What makes a (pants) writer...

Well, I am officially the most pants blogger on this site. And I call myself a writer... Bah!

I do love to write, honestly. I could quite happily sit and do nothing but write mindless (and sometimes mildly entertaining) drivel whilst drinking copious amounts of tea all day long, but it seems that the hours of work (read: especially shorthand) that I have to fit in each day sufficiently outnumber the amount of hours in the actual day. Hmm... I feel that herein lies my problem, maybe I should just stay up later and see how my zombie-like state affects my journalistic skills... But hey, I'm sure that's me along with the rest of this overworked and underpaid world - or in my case, the not-paid-at-all world.

I'm well aware that a writer who barely has time to write should probably not call herself a writer, but shh, don't burst my bubble. I like being inside it now the comparatively safe student bubble has been popped. So instead I give myself over to the world of fiction which helps to distract thoughts from the fact that I have no money to shop with (I long for shoes and handbags...)

But anyway, enough excuses... Oh yes! Duh. I moved house last week too. Forgetting that tiny detail just shows the extent to which my mind is slowly unravelling. I now live with the boyfriend and four other people in a fantastically tall house in the heart of Brighton-land by the seaside. And seriously, I just can't see the novelty of living so close to the beach of my childhood holidays ever wearing off.

So apart from packing, repacking and unpacking boxes, building furniture and struggling with a very stubborn and determined-to-fall down curtain rail (which I've almost come to blows with on several occiasions already), I've had a pretty hectic few weeks. It's all gone by in a blur of shorthand, politics, law, making pretend newspapers and playing musical houses. Fun times.

So... to business. Despite this time seeming AGES away when I started my course, I've got my first stint in six years on a local paper next week and I am terrified. My crisis of confidence would have to pick now to kick in wouldn't it? I know I can do it, I've done it before and I was MUCH younger and even more clueless back then... but there's always been something about showing other people (particularly strangers) what I can (or can't) do that fills me with terror.

Take this week at college as an example. We've been working on 'virtual' newpapers, wherein we all research and publish our own original news articles. I, of course, wrote about how students are affected by the credit crunch (using the inspiration behind my first blog post) and before I sent it off to the rest of the group (who are my friends) I felt almost sick. What if they think it's terrible? What if they criticise me? What if they don't criticise me because they're trying to be nice and in fact it's awful but I don't know so I carry on writing terribly? Argh! (My brain hurt a lot at this point).

In the end I went for it and yes, I did get criticism, but I could see why. So I changed stuff and it ended up on the front page, with lots of nice things said by the rest of the group. But I'm still petrified about showing my stuff to the real journalists next week. I wonder if this is something a writer ever gets over? I mean, with news stories it isn't too bad, but something I've put my all into, something that's a product of my personality - how will I take criticism then?

I guess that to deal with that very issue was the original purpose of this blog. Just one step on the way to becoming a writer, forcing myself to get my thoughts out there and open them up to criticism...

...anyone?