THE RAMBLER

One of the great things about being relatively new around the workplace is that you still get to retain some anonymity. In today's case, that means that no one in this building knows that my Facebook status this morning said “Casual Friday = Mufti Day. Never gets old.” It could be quite embarrassing, sitting here knowing that my colleagues knew I was a little bit excited to be sitting here in my playclothes. By the same token, it could be embarrassing if the same colleagues happened to read this blog and knew that I was sitting here 1) writing a blog post, not particularly "working" as such 2) writing a blog post about the fact that I’m a little excited to be sitting here in my playclothes.

Well that settles it, I know what I’m going to entitle this post.

So I am having a very laidback day at the office. Waiting around for advertising proofs, and I’m in something of a lull. So... thought I may as well just come and post a bunch of randomness. Without further ado...

This is who I'm currently reading. I'm on the second book now. I love Russell Brand's writing style; the words spill off and out of the pages. One line that I read this morning resonated with me particularly, where Russell was talking about writing his script for a stand-up routine:

"Earlier in the day while finalising the script, by which I mean writing it, for nothing is ever written until it absolutely cannot be avoided". True that.

Speaking of which. I emailed the editor from my old work today, asked her if there would be any more upcoming opportunities for me to do some freelance writing. I was a little nervous to ask; having only ever submitted two articles for publishing, I have a lot to learn. Writing something and submitting it to be read, scrutinised and scribbled on is pretty scary. Stories told by my editing teacher taught my class that something that most writers have in common is a fragile ego (which is also why they dedicate a fair chunk of time to teaching you how, as an editor, to write diplomatic cover letters to writers, before you lower the boom; before they open their scribble-covered manuscript). You can never really be certain if your words have value or if they're just a stinky old heap of self-indulgent trash. Much like this post, haha.

It's funny though, because the other day I was kind of "putting it out to the world", asking for the opportunity to write a bit more, maybe connect again with the editor. I put these words out "there" and the words I got back alomost instantly were, quite clearly, "Do it yourself"... it also felt like these words were punctuated with a cheeky wink and a laugh [don't ask me "from where?"... you know, somewhere in the ether... thing]

"That's a fair call", thought I. I mean it's fair enough to ask these things to happen by some magical force, but at the end of the day there's usually going to have to be an earthly vehicle to make it happen. Realising that I was probably the best earthly vehicle at my disposal, I bit the bullet and emailed the editor today. Whether or not her response, which mentioned the possibility of a writing assignment next week, was authentic or just a throw-back to her own classes on How to Write Diplomatic Letters to Writers, remains to be seen. But as the saying goes, the only way to fail is not to try.

Or to be really bad at something.