As a reporter, it was always interesting to me to hear why other journalists decided to enter into the field. Mostly, people responded with all these altruistic-sounding reasons. They wanted to give a voice to the underprivileged or else they wanted to ensure that government was acting ethically and legally.
I got into writing for much more selfish purposes: I wanted to write pretty sentences. Oh, also, I wanted to be famous.
This essential narcissism has never really left me -- no matter how many amazing, heart-breaking, inspiring stories I've written about the downtrodden and all the manifold abuses they've faced. "How horrible," my mother said to me recently, after reading an article I wrote about a sex abuse scandal at a local college. "I can't believe the school would let that happen."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I hurried my mom along. "But, what'd you think of the writing?" Then I made her circle her favorite sentences and read them back to me.
As a reporter, I got tons and tons of mail. Early on in my career, I got angry and upset every time someone wrote something negative and would mull over their words for weeks. But eventually I learned that if you want to survive in this field, you have to become desensitived to their words. And also, if people are writing you to complain, it means that they've read (or more likely skimmed) the story and it had some sort of impact on them.
I now have a collection of fan mail that I've saved and collected throughout the years. These are some of my personal favorites: "Rebecca Meiser's hands should be amputated and her keyboard taken away from her." "This article is so bad it should be used to induce vomiting in hospitals."
And sometimes, I get negative comments, too.
As a self-identified narcissist, I am constantly googling myself -- and even have a Google alert set up so I can know the moment when my name comes up anywhere. Recently, Google let me know about a new thread containing my name. It was a NY Jets discussion board. Someone had posted an old story I wrote about a football player who, along with three other players, had been accused of sexual assault at Notre Dame. The other three -- who all had expensive lawyers -- had the charges dropped, but this one player -- who had enough tragedy in his life to fill up an entire country album, was convicted. It appeared that his life and career was over -- until a coach at Kent State gave him another chance.
It was an interesting story, with complex characters and unexpected plot developments. It also happens to be one of the stories I'm most proud of -- but I never really followed up with the main character in the story. Turns out, the guy I wrote about straightened up his life and is now a starter on the New York Jets.
I was excited that this story I'd written five years ago had taken on a new life and that people on the board were once again discussing it. But I was even more excited by one of the chat member's statements: "This is a gripping storywith a lot of characters, and the writer exceeds the standardprose-wise of your typical sports journalist. There are no simple conclusions with this one. I find myself rooting for the guy because he's led a very difficult life, but I at the same time I don't think he's a saint by any means. I like hearing stories of how a community will band together to help one or their own out, especially when that community doesn't have a lot to give. I thought this was one of the best pieces of sports-related journalism I've ever read."
And, that, dear friend, is the reason I became a writer.
