When I took up Communication Arts, I knew my parents would really rather have me take up something else. I can tell probably because of the way they told me “You don’t like nursing? How about engineering?” (how about anything else besides comm arts? haha.) Parents have this staple dream of their sons and daughters turning into doctors or lawyers. Recent times has changed that though, now every parent wants their child to take up nursing for reasons that are obvious.
Whenever people learn that I’m taking up a liberal arts course, their first question is “So what kind of jobs would you get after it? Receptionists?”
If you think that’s bad, well a lot of jackasses would scoff and laugh and say “Comm Arts? Wala namang pera diyan eh!”
I have endured comments like that for the whole of my college life and when I was finally able to graduate, I found a job as a creative writer. What do I do basically? I write web content and do a little SEO work every now and then. I was tasked to maintain 5 blogs… oh don’t laugh! I know what you’re thinking. How can sorbetera maintain 5 blogs when she can hardly maintain her own one? Haha! Work is different ladies and gents. I have to write web content (from scratch) for around 5 websites and I also have to make promotional articles for the company.
where I get my ideas
Basically my big bag o’ creative tricks is juiced up to the last drop every single day. I go to the office, sit in front of my cubicle, log into my account and write (ideally) 8 articles until the day is finished. Writing is no problem since that’s where all my pent-up sexual frustration goes (no, not really) but writing about things you absolutely have zero interest in is a different matter altogether. That’s why writing, my dear friends, is no walk in the park. It is not to be underestimated. You have to do a lot of research to write about something you know nothing about because if you want to convince people that whatever shit you’re writing is true, well you damn better know your facts. You have to study how enthusiasts of that field write their topics and what kind of info they would want to read,
Stephen King said in his On Writing that to be a good writer, you should read a lot and write a lot. I got the read a lot covered but the write a lot, not so much. King said that you should write and write and write even if you don’t want to, even if you don’t feel like it, even if you absolutely have nothing to say. And because of my job, I can now fully comprehend what he meant and apply that. When you write for a living (unless you’re a novelist), you don’t usually write what you want and write what you know. You have to squeeze all that juice out of you and come up with a great article that you have no interest on.
So don’t underestimate writers or Communication Arts graduates. It is true that what we’re doing is our passion, our forte, our calling… but unlike the Barney Bag, our juice dries up every now and then and usually, it is during those times that GREAT things are demanded from us. We don’t have a guide or a manual where we can find tried-and-tested answers. Everyday is a new ball game for us.
touch it?
