Once Upon a Newspaper

On a personal note... 

It's not an obituary, but if it was....I'd be pretty ticked at my family for cutting off the top of my head in the picture.  This is the Metro Section from Sunday's Dallas Morning News, and at the bottom, on the right is my picture and a little write up about me the news put together based on an application I sent in last spring.  Maggie told me about a yearly series the newspaper puts together using teachers and student columnist.  It's called "Voices."  She thought it was right up my alley.  She was right.  I sent in a pretty scary application, and they took me anyway.  The pieces from this write up are from that application.  I'll have to find the 'whole thing' sometime...or lose it forever accidentally on purpose.   

Throughout the year I'm 'supposed' to summit articles.  I've been given my dates (they rotate), but I'm experiencing some writer's block, confusion, frustration, laziness, and timidness I don't recognize.   This summer I went downtown to the newspaper and I was 'trained.'  Or...untrained would be a more accurate description. 

It was hot, it was August, and like I said, I have fewer ideas of what I want to write about now than I did entering the building, but it was really great to meet and hear from the section's editor(s), and writers for the paper, and meet the other Voices.   They took our pictures in a studio, and they snapped about 50 shots of each of us.   I want to see the other 49 pictures of me b/c....well, nevermind... The deal is, we can write about whatever we want, it doesn't have to be education based, though I have a feeling mine will be.  We are also given a weekly question, and if we choose to answer in a smaller editorial piece, and they choose our answer, it will also run with our picture.  The picture thing sounds more like a threat than a treat.  We can also suggest articles we want to write etc, and go 'out of line' if they like our stories, but for now, I just want to get my feet wet, my pen warmed up, and my idea bank up and running.  My first article is due in a little over a month.  Right now, I'm glad to have a name near the end of the alphabet.  The problem is I've been given freedom, and all I want to write about is 'stuff' like cutting patterns in my breakfast toast and playing tic tac toe.