Help Jason Bugg become gainfully employed
The dream began a few years ago: Jason Bugg (or for the purposes of this blog entry “I”, “me”, or “myself”) was working a dead-end job at an Asheville-based coffee shop (which has long since been closed). An old friend from back in high school frequented the place for his semi-hourly regimen of caffeine. I knew that he was working at the Mountain Xpress, and for the heck of it, I assaulted him with article ideas (not for me to write, mind you, but for him or someone at the paper- after all, I wasn’t a writer). He surprised me by telling me to shoot him an email about one. When I did, he then told me that I could write the article and get paid for it. With that, I was a freelance writer.
Time moved fast. I sold article after article to his paper and to out of town papers, all because of this guy taking a risk with the overeager barista and the paper he worked for agreeing to publish it. Soon the staffer assumed the editor’s position at the Xpress and I received even more work. So much work that coupled with the out of town stuff that I was doing I was able to live the dream: I was a full time writer.
But things change. The editor left his position and (as it often goes in the tumultuous world of Alt-weekly freelance writing) I fell out of favor with the incoming editor. Our styles did anything but meld. Eventually (due to personal differences- namely my mouth and my inability to ever back down from saying the wrong thing when it feels so right) we agreed to work together.
No big deal, right?
Well, it was a big deal. The money dried up. That’s sort of okay, because to a degree the money was nice but it wasn’t what I wanted out of writing. Writing gave me purpose, and when I couldn’t show my special purpose to the people in the town that I lived in, I was lost, hurt and sad. I said a few choice things about the paper that I truly felt, and once again didn’t back down.
Now I’m here to admit that my mouth can get me into trouble sometimes. Now I’m here to say that the one thing that always brought me joy as a writer was being able to write for my hometown paper.
So imagine my surprise today when I stumbled upon a twitter tweet (or whatever you call it) from an Xpress staffer announcing that if anyone is interested in writing for the Xpress to contact them. (more…)
Starting Sunday!
NaNoWriMo. And I’m in (here’s my profile)!
A few people from work decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month and I eagerly accepted. Hopefully this can provide a good foundation for the adventure novel that I am wanting to write. When I was not preparing to get married at the beach, I plotted out my idea for the novel, and now I’m not that sure. Just the other day, I started thinking about an idea for a comic book that I had years ago and I want to jump into that head first. I’m still not sure. I think Sunday when I start writing I’ll see which one “speaks” to me.
While NaNoWriMo suggests that you can be done with a 175 page novel in just a month, I’m using this as a launching pad. I really see this month as the beginning. I want the novel to be at least double the 175 pages in length. I suppose that I will go where the story suggests, but I am pretty excited about this.
There’s some other big stuff happening in November, so get ready internet. I’m excited.
