My name is Wanda Freeman, and I am a writer. Writing is my calling, my passion, my profession, my hobby … my identity.
I discovered I wanted to be a writer in high school when I took a creative writing course. I can still remember (admittedly faintly) a couple of pieces I wrote during that time. There was a humorous tale with a twist about a Wild West-era gambler, a vignette about a lonely hermit … and then there was the one that changed my direction (or gave me one) forever.
We were assigned to write a story in class that began with some line like “It was a dark and stormy night.” I wrote in first person in the character of a young man who has car trouble out in the country and knocks on a door for help. A woman answers, invites him in … and — as I suspect many stories by many teenagers go — she turns out to be off her rocker. She attacks the young man with a knife, and he barely escapes to tell the harrowing tale.
I turned in my story, sat at my desk and watched my teacher read … and I knew exactly when he reached the end: He looked up me and bugged his eyes in mock horror. Of course, I collected an A.
From that day on, I knew I was going to be a writer. The University of New Orleans didn’t offer a creative writing major at the time, so I majored in English literature. Some time into my freshman or sophomore year, I read an article in Newsweek (remember them?) about first-time authors getting published without the help of agents. Writers who submitted over-the-transom manuscripts might stand out in the crowd if they had already developed a credible reputation as writers for newspapers, the article suggested.
Well, that was that: I decided to go to work for the newspaper — The Times-Picayune. I loved working there so much that I fantasized about becoming one of the old guard one day, reminiscing with ink-stained editors at the neighborhood bar. I happily turned my attentions to being a forever journalist and forgot about writing the great American novel.
Until I left the paper, that is. I worked there for about seven years, and when I left and began freelancing as a business writer, the fiction bug returned. By this time, UNO was offering creative writing classes, and I took a couple. Thus began a long period of writing fiction on my own time while freelancing, then later working at jobs that often had nothing to do with writing, until I finally fulfilled a new dream: graduate school.
I earned my master’s in creative writing from Eastern Michigan University, after which I found myself rather miserable trying to complete the novel that was my graduate project. Back to journalism I went, nostalgic for the camaraderie of the newsroom, the delicious, worldly humor of journalists, the dream of recapturing a future as part of the old guard.
But as we all know — especially those of us who have actually worked in journalism — the future I once envisioned had evaporated. Newspaper reporting had become incredibly stressful, punishing work, and the writing was not joyful for me. I worked at two newspapers in Arkansas, where I live now, and both were much smaller than the Times-Picayune in its heyday. Newspapers everywhere were shrinking, and opportunities for fulfillment were vanishing. I found myself wanting to return to more joyful writing, both on and off the job.
During my last year at my last paper, I entered NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month — and wrote with abandon, as I hadn’t done in years. I chose a humorous storyline, with the working title “Ha!” to remind myself to have fun, and I wrote in madcap two-hour increments as fast as I could type. The experience jump-started my dormant creative side, reintroduced a spirit of joy in my writing, and helped me get through the waiting and watching for a job where I would be surrounded by people who were as smart and creative as journalists and perhaps a lot happier.
Today I work as the marketing editor at a university. I get to make my living doing what writers do to make a living. I’m surrounded by delightful, funny, smart, creative people. And I get to go home and write fiction, poetry, songs, movies, reviews, recipes … and a blog!
Wanda Freeman 