{"id":1048,"date":"2008-04-30T19:28:53","date_gmt":"2008-05-01T00:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/womantalk.wordpress.com\/?p=1048"},"modified":"2008-04-30T19:28:53","modified_gmt":"2008-05-01T00:28:53","slug":"baby-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/?p=1048","title":{"rendered":"Baby Step"},"content":{"rendered":"

When somebody says they think I’m brave or gutsy or full of confidence, I have to snort. It’s nice that I can appear<\/em> that way, but fear; fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear of unintentionally hurting somebody, fear is an emotion I battle with on a regular basis. Especially this past year which has been filled with dramatic life changes: I left my stable job as a public school teacher, I left Joshua Tree after having lived there for fifteen years, I got married for a second time (after a pretty devastating first marriage) – all of which meant brand-new starts in a new place.<\/p>\n

Many of those changes though felt as if there was an order or logic to them: steps I could follow. Moving meant looking for a new house to rent, packing boxes, enrolling Bella in a new school – things that I couldn’t very well procrastinate or ignore.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, deciding that I wanted to be a free-lance writer has felt much more arbitrary and formless, and therefore easier to procrastinate and ignore – so in some ways I have.<\/p>\n

Yes, I’ve kept up with womantalk.org and written many, many daily posts. Yes, I got a job as a website manager\/copywriter. Yes, I get paid to write press releases. But the real work I had intended for myself, that of writing about art, has remained hovering out of reach. I am embarrassed to admit that my first<\/em> attempt at contacting an editor and “selling” myself didn’t happen until last month. Last month. That’s nearly a year of practically pooping my pants at the thought of being rejected as writer.<\/p>\n

A month ago, I contacted the editor of ArtScene to let him know I was interested in writing art reviews.<\/p>\n

And yesterday I found out that…<\/p>\n

They’re going to give a me shot this month at writing a blurb for their “Continuing and Recommended” section, which neither pays well nor gives me by-line credit – but no matter – the most difficult part is past, I’m in!<\/p>\n

It kills me that I could have done this a year ago and I didn’t. I’m going to see art and write about it for folks I don’t know. Good grief, I guess I am brave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When somebody says they think I’m brave or gutsy or full of confidence, I have to snort. It’s nice that I can appear that way, but fear; fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear of unintentionally … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-procrastination","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}