Before the COVID 19 era, I had the surprise and pleasure of being offered a few freelance writing jobs for pay. Long before this, in high school while taking a Journalism class, I spent three months writing a column of local news for the small village I lived in. I can’t even call it a town, because it consisted of acres of woods and back roads. There was a village centre, but we didn’t live near it. Anyway, people lived and attended school in the woods of this little village, so there were newsy events to be reported on. My best friend at the time had also taken Journalism the year before, and got hired to write columns for her small town (six small towns fed a regional high school, which is where we met). When I saw the same opportunity arise for my town, I applied for and got the job. I put my name out to the local elementary school, churches, and town organizations. They would call me on a weekly basis with news and events they wanted to have published. I was proud to be able to put my journalism skills to work and get paid for this.
Fast forward to a few years ago, and the same happened – I was offered a freelance writing job, and that led to a couple of others. I was utterly thrilled to be paid for something I loved doing!
Well, here in Canada, we have the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, AKA the CBC (see what I did there?). The CBC has a section called First Person, in which they publish real life stories of Canadians from all walks of life with all sorts of interesting stories to tell. I have loved reading these over the years, and have always thought it would be fun to write one and get it published. I have pitched a story once or twice, but never heard back. Last August, I pitched another idea, about my going to university in my 50s, and this time I was referred to the producers of the CBC Now or Never radio program. As you can see here, I ended up in a radio segment, talking about my new university journey. That was a lot of fun.
A few weeks later, an editor from the CBC First Person columns contacted me and asked if I were still interested in writing a column about my university experience – hello, bucket list item, YES PLEASE! I think I started writing in late October. However, I was so busy with my school semester, that I had to ask the editor for a deadline extension. She was very understanding and granted me time. Then it turned out that I wrote the article all wrong, because I was enamoured by a particular idea of a structure to use. I drifted away from the specifics of what I had originally pitched. So I wrote it all over again, and then over January and February came the back and forth editing process. For these columns, one doesn’t need professional writing credentials; so it was fun to work closely with an editor and see how they do things. One thing I will say, though, is…why do some places not use the Oxford comma?? I know people debate this all the time, but I really like it…anyway, I had to rearrange some sentences so that the lack of that last comma didn’t look weird to me.
As this editing process moved along, she asked me for specific types of photos, one of which was me with some of my classmates. I had fun asking those who have formed friendships with me to pose with me. The result is a column, published this morning! Here is “I started university for the first time at 55 with Gen Z classmates.” Enjoy! Let me know what you think in the comments below. And let me know what bucket list items you have been able to accomplish in your life!