Stage of Life thoughts

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

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

I rounded out this week’s work with some reading on Stage of Life. I love taking the time to read what people have to say and comment on the really awesome posts. Feeling inspired, I attempted to write a post for the site, but I couldn’t settle on an interesting enough topic; the only thing I could think to write about is how awkward I am, and I am never sure how to put that into words. I also continued some blogger outreach—nobody was contacted tonight. Oh, well. Maybe next week.

Hours worked: 1/80

I had a lot of projects to accomplish today. I began by judging the Wedding stage’s writing contest. I LOVE reading all of the contest entries, and it was a lot of fun to pick a winner. Congrats to LisaGraf for winning! I was going to judge the Having a Baby writing contest… but no one had entered it!

After a struggle to get into the Stage of Life database (for some reason errors abound when I try), I decided to write my entry for this month’s teen/college writing contest about media and media influence. I wrote about Tumblr—what else, really? Afterward, I edited some blog headlines and read a few stories.

I began to tackle the next big project: reaching out to media institutions to let them know about the teen/college writing contest. Since media is such a vague term, it is difficult organizations to contact. I have found two places so far—hopefully I will find more this weekend.

UPDATE: I think the problem with searching for media based organizations is that the term “media” is too broad, and so it is yielding too many results. Despite this problem, I have emailed a few organizations. Otherwise, I spent some time doing some blogger recruitment. I sent out one invitation—hopefully the blogger replies!

Hours worked: 5/79

I rounded out this week’s hours by: submitting my vote for the best essay for last month’s writing contest (this involved skimming through the favorites I noted on my crib sheet); editing some blog headlines, and reading some interesting stories on Stage of Life; looking through the HARO (Help A Reporter Out) email Eric sent me (in case any stories could potentially relate to Stage of Life, and they couldn’t); and writing a cynical blog post about college life. All in all, a good hour spent!

Hours worked: 1/70

I spent a lot of time today finishing and revising the query letter for the potential Stage of Life book. This involved a lot of copy editing (which meant my professional editing classroom skills were put to the test; I guess I am learning something in college!) and some comprehensive editing (is what we are trying to say making sense?). It is so formulaic—and a little frustrating—but I definitely think we’re on to something.

I also began to edit the new Stage of Life corporate site. Again: more copy editing. This may be weird to say, but I am sort of enjoying myself in the monotony!

UPDATE: I created a fourth draft of the query letter—more grammar and coherence issues. I rounded out the hour by doing some blogger recruitment. I contacted one blogger who had a great idea going—posting tips on how to survive college! I hope I hear back from her soon.

Hours worked: 5/65

Out of the 19 organizations that I emailed, eight replied to me! All eight were very excited that their cause was nominated for the writing contest on Stage of Life—Operation Beautiful even tweeted the link to the essay! Invisible Children also said very kind words about the Stage of Life project; it was an empowering eight emails to read. I hope more organizations reply!

I spent most of today doing blogger outreach (I sent out one email; here’s hoping she replies!), and creating an entry for this month’s writing contest. I really liked what I wrote, and hopefully the judges think so too! ;)

Hours worked: 2/40

I began today by browsing Stage of Life for one-time posters with talent. A pretty specific goal, but I did find a few! Hopefully my words of encouragement will convince these writers to post again.

The big task for today was emailing all of (or at least, most of) the organizations that were nominated in the January writing contest. It was an empowering experience—and I learned a lot about awesome organizations working to make a difference in the world! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get in touch with all of the organizations. It seems a little strange that organizations like this wouldn’t have any sort of contact information (ever hear of email?), but it’s true. Nothing.

I finished up by continuing with blogger recruitment. I found another great list on Blogger of college-aged bloggers, so on Saturday I will go through the list and see what I find!

Hours worked: 4/38