After 28 years working as a journalist for a newspaper, glued to the strict facts and trying to be precise and truthful, I kind of burned my writing style. It’s very difficult for me to compose something creative. And it’s a shame, because I once upon a time had some talent, and lots of ideas for short stories and poetry. Even I published a poem with some success. But I was young and enthusiastic then, and didn’t have experienced the harsh life of a street reporter, with a daily deadline to deliver my news and the need to tell real stories as accurate as possible, with as few words as possible. No adjectives. No fancy descriptions. Just so: what, who, when, where, why. Everything else, had no space in my work.
Ten years ago, one day like this one, I began to blog. I know it because WordPress congratulated me today for my anniversary. At the beginning I began to write about what I knew best: about what was on the news, Then I tried to open a blog entirely dedicated to good news. But I found that there was difficult to find enough positive stories to fill it. after that I moved to look for my inspiration in the WordPress prompts that no longer exist. Now I follow the RagTag Daily Prompt and take pictures for the Cee’s fun foto challenge.
Three years ago I started another blog (in Spanish) to honor the centenary of my father which will be next January 13th. He was also a Journalist. He wrote a daily column for a newspaper during 29 years, but he never lost his creative inspiration. He was a poet till his death. He was also a beloved teacher of Journalism in the University and in my blog I have published very moving contributions by his disciples along with my posts about his life and his writings.
So I write a lot, have a lot of stories to tell but I lack inspiration. I’m too stick to the facts and to far away of creativity.
I find inspiring things in the things that move me, those that make make me want to spend my whole life doing nothing else but that… You often find it by chance… So food luck, never give up 🙂
Thank you Salwa for your kind words and your support.
Ahh! 🙂 My father was a journalist too and when I started my studies (English language and journalism), I was devastated when I learned about the who-what-when-where-why style with zero personal input. I knew immediately this was not for me. Not to mention that I HATE bugging people with questions. 😀 I still worked for a magazine for a while and published some articles in some newspapers in Slovenia, but I like this blogging the most: Tell and show exactly what I want without asking anybody and without anybody telling me what to do and how (an occasional prompt is okay), with the emphasis on feel-good sights and sounds. I hope we all never run out of these.
Congratulations on your anniversary and I hope your blogging continues with fresh inspiration.
Thank you, Manja. I see we are almost neighbours, since my family comes from Croatia, despite I have spent most of my life in Spain.
I agree with you. It was not easy to do my job asking compromising questions to some people during my years In the newspaper. But at the end it was worth it when I was trying to reveal the truth about the public actions of some politicians and their corruption. It was hard. I suffered a lot of pressures from many sides. But I had the satisfaction that everything that I published was true, confirmed later in the courts. I also reported about crimes and terrorism. That was harder.
You are right. Is better to have the freedom to write whatever you want without any constraint.
I have been so many years glued to the news of each day that now that I want to explore new worlds I have some difficulties to find subjects and inspiration. But I guess it is question of time and patience. Thank you for your encouragement.