Egos, confessions and warring corporations

Even the doctor is worried about my socialist soal

So I have a confession to make. My last blog wasn’t entirely written for the purpose of actually being a blog. It was written as an article to hopefully be featured in a newsletter for a survey company called The Student Panel, I know what you’re thinking, “sell out”, “ass kisser”, “cog in the machine”. But in my defence I posted the article as my first blog post for several brilliant (in my mind) and credible reasons.

1.       I honestly thought I hadn’t been chosen and so with my ego this size it is I thought it would be a shame if it was never posted in some shape or form.

2.       I’ve wanted to start a blog for some time, but didn’t really know what I should write about for my first post.

3.       I thought the article was a good piece of writing (my ego again) and it touched on a few interesting topics. Of which I now realise is only really relevant to people who have been, are at and are applying to go to university, which is about a couple of million at a best guess in a country of about 70 million.

4.       I liked the idea that my first blog would feature anti-bacterial cleaning products, a Russian gas mask, traffic cones, a life in the boot of a car and obligatory STI’s.

Now a few days after I posted the blog in that rejected, needed to reaffirm my ego mood. I decided to look for the newsletter online to see, and I quote, “which lucky git, who can apparently write a better article than me, won the rubbish, pointless, mildly degrading newsletter of the month competition complete with a £50 cheque stained with the blood of advertiser’s victims?” So through the power of an unnamed popular search engine, you know the one which owns that popular video community site and will eventually take over the world only after going to cyber and nuclear war with a certain tech company who has a fruit based corporate logo, convinces a significant amount of the world’s population that if they buy their overpriced products they are being creative and different and has more working capital than the united states government.

I found the newsletter through said overlord search engine and at first found it odd that there was a picture of me  (penny in the air), and a link to my piece as article of the month and a big £50 sign next to my face. It was then as they say ‘the penny dropped’. My article had been published at first attempt! I even had an E-mail waiting for me to confirm that I had been chosen to be published as article of the month and that I was due a glorious, unstained, liberating £50 cheque. Needless to say, my ego engorged, I bounced around the room and attempted to fit my head through the door to tell someone, anyone.

So there you are my confession is that although I started out as an independent blogger, writing for writings sake and for ever who would read it, and for whoever felt like rubbing my well known ego by leaving a comment. I am actually now paid and published (albeit a small publication online) and am now aspiring to be a journalist at the end of my completely unrelated degree course and looking for any freelance writing work that I can get my grubby little hands on. I am now justifying and clarifying my writing philosophy U-turn with the statement ‘if your good at something, never do it for free’. Now that won’t be quite true because I will be keeping up with this blog at least once a week, but I’d be lying if I said that practicing my writing and having something to show prospective publishers and editors wasn’t in the back of my mind.

But rest sured, I’d like to say to my single handful of readers and myself that I will be blogging about interesting, thought provoking, hopefully controversial, perhaps mildly egotistic and occasionally topical topics in the near future. Stay awesome.

TRTGA