Pardon My French

I don’t make New Years Resolutions anymore. It’s mostly because based on what I’ve seen, the words just don’t hold any meaning to people.

It marks a time to become a better person by volunteering more, starting that diet you’ll never stick to or breaking some bad habit. But, a week goes by and there’s no difference between this year and the last.

A friend of mine recently said that he doesn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions because if a person really wants to change, he or she shouldn’t wait around until this designated time of year–and I have to agree. Nothing ever gets done that way.

Not only that, but a few years ago, I heard some Backstreet Boy say that his New Years Resolution was to “go green by not littering.” I wish I could say that I was making this up. That alone made me abandon my New Years Resolution tradition.

While I don’t and won’t make New Years Resolutions, I think it’s hard to not take a long hard look at myself when one year ends and another begins.

This year the verdict is: I need to get my shit together.

As time has passed, my reasons for deciding whether to blog or not to blog has changed. My old Livejournal account and my very first blog chronicled the day-to-day of the majority of my adolescence. The entries, I now realize, were interesting to no one other than a few close friends and myself as they were essentially very detailed logs of what happened during my daily life. Sometimes, I would even blog multiple times a day.

My blogs are still a statement of who I am, but they don’t pop up as often as they used to. This, I feel, is a problem. I feel it’s more important than ever to be keeping blogs on a daily basis. I want to become a better writer, the very best that I can be. To do that, I have to write every single day, no matter how I’m feeling or what’s going on. No excuses.

In an effort to write every single day, but not talk about myself, I’m going to use my blog as a platform for my various writing prompts.
But, it still won’t have a particular theme. My blog is just my blog. It’s just a place for me to express myself, whether it be personal or just a means to get some words out of me. Its the official place for me to put the things I’m working on, whether it be the collection of memoir-based essays I’m documenting, or some fiction that happens to pop into my brain.

And that, is that.

It was by a strange chain of events that I came to be mentored by a Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist.

Earlier this year, I came upon a writing contest called “The Coffee Shop Chronicles” while looking for writing gigs on Craigslist. My story could be featured in anthology the publishers were assembling and the winner could earn a gift card to their favorite coffee shop. The rules were simple: be creative, keep it short, and the story should have something to do with coffee.

I sat down at my computer and started writing. I didn’t stop for several hours and came up with a story that wasn’t short enough to be eligible for the contest. I posted it to my blog, considered the entire writing experience an inspiration and then put the whole thing to bed.

The very next day I woke up to a comment from a man named Thorn Sully of A Word With You Press, Publishers and Purveyors of Fine Stories. He was thrilled that his contest was able to inspire me, agreed that my story was a bit long, but posted it to his blog, anyway. It turns out that Thorn is a very kind human being who has a lot of passion for words. As I am always inspired by people who love what they do, We stayed in touch via email and I kept up with his blog.

Some months later, I found out that the creative team had decided to be bend the rules a little bit and publish my story in the anthology “The Coffee Shop Chronicles Vol. 1: Oh The Places I Have Bean” anyway. I was thrilled, as I have never been published before.

A Word With You Press isn’t just a publishing house, however. They also offer workshops and seminars. And I recently attended one of these workshops.

I drove out to their headquarters in Oceanside, California, which is about an hour and a half outside of Los Angeles to attend a workshop put on by Jonathan Freedman. Freedman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his series of editorials that urged the passage of the first major immigration reform act in 34 years. (These were published in The Tribune in San Diego, Calif.) I was pretty excited to attend as I had first read his work during college and it struck a cord with me. It’s one of those pieces of writing that every time you pick it up, doesn’t matter how many times you’ve read it, you have to read it all the way through. That’s how good it is.

Freedman’s career hasn’t been rooted exclusively in editorial writing, however. He has also worked as a foreign correspondent, written novels, books meant to inspire social change and children’s books.

I have been trying to will my pen to write fiction for some time, but because the world of journalism and fiction exist on opposite ends of the universe, this is something that doesn’t necessarily come easy to me. I saw this as the most perfect venue to bridge my passions– with someone who is an expert in both media.

At first I was very intimidated by Jonathan, but he was actually very warm and receptive to what I had to say. I ended up picking his brain, asking him questions about his voice and how he had come to develop his eye for detail. We ended up talking about my own journalism project, Perfect Stranger L.A. and he seemed genuinely impressed. Later, he offered to be my mentor to help guide me toward success. I, of course, was speechless.

I have never before had any professional in the field take an interest in my work.

I’ve always felt very jealous upon hearing friends and colleagues talk about the great contacts that they have made in their designated fields. Networking is something that I have never excelled at. I can wander up to any stranger and ask them about their day in the life, but I have a very difficult time putting myself up on a pedestal and explaining to people why I am worth their time.

I’m just happy that I can now say that I have at least made some beginning steps in the right direction.

Well, that didn’t last long, eh?

After just two months of working a 9 to 5 for a contractors magazine, I was laid off. Just like that, it’s back to square one, the grueling job hunt.

When I’m not looking for jobs, and freelancing whenever I can, I’ve got a lot of work to do.

I plan to get working on the writing project I’ve been trying to get off the ground for the last two years. I’m going to get this website redesign rolling and do as many PSLA interviews as I can.

In the next couple of weeks I begin training for my first full marathon and I’ll be wrapping up my grad school application and taking my GRE.

I’m moving on and starting over. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Dear Friends,

As I prepare to run my first half marathon, I really wanted to take the time to thank all of you for your support these last few months–both for your words of encouragement and for forking over your hard earned cash during a tough economic time. Thanks to all of you, I was able to raise more than $2,000 for an amazing charity, Aids Project Los Angeles. You guys, my beatnik, journalist, artist, free spirited, college student/recent college graduate, generally broke-ass friends made this happen. I don’t think many people on this earth can say that they have that kind of support.

During my last four months of training I’ve learned a lot about myself. For starters, I know it’s totally a corn dog thing to say, but also something that’s completely true–I now believe that if I put my mind to it, I can accomplish anything.

Here’s why: When I first started racking up the distance, I struggled. When I would be out on a run, the entire time I would be in motion, my inner voice would not stop firing thoughts at me that sounded like: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CRAZY PERSON!? STOP RUNNING!” It was tough, but I eventually learned how to ignore that voice and even figured out how to tell it to shut it’s yap. “Too bad, brain. I’m doing this and you can’t stop me!”

I’ve even learned to like running. I’ve kind of developed an addiction to it, in fact. I now notice that if it’s been a couple of days since my last run, my soul starts to itch (or something) and I know it’s time to hit the pavement, again. Now that I’ve started this, I don’t ever want to stop. I even plan to register for my first full-marathon in the near future. (This one won’t be a charity run, however. I’m not going to bug you for more money, just yet. ♥ )

But, keeping my eye on the now, I have just two days to go and my excitement is growing by the hour. I can’t wait to finally feel what it’s like to complete a half-marathon.

VIEWERS BE WARNED: I plan on acting like a huge dork and posting a lot of (potentially unattractive/sweaty/red faced) photos from the run on Facebook, Twitter and my blog. You’re all just going to have to deal. <3

I could have never done all of this without you. Thanks for your kindness and support, all. It will never be forgotten.

-Caitlin M. Foyt

I shouted out into the big echoey universe, demanded that it give me a job and it actually responded: by giving me a job.

I’m going to be an “Editorial Assistant” at a trade publication and I start Monday at 8:30 a.m.. (The quotes are necessary here because while that is my title, I have understood that I won’t be fetching coffee, making copies, or running a highlighting tool across the occasional body of text. I’ll actually be doing some writing!) This mag in particular is made with people in the irrigation and landscaping industries in mind so, ladies and gentleman, I will be writing about erosion, lawn mowers and other similar, somewhat technical topics of which I have little to no understanding.

But, I’m a pretty creative person. That’s why (not to brag or anything) my boss picked me out of a whollllle bunch of other candidates. And I’m very confident that I can gain an understanding of this stuff, make it interesting and write it so that it makes sense to readers. If I can write about local government, I can definitely do this. (Even without the whole taxpayers dollars personally affecting any and all members of the community factor playing into the equation.)

I’m excited to be a contributing member of society, again, and better yet, in a role that involves the use of my degree, includes benefits and a salary.

Phil and I haven’t really been concerned about finances since we’ve been here. We saved a lot to prepare for our move and Phil’s job has been keeping us afloat. But what’s really great about landing this job is that we are doubling the income we were living fine on. It’s nice–we’re going to be able to save some money, travel during the holidays, hire someone to help me further develop Perfect Stranger LA, take care of a few pricey car maintenance issues we weren’t able to afford before, paint the walls of the apartment and do a little decorating. (Obviously not all at once.)

One of my few goals I set for myself for 2010 was to secure myself in a career related job. It took six months of hard searching (three months in 2009, checking out work online) to find it and I’m so relieved that it finally happened. (Now I just have to….eerrrr…finally finish that great big piece of writing I’m supposed to be hard at work on. Now I have NO excuse.)

Here’s to getting my feet off the ground and hopefully more great advancements to my career. (With lots of hard work involved, of course.)