Stage of Life thoughts

Today was reserved for tying up any loose ends: finishing any projects that needed to get done (abandoned blog posts, editor introductions, etc.). It was relaxing, and bittersweet. This semester has absolutely flown by, and I was blessed to have found an internship that I loved, and taught me valuable editing and writing skills. Eric has been great as a supervisor. Of course, I am completely saying goodbye to Stage of Life; today, I signed a contract that will make me a paid Freelance Writer/Editor for the site. I am very excited to continue working with Stage of Life. This internship has honestly been one of the best experiences of my life.

Hours worked: 4/120

I spent all day looking through Arkansas high school websites; you’d be surprised how hard it is to find basic information (like email addresses) on some sites. My task was to email each high school principal and let them know about the KARK/Stage of Life writing contest for Arkansas students on prom. Hopefully their interest will spark, and they will forward the email/information to their English teachers. I have already gotten a few responses, and here’s to many more!

Hours worked: 4/116

Today I worked on a little bit of a lot of projects (if that was in any way coherent). I began by trying to find bloggers or other miscellaneous organizations in Arkansas that I could contact to let them know about Stage of Life and KARK’s “Arkansas Teens Matter” program. I found an Arkansas based Mommy blog and contacted them about the contest; they got back to me right away, and seemed very excited about the idea!

Next I tried to find websites that help writers promote their blogs—much like Stage of Life does. A lot of the sites I found seemed like scams or didn’t have any contact info. You know, the sites were you submit your blog URL and MAGICALLY OVERNIGHT have a million new followers. I contacted one website, but even then I wasn’t sure about their credibility. Worse comes to worse, they just don’t reply.

I did a lot of PR work (read: a lot of emailing). I contacted about ten major media sources and let them know about the Media writing contest results. Hopefully one media source picks up the story!

I continued with blogger outreach and publisher outreach; I contacted one new blogger and about three new publishers/agents. I am looking forward to hearing a (any) response!

Hours worked: 4/112

Today was a quieter day—at least, when compared to the hectic rush to organize and seal too many envelopes, anything would seem relaxing! I spent today reading through some blogs on Stage of Life—leaving a few comments—and editing some blog headlines. It is cool to see some essays about PROM popping up! I read through a few and I like what I am seeing!

I wrote a blog post today about the Katie Makkai video, “Pretty.” Not my strongest writing, but I feel like the video speaks for itself.

Hours worked: 4/108

Today was very busy. I began by commenting on all of the finalist essays for March’s writing contest. This was time consuming; but it was also fun to see who was in the running to win. Afterward, I selected my finalists for the high school and college contests. Good luck to all those who entered!

Next I finished a draft of the press release on bloggers and Stage of Life. Press releases are extremely difficult to write—a completely different genre than the creative pieces I had been writing. I have no idea how it turned out, since I never write press releases. Eric is going to take a look at it and get back to me. I hope I didn’t completely fail.

I spent the rest of the day playing secretary—I wrote a lot of checks, and assembled a lot for envelopes for the Editors for the first quarter. It was really monotonous, but a good time killer.

Hours worked: 4/104

Today, Eric gave me time to start working on my report for my internship portfolio. It was nice to have the time to assemble my portfolio (at least, what I think I want in my portfolio), and to be able to begin writing the report.

Once I exhausted that, it was back to business at Stage of Life. I wrote a blog entry for the college stage, since I hadn’t done that in a while. This post featured my thoughts on my college decisions, and the possibility of my getting a Masters degree. Stage of Life is great for feedback—hopefully someone will have gone through a similar experience and can give me some advice.

I began writing my first press release for Stage of Life. It is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. But once the piece gets revised and re-revised, it will be published! (Another thing to add to my portfolio, maybe?) This press release is about how Stage of Life is great for promoting blogs—for free!

I still really dislike formulaic writing.

Hours worked: 4/100

After five hours of reading essays, I am STILL not finished. As of right now, I have read 100 essays. I am only on March 30 (going backwards). This is going to be a long week.

Hours worked: 6/96

UPDATE: Getting closer; I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel…

UPDATE PART TWO: After reading and making notes on 145 student essays, I am finally done. I wrote up a list of four themes and trends and emailed it to Eric. I think I am done reading for now…

I began reading through all of the writing contest entries for March. Right away, I am completely overwhelmed. At the end of two hours I have read 40 essays and I am NOWHERE NEAR being done. I guess I know what I am doing next week…

Hours worked: 2/90

Today involved a lot of small projects. I finished up emailing marriage bloggers about the results of Stage of Life’s last writing contest. Two bloggers have already gotten back to me saying they will check out the information—definitely exciting!

Next I read over some essays on Stage of Life, and promoted a guest blogger into a featured blogger! I am sure that email from me will make her day. After that, I edited some blog headlines.

The next project involved writing descriptions and tagging keywords on each page on the Stage of Life corporate site. The task is trickier than it seems: I had to boil down massive amounts of information into three or four sentences, and then identify the most relevant keywords.

In other exciting news—our press release on marriage got picked up by Yahoo! News, and triggered a notification for York College’s Director of Communications. She sent both me and the Dean of Academic Affairs an email with the link, and updated York College’s Facebook status to ask students what they thought about the results. It was awesome to see how all of this hard work gets recognized!

Hours worked: 4/88

I did a lot of creative writing today for Stage of Life: one post for the college blog (a “darker” piece about my family’s non-appreciation of holidays), and a draft for my editor’s welcome in April. All of this writing for my internship has taught me one thing—that I really do enjoy non-fiction writing. I wish there was some way to make a career out of it, but unfortunately I am not Allie Brosh.

I edited the press release that went out on PR NewsWire today. It is awesome to see how all of my hard work gets recognized—through edits, the bulk of the press release (I wrote the first four trends about marriage), and a mention in the press release!

I began to work on yet another script to email to marriage centered bloggers—mostly to get them aware about our marriage contest results, partially to persuade them to blog for the site. I will continue to work on this project on Thursday, too.

Hours worked: 4/84