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Friday, Jan. 2, 2004 - 2:26 p.m.

Who writes this crap?

Here's a little-known fact about writers: We all enjoy playing the humble, laid-back creative type, yet inside we're quietly, sometimes secretly, ruthlessly competitive. Some are open about it, and some are truly humble and relaxed; by generalizing I don't mean to say it applies to every writer. But I have a feeling that many of us are as I've pegged it. I'm sure some of you are nodding your heads. I mean, come on � we have online journals for a reason.

I realized today I am, just a bit. Competitive, that is.

In looking through a series of essays in the Notre Dame alumni magazine, virtually all the taglines describe the authors as professional writers and journalists. The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Sun-Times, newspapers in Virginia, magazines in Dallas � they all appear in italics after the authors' names. I look at them and think, "Wow, that would be cool." But then I realize that I, too, am a professional writer, and I have a cool job myself, and I've been a newspaper reporter and I left for a magazine so I could have weekends off. I suppose that happens to a lot of people: They want just about any job except the one they have. Or at least, there are a dozen other occupations that sound cooler than what you currently do for a living.

While I wouldn't particularly want to live in Dallas, to be the editor of a city magazine like that would be intriguing. I don't think I'd want to cover the political beat in Newark, but to be a columnist in Chicago or Philadelphia would suit me just fine. And God, I certainly don't want to be a tech writer in Orlando. Yet, that one particular essay, written by a woman I knew peripherally when we were reporters for the campus newspaper, is the kind of thing I look at and think, "I could do that." And that, I think, is what it comes down to: As writers, we look at an essay, an article, a book or a story and think, "Well, if I had written it ..." That's where editors come from. But in some ways, it's a constructive learning tool. I read a lot, and vary what I read, to broaden myself and get a sense of what is out there getting published. But at the same time, there are things I read and am offended they were put into print. I look at it and think that when I get to be in a position of authority, there's no way anyone on my staff will ever write "it's" when they clearly should have typed "its." There was a reporter at my magazine who did that, but she left a few months ago. I'm appalled that she's making the money she no doubt is, that she's stalking Trista and Ryan and seen as a great reporter when she probably doesn't even know how to spell the word "grammar" let alone define it.

I've had a few ideas that I've thought of submitting to the old college alumni rag, but I haven't followed through with them. Now I see this essay, by someone who inexplicably beat me out for an award because she took the assignment � spend a few hours at a children's museum and develop a story about any aspect of it � and wrote about all these college journalists dispatched to the children's museum to come up with stories. She didn't win, but she got third place or honorable mention or something like that. And I was quoted in it. That's the kind of thing that lights a fire under me and prompts me to think of subjects to write about.

As Heather just put it, "Because it's annoying when you feel like people are rewarded and lauded for doing work that's... if not sub-par, then at least swollen with self-importance and impressed with its own cleverness."

I constantly see things written that are horrendous, yet not only did someone write it, but someone else (and probably several others) looked at it and thought, "BRILLIANT!" And yet, it really wasn't, but this writer is going to think it was and continue to operate under that assumption, when with a little guidance, he or she could truly turn into a solid, if not spectacular, wordsmith.

"It's always disconcerting when you feel like someone is so painfully transparent, and yet no one else sees through it but you," is how Heather put it.

But again, I have a decent job and I do get paid to write just a bit, even if I'm not crafting thought-provoking 5,000-word pieces that contribute to the greater good. I'm still only 27 and shouldn't really be too concerned about where my career his headed. I have a lot of time, and someday I will be able to link myself in this journal, or cite this journal in a tagline.

Until then, I've just got to keep brainstorming ... and updating.

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Yeah, sorry I have to be all legal on you here, but unless otherwise indicated, all that you read here is mine, mine, mine. But feel free to quote me or make fun of me or borrow what I write and send it out as an e-mail forward to all your friends, family and coworkers. Just don't say it's yours, you know?