Taking the leap...

So I am about to take the leap into website writing, or what you may recognize as content writing. In a recent interview with the career center at my university, where I conveyed my panic to the director of the career center because I don't have any practical experience to back up my love for reading, writing, etc., I was given many ideas to further my knowledge outside the "classroom" and gain some experience. Talking with other writers within the college, speaking with publicity and see if they needed a creative writer for any of their projects, chatting with the head grant writer, speaking with alumni who work in the publishing industry... The list is long and the people on it are strangers to me. Ergo, my first dip into the frigid waters of cold calling, or cold emailing, in this case. Brr!

One of those ideas that has bore the most fruit was to assist in the rewriting of several pages on SMWC's website, mostly the majors and minors. Okay...I can do that, I think. The leap I am about to take will throw me into the world of META keywords and a little SEO writing. Oh yes...panic set in as I frantically Googled META keywords. Having heard of them, but not knowing what exactly they were was a cause for concern for me. How could I help rewrite a website if I had no idea what on earth they were talking about?! Then self-doubt crept in ever so slowly, winding its way through my brain. I had no idea what any of this was, and despite my warnings to the webmaster that I was virtually clueless when it came to website design, I knew for sure that this would end in disaster. I've not even started yet and I get nervous when I see the webmaster has emailed me. I'm hopeless it seems. I plan spending the weekend submerged in the world of SEO and META keywords and maybe I can get a grip.

And to further my portfolio, I hope, after many years of procrastinating, I finally submitted a short story to the Aurora, SMWC's literary magazine. I've not heard anything yet (not even confirmation that my submission was received, grumble, grumble...) but I hope my little bit of happy fluff might catch someone's eye and end up in the publication. I've also been trying to work with the newspaper, The Woods, into maybe doing some work for them, but the faculty advisor hasn't gotten back with me yet. It's a busy time of year, so who knows what will happen with that. I have some ideas, but no confidence they would fit in with a student newspaper. I'm not on campus, so I have no idea what the important topics for students much younger than me are.

I feel very old when I read that sentence.

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