Back to Bayou Cancelled
As of this time, Back to Bayou, that less-than-a-month old sports blog of mine, is no longer active.
I decided to cancel that blog after realizing that I don’t really need extra dead weight. I only created it as practice for COPRE 2009′s Sportswriting English. Now that the event is all over, it no longer has a purpose to exist.
It was fun while it lasted. The daily updates (or should I say nightly), whether through plurk or Blogger, made me feel like I was really a beat reporter. It was an awesome feeling and one that I’ll miss.
Cecille pointed out an interesting truth to me the other night – there is a big difference between a writer and a journalist. Just because you’re a pretty good writer doesn’t mean you’ll be an effective journalist and vice versa. Both fields might have distinct similarities but they also have differences. For one, you have more freedom with the former while the latter binds you to the truth, to service and standards that can sometimes be constricting. In my case, since I’m a writer before a journalist, it was true.
There’s a reason why I only placed in the Column Writing category. That reason was because I loved playing with words without the necessary caution that I might overfeed my readers. Sure, there are instances in writing that word economy is required but it’s not as strict as in journalism.
With news, you always have to watch out for adjectives and features, though they allow you to mix it up, need to stick to the topic. We were supposed to feature a global warming discussion but it bored me so I wasn’t able to fully grasp the message and transform it for the readers. I still have a long way to go with separating myself from my article, if I’ll need that.
Column writing allows the columnist to integrate his own feelings and opinions with his article, thereby giving a sense of freedom for personal slices. I may be the most opinionated writer within the region but I’m not that good of a columnist. I only placed 4th overall.
Lessons learned, experiences gained, growth achieved.
Life is a book with different endings depending on the writer and the reader. There will be a lot of drafts before anyone can publish their respective books. Some drafts, pages, never make it through.
† Jofer
