Wordsmithery

How I discovered Medium and my niche

“Congratulations Class of 2011! I have just four words for you: we, we so excited!!!” Besides the random inclusion of the nonsensical “prose” of Rebecca Black’s Friday lyrics, my graduation proceeded like I’d imagine every graduation ever would. We listened to numerous speakers, we clapped, we snoozed (or, in my case, was snoozed on) (though, I am told I was lucky: apparently the smelly hipster who chose my shoulder as a head-and-drool landing zone was a real catch. Yay) we burnt to red crisps in the heavy and humid Ohio sun, we walked the stage, shook hands, received diplomas, had final remarks, threw our caps into the air and then suddenly were released upon reality, like a rabid bunch of experimental animals loosed from their cages.

“Your degree was in English. What are your future plans?” The same question, iterated casually by already-successful adults, never failed at raising my blood pressure and, more often than not, morphing me into a scatter-brained idiot. Panic. Pressure. Panic-pressure. Pranic.

“Uh… well, I’m sticking with retail for the moment until I really hammer out my future plans.” Pretending to be responsible is always an excellent way to divert those pesky questions. Except when they ask:

“What are your options?”

Shit. “Well, I could take the LSATs and see what law school is all about. Or grad school. Or go back for more schooling to get into med school.” I spy with my English eye a theme arising.

Inevitably their responses to my constantly changing answers were always along the notes of, “More schooling sounds perfect!”

Except that that is the absolute LAST THING that I want to do. My diatribe on the importance (or not, it’s a surprise!) of education will save me from explaining, again, why I do not in any way, shape, or form want to return to school.

What does that leave me? An above-average ability to write, moderate editing skills, excellent strengths in the arts of bullshitting, and, of course, being my age and whatnot, a fairly good grasp on the world of social networking.

It took me roughly two years to put two and “duh” together, but not until someone else pointed it out to me:

Last November I was lucky enough to be offered a position with an extremely well-known business, working as a sales associate in one of their very posh stores. I had decided that if I was going to be relegated to the retail industry I may as well do it in style and with something that I have a constantly developing interest for: computing technology.

Let me preface this story with an embarrassing truth about myself: I see guys who (clearly) work out and I immediately go “MEATHEADS, RUN!” I’m sure this reaction stems from a long, emotionally traumatic story involving some high school football-playing douchebag, but I can’t pinpoint the source.

Anyway, at the store I met numerous individuals whose own interests and specialties range from gaming to body building (a clue for my Watsons), baking to nutrition, teaching to advanced degrees. In amidst these very awesome people there was one who took me about 4 months to actually speak to (he’s stupidly good looking, and, you guessed it, into nutrition and the gym, so of course I never talked to him), but less than 5 minutes of hanging out with him to realize that he’s pretty damned spectacular. We became instant friends.

What I didn't know about him, but what he knew about me was this: he is working on developing an app, and I possess talents of writing. He slyly suggested that we meet up to discuss his efforts and gauge my interest in perhaps editing and, possibly, writing the content for the app’s website, the Twitter and Facebook feed, and anything else that was printed. Of course I was like, “hey, cool, writing and shit!”

We met up. We talked. I was initially terrified of putting myself out there to write and then be judged for my writing, but I hesitantly took on the brief task of editing the web content for their soon-to-be-live landing page.

What did I do? I went and fell in love with editing.

Tremulous with the terror 1) of creating something awful 2) that he wouldn’t like what I put together and 3) that I could possibly lose this gig, I was shocked when my ideas were not only accepted, but applauded. I generally don’t consider myself to be a writer, though it’s something I occasionally throw around in the back of my mind – a plan “X”, if all else fails route. Yet, here I was, exceeding at something that was sort of an accidental, stumbled upon treasure trove of talent that I somehow kept from myself.

My stunned response remains the same.

But then I was throwing myself into the project with insane glee, and forgot to care what everyone thought. Two weeks later and I was already a team member. I started developing a new tagline and began work on branding. I asked numerous friends and coworkers for input on my changes. Next thing I knew, I was being asked by another store coworker what I charge per hour to do content editing and writing.

I didn’t even stop for a second to think, “Hey! This could be something I do for a living” because I was too busy doing it to notice that I was already hip-deep in something that I love. Having someone else ask for my services made me pause, but then when I met with my new “boss”, so to speak, about some of the web development, he actually stopped me and asked, “Do you like copy writing?”

And, for the first time, a lame ass answer wasn’t the first thing to come to mind. Instead it was:

“Oh my god, I love it!” And it was, in every sense, true.

“Good. I thought you might. I can’t even imagine you doing something else.”

Surprise, next thing I know I’m putting “wordsmith” (my official term that was appropriately thought up by my good-looking, weight lifting, savvy app developer and decidedly not meathead friend) on my resume and telling everyone that this is what I want to do with my life. Every single day I am amazed that what I still consider to be mediocre abilities are actually talents that can produce a profit.

What did he do next? Introduced me to Medium. And writing, something that was always so laborious, challenging, and stressful, is something I now do on the daily. For fun.

This has all transpired in less than two months.

I can say that I’ve learned this: go with what you’ve got, and don’t be afraid to try on something new, even if it’s exactly what you think you’ll suck at. Working for a start up as well as the store has given me the indispensable wisdom that it is always better to try and fail than to never try at all.

And, obviously, that there is no such thing as a meathead.