openscarf

 This week wasn't what I expected regarding contributing to the online paper.  I had a lot of positive feedback from the founder on the 3 stories I did last week, she said there'd be more assignments, but so far this week, nada.   We've communicated a bit, I forwarded her the nice email one of the interviewees wrote me, I mentioned a possiblility of a story I'm looking into (history of an old hotel, that has a nice restaruant, best view of Oakland, a "known" hidden gem).

I realize I'm pretty frustrated.  One woman (the one who rewrote my first story; no worries, I've let that go, I wrote her this week thanking her for her help and agreeing we should chat soon) seems to be writing about 80% of the articles.  She's definitely a journalist, good writer, but I'm not sure why she's writing everything.  I'm not sure why they held a meeting asking for contributors and help and offered coaching, training, etc.  It seems my expectations were extremely overly optimistic.  After that first week, I thought I'd get 2 or 3 assignments a week.  I don't want to have a blog on there, I want to have real byline articles, I want the exposure.

I'm not sure if it's because they're so short handed that it's hard to maintain control over every aspect and the main head honcho staff is busy covering the big city/political news, marketing, raising money, etc. and the entrenched contributors are simply grabbing all the stories because they can or possibly don't know who to assign to?  This is new territory that I want to tread carefully.  I feel a little foolish, so proud of my 3 stories while one person is practically writing the whole freakin paper. If that's their plan and what they want, so be it, I'd just like to know.  I have to get clear, without being obnoxious, fawning, etc.  I don't want to do nothing, because that seems like quitting to me and I really don't want to be in the position of so randomly waiting for something.

I held my tongue/fingertips today; tomorrow I'm going to write the 3 again, casually and say something like, I'd love to contribute more, I'm working on the hotel thing, is there anything they need help with?  Is it unrealistic for me to expect a couple or more a week?  Just so I know...

And then I just  have to keep looking around and keep writing stuff, so this time is best spent, this lovely free time.