If It Were Possible

Regarding my previous posts of doubts for writing, here's some positing about me writing in the future:

Perhaps I can write. Perhaps I can research and write summary articles. Perhaps I can learn to interview appropriately and sensitively. Perhaps I can edit other people's stories, or at least give advice, feedback, and encouragement. Perhaps I can intern somewhere else - for pay!?

What if I could be a journalist? I would need experience, and more training. I've never "gone out in search of a story" I've never held any kind of investigation or inquiry. I've never amassed so much research for a published project. Does one start with a contract for writing articles? Books? Or do you work your way up from the bottom as an intern?

The thing is, I don't think I'm ready for graduate school. I feel such disillusionment towards school that I feel incompetent while still an undergraduate. I don't think I could study for graduate tests - I'm not sure enough what I want- except that logically it really should involve writing - right?

The other thing is, I don't see myself as writing local news about a community - I'm an out of state student - I don't feel savvy about Pittsburgh, and I was never tied in a communal sense to my own hometown. I don't have a sense of "neighborhood" or "local" I don't feel ties to the University of Pittsburgh as a community either. I worked part-time jobs off campus, I lived off campus. I don't know what a fraternity is like, I don't know what events there are on a Friday night. I didn't think I had any qualification to write for The Pitt News, much less apply as an intern at local news media..


But I do have some sense of being foreign and alien in my writing and in my life. I came to Pittsburgh to study English and foreign language - specifically Japanese, which I later failed, miserably.. And since coming to Pittsburgh, I've made friends with quite a few foreigners, especially through my part-time jobs. I began to tutor English as a second language to women from Korea, Japan, and Turkey. Now I intern at Sampsonia Way, which writes about writers and journalists around the world persecuted for freedom of expression. I know a little bit about what it's like to study language, I know very much what it's like to fail language, I know a little bit of what it's like to be foreign, I know a little bit of what the global world is like, and I know a little bit of what it's like to feel intensely personally isolated.

Disclaimer: But I'm an expert in nothing. I've scarcely been outside the United States, and I've never successfully learned a foreign language. Do I really need to sign up for international travel? Traveling is always a good idea, but I can't assume I have a writing career like that without building up something else first..

As for fiction writing, when I wrote short stories in my Introduction to Fiction class, I wrote a story about a young Russian girl, I wrote about two Japanese girls - and I got good feedback for those. I read a story by Jhumpa Lahiri and felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu - I felt distinctly that she wrote to an American audience about Indian immigrants - and that I was somewhere in between. My friends were Indian, and none of her exotic references surprised me. Could I craft stories about foreign cultures? Or at least cultural interaction?

But for nonfiction, how could I possibly do anything without advanced study in politics or without years of living abroad? Where would I need to go to be a foreign correspondent? I simply don't have the experiences. But I mentioned that I wasn't ready for graduate school.. And I feel some social ties to people in the United States I don't want to sever..

What would it take to write for an online publication like Sampsonia Way? I still feel like I am a very disappointing intern at Sampsonia Way - and what could be cooler than Sampsonia Way? Then again, they don't pay me there, for one.

What if I were to write thoughtful essays - does that even make any sense? There's no inherent value in it.

Or what if I didn't write for a living, and simply tried to reach out without expecting results, and find a different way of life? Do I write because I have nothing else, because that MIGHT be my one marketable skill, because I DO have the ability? I should write because I should write. There are plenty of things that should be written about, and what if I could transcribe that for myself or for someone else?