Third time's a charm...

I need to start writing again, for real. It’s what I’ve loved doing my whole life, but over the past few years it’s stopped being fun, and started to feel like work. I can’t say that I’m surprised, because writing is work. I work for a newswire, and I spend my days writing (lately, mainly editing) short turnaround pieces on music for a client that provides music news for 500 radio stations across the country.

When I’m not working on the music news, I’m summarizing speeches and testimonies of various governors and presidents of the Federal Reserve, and covering the odd Senate meeting here and there. But, working for a newswire means getting the news out as fast as possible. I feel less like a writer than I do an aggregator.

And sure, there are job perks – covering various music festivals, the North American International Auto Show – but when I’m covering a festival or a concert, I’m not reviewing it; I’m spending 150 words telling the readers what happened during each performance.

This can be a little tough for someone who went to school to be a music critic. I know I can’t expect to be able to write exactly about what I want to while I’m paying my dues in the professional world, but that shouldn’t stop me from still writing what I want to write about, regardless of whether I’m getting paid to do it.

So if I can’t do it at work, I’m going to do it here, on this blog. This is my third try at maintaining one of these, and I can’t guarantee that I’ll be posting here with any sense of regularity, but I’m sure going to try. I need to work toward making writing fun again.

So, here goes. And to you out there reading, thanks.