Today is a writing/publishing lesson I learned the hard way. Four years ago I was working as an intern for The Celebrity Cafe. I wrote book, movie, and music reviews, interviewed a few celebs and wrote TV recaps. Mostly, I wrote celebrity news. When I sent my work in most articles would stay when published. Only once or twice was I emailed to rewrite an article because it was not up to the standard the cafe was looking for. But one time an article was published that I was and still not happy with. It was my first writing gig but sometimes I think I should have known better. I was interning and working part time as a casher. I think the TV recaps where the hard part of the internship. I’m not a committed TV watcher but it was a job and I agreed to recap Project Runway. This was around the time they were on Thursday at 9pm and started to air for an hour and half. By 10:30pm I was tired but I would write the article (about 500 to 800 words) and send it straight in. I had work the next morning and I knew there was no time to write Friday and get it on time. Tired is no way to edit your own work. I figured the editors on the other end would catch any inaccuracy, until one recap was published and the article was covered with errors. When I saw it posted up I cringed at all the mistakes I missed the night before and the comment from a stranger talking about the poorly written piece. After that I would write at night and edit it in the morning. I tired to wake up early or just skip breakfast. I never trusted another person to make sure is was blunder free. That Project Runway piece will haunt my mind because I know I’m a better writer than what’s presented in that article. I worry that piece will stop me from getting a dream job one day.
My next internship was a writer/editor for the website, Joonbug. Perspective. If you are writing in any field be aware everyone has limited timetables, and over flowing back-ends. As an editor, even with time crunches, I always read over the articles sent by “my” writers even if I’m sure I still missed mistakes. There could be an article with slip-ups even if it looked like the requirements were covered. I’ve heard of articles being published without being proofread. If an author consistently writes well and they need to post that article that second, editors will post it with not even glance.
Doesn’t matter if it is for print or digital, if you are just starting out and you are sending in articles make sure you send the best piece you can created.
Random Thoughts 