My spelling is getting worse. Honestly. I had to spell check ‘acquaintance’ just now to make sure the title of the post wouldn’t attract criticism. I was also playing a game of Upwords a few days ago with dear BFF Patricia and was puzzled over implant vs. inplant. Seriously. To plant within? That makes sense, no? Maybe I should study prefixes.
I know I began the last post saying it’d been forever, and truly it has–nearly a year! Here we are in 2010, my graduation year. I’m not sure if I’m scared or excited. I’m a bit mellow right now, to be honest. I entered college as a voracious reader of 300-page course offering books. Now I know that most of those courses I starred three and a half years ago will never be offered again. I came in with a plan to double major in theatre and English, minor in journalism. I have since decided that plan is simply ridiculous. I am a proud English major (graduating with honors, thanks very much). No double (or triple) major, no minor. I left a lot of lines empty on my degree audit form. It wasn’t exactly the weighty packet of my peers.
Just today I’ve decided that I might not want to work at a magazine after all. Somebody out there must be laughing. After all, I’ve professed my desire to be a magazine editor since day 1. Never fear, readers, for I do have a plan! I was browsing job openings (and they are out there, people, even for English majors) last night (it takes ages to apply online to a government job) and earlier today (putting off my thesis), and as I was browsing Idealist, I said to myself, Brittany, you could do this (side note: aren’t you amused by the parentheses? I must get them out of my system now.). I’m being completely serious. I love magazines (and newspapers, to some lesser extent), but the idea of working at one and eventually moving up in the magazine world is one that I find intimidating. That’s a lot of pressure, a lot of decisions that you have to make quickly and efficiently and effectively. And people can and will tear you apart for an error you made while working a 12-hour day during a 60-hour week when your eyes were burning and blurring from staring at an enormous Mac screen all day, every day. And I don’t mean a major error, like spelling a name incorrectly. I mean an error like, say, a flawed sequence of tenses.
That might just be a teensy exaggeration, but I know that you know what I mean. And there’s no relief. You close one issue and so what? There’s no respite, no break, no popping of champagne bottles. There’s another issue waiting to be planned, written, edited, pieced together, printed, distributed, bought, recycled, and filed away. And another after that. There doesn’t seem to be much accomplishment in that, and sometimes, when I think about it, I wonder…so what? So, what sort of good would I be doing? I love magazines, love them, I really do. But is it what I want? I have little desire to be editor-in-chief. I don’t want to run my own magazine, don’t want to found one. I’m great at executing the visions of others. I do it well, I do it creatively, but putting forth a vision for a magazine seems like it might be fun for the first few goes, and then what? Five holiday issues down the line, how much does the content change?
I like change, and I like being busy. That’s part of the reason I like magazines: there’s always something going on, and you’re never doing the exact same thing each and every day, or even each and every hour. But, hm. Perhaps I would be happier managing the publications of a private school in NYC for a few years, then moving on to working at a non-profit (both of which positions I’ve all ready discovered, mind you.). There, I could be, you know, a communications specialist or publications editor. A real title I can bandy about at parties and family gatherings, a title that people will comprehend. None of this editorial assistant for two years, the assistant editor, then associate editor, then senior editor…
Well, maybe.
It is nice to know that I have options.
