or research more. It helps. Another thing is, your recorder must have more than enough memory before going on an interview. Don't settle for anything less. I'm saying that because, that happened to me and I don't want to make the same mistake again. This is important, always and I mean always, submit your articles on time. I know what happened to me was an accident but the best thing for me to do is: always save the progress of your document before making any final checks on the overall article. Accidents can be avoided, as some people would say. That's another thing I need to keep in mind. Maybe I've just forgotten about it. Damn it, I'm really getting old.
I have some 3 rules to remember when doing interviews and writing articles:
1. Never fuck up.
2. Never, ever fuck up.
3. Never, ever, ever fuck up (I'm serious).
You don't have to be perfect. I know I'm only human but the last thing you wanna do is, well, fuck up! I mean who wants to screw up? Nobody does. But of course, that also happens even to the best in the biz. Heck, we all screw up. I guess the only thing to do is to simply avoid it in any way you can. It's either you put up or shut up. You just have to step up to the plate.
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