Keeping Old Writing Clips: Super smart, sweetly nostalgic or just plain old hoarding?

Maybe I should make a clip book like this.

Throwback Thursday

Do you have a massive stack of old clips sitting lonely in a box? I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I do. The frail newspaper could-set-your-house-on-fire kind. Okay, even the xeroxed almost as flammable paper kind, from junior high. The problem is figuring out whether they've outgrown their usefulness, professionally and personally.

It started out innocently enough, even naturally. I wanted to be a journalist growing up, so I saved the yellow copies of my junior high paper and the newspapers from high school. Making a spiffy neon clip book, I proudly showed my work to my college newspaper adviser. It's what I had read writers do.

Err.. What was that about enthusiastically embracing new writing endeavors?

An A to Z Throwback Thursday

For my 'E' post last year, I wrote about "Enthusiastically Embracing New Writing Endeavors" and I guess it's time to fess up to my success...and failure.

Of the two new projects I mentioned in the post, Pundit This is off the ground and running. My dream of turning it into a website and featuring the political voices of average Americans has come true. We are on to building readership, consistency--both of which already far exceed

Late Nights, QuarkXPress & Conquering Evil Macs: College newspapers are freelancing bootcamps

Huge boxing gloves + deadline = true story

Throwback Thursday

I know, I know. You're thinking writing for a college newspaper is an obvious way to prepare for a freelance writing career. Of course it is--but not in the ways you think. The skills you gain go beyond learning how to write a lede, interview sources or design a page. What is really going on is on-the-fly training that will help you learn to take only the work you want, what elements are important and how to handle difficult clients.

What do you really want to write?

Eagerness is the bane of many budding journalists. It's nothing to agree to cover a concert, interview the student body president and profile the basketball team's star player--all for the next issue. The problem is finding the time to cover everything and turn in a quality article.

The paper has to be put to bed, whether you've gotten any sleep or not. A deadline is a deadline. So those hours you spent at the student union watching jumbo boxing instead of

Enraging, Endearing Editors--Throwback Thursday

Hopefully, editors won't become as rare as the red pen.

I Miss Them

After discovering my love for journalism in middle school, I was devastated to learn that my high school paper would be off limits until I was a junior. Come junior year, I was amped to get my first by-line in newsprint. By the end of the semester, I had discovered the age-old love/hate relationship between writers and editors.

I learned two hard lessons in one issue, the second as demoralizing, if not as dramatic, as the first. (I cut out the first instance, it was way to long to combine both.) I was writing about the pumpkin patch in a near-by town. I wrote three drafts of that story, before it was approved. That wasn't the problem, though. Those editing lessons were much appreciated.

The work put into the story did make it the one I was most eager to see when the paper finally came out. Grabbing a few copies and rushing home, I tore through the pages to find it. And burst into tears. The version that went to press was the first draft. I was enraged. After all those

Throwback Thursday Blogging Theme

Past (1935, Robert Aitken) National Archives Building.

Prompted By the Past

I've been awash in back-in-the-day recollections lately, a side effect of cleaning out the garage. Whether inspired by the boxes of old newspaper clippings or the mold spores that are surely blanketing me during the process, I can't be sure, but I decided all those old writing memories could find a home on this blog. 'Throwback Thursday' seemed like a fitting title.

Every Thursday I am going to blog about something from my writing past. Feel free to join me--I'll enjoy the company. All you have to do is write about something from your past. I'll open a linky list and get a button designed.

**Note: Since Blogger was down on Thursday, May 12, Throwback Thursdays will begin on May 19, 2011.

Photo Credit: AgnosticPreachersKid/Wikimedia Commons