Perseverance & Planning

Plans. They make you feel more organised - more focused, don’t they? Maybe I’m slightly OCD about things like this but when I’ve got a checklist of things to do, or things to achieve with little check boxes to happily tick away, I swear my productivity soars.

There ain’t no stopping a girl with a plan…

Let me explain. Last week after researching my next steps after graduation - my baby steps into journalism if you like - I reacted somewhat melodramatically upon my discoveries. Postgraduate study is nowhere near as easily funded as Undergraduate study, studying in London is impossible unless I find a stash of money hidden in that hole Bailey’s been digging in the garden, and living back home whilst I study might be necessary if I actually want to still be able to eat for a year… This might not seem so bad, I’m still left with options after all, but to me it seemed like yet another mountain of obstacles in my path. Without a safety rope to climb over it, I did what any individual in despair did. I sulked for about an hour. Then I got upset for a further half hour. Then I gave Bailey a cuddle and thought about it all again. I spoke to a few people, did a bit of digging, a bit of writing and HEY PRESTO! With the help of my unbelievably supportive parents, I realised it’s not so bad after all. So what did I do?

I came up with a plan.

So now you’re wondering what this magnificent plan I keep banging on about entails right? Well, the first step is experience. Despite spending two weeks on a blogging internship this summer which I loved, I still need to get some media experience, so for ages I’ve been trying to get a contact or even get in contact with someone at a local paper to apply to spend a week there. But without success. For the Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism I want to do next year, you need some physical experience at a local/regional newspaper or magazine to even get looked at seriously when you apply. It’s a basic necessity. Yet, for an awful lot of local papers and magazines, you need to already be on this course to even get looked at for the experience. As a local journalist quite rightly pointed out to me, it’s a vicious circle. I took numerous rejections but in true journalist style I persevered. I phoned and emailed my CV everywhere I could think of and…I might have to wait until Easter but I’ve only gone and nabbed a week at a local paper! That’s a tick in box number one I think!

Secondly, whilst doing this I also sent some theatre reviews in to some local publications. I’ve hence transformed from dreaming of getting my name in print within a local paper to actually achieving it. I am on the website for one local paper (http://www.worthingherald.co.uk/lifestyle/entertainment/arundel-festival-s-shakespeare-season-the-taming-of-the-shrew-1-4205184) and in print for another local paper  (The Littlehampton Gazette)- published this week! Tick in box two, perhaps?

So that leaves me to my next step -locating where I want to study journalism once I’ve graduated from Nottingham. Ambitiously my first thoughts were of the bustling centre of London or the familiar yet lively city of Nottingham, but once I looked into the details I realised I might have to become a home girl once again….But to be honest, Brighton’s really not that bad is it?! Especially when the sun is shining!

So as I sit, awaiting numerous prospectuses to be delivered through the door, it feels like now I’ve identified what qualification I need to get and managed to book some experience in, I finally am moving on again in my progress. I can still apply for graduate schemes and internships etc, but for the time being my mindless floundering through the murky depths of journalism is at an end. I have joined the throng of dedicated writers, armed with nothing but a mind, perseverance, curiosity and a pen. I suppose it is true, if you want something hard enough you just need to keep trying until you get there.

So, after spending a minute doing a well-deserved victory dance in the style of Zingy – that little orange blob on the EDF adverts – I say bring it on. 

For I am a determined girl with an ambitious plan.
Watch out world.