Time for a reassessment
It's been quite a long time since I've written a post chronicling my life as a writer. I think it's time for such an update.
Writing for The Daily Journal remains satisfying, even though I'm not churning out stories as frequently as I was allowed last summer. It's really been an incredible opportunity to write professional health stories. I still get a tremendous satisfaction out of interviewing doctors and communicating scientific ideas to a wide audience.
However, NYU's current Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program class (SHERP 24, as opposed to my class, SHERP 25) recently launched their own website.
Check out Scienceline!
There's some very exciting things in there that may not be immediately noticeable to you, but as a budding science journalist, I've caught them immediately.
Perhaps the most exciting thing that I saw were interviews with people from the National Institute of Health. There have been many times where I would have LOVED to have done interviews outside of Cumberland County for some of my health stories. In fact, some story ideas that have been thrown at me (like child-onset aphasia) simply cannot be done within the confines of Cumberland County.
However, there are some things that serve as a harsh reminder of my reality...I'm still a student, and a few of the articles focus on NYU faculty. This reminds me of when I couldn't get any interviews for my feature story about Airborne that was published in Unbound.
My Airborne story
This was an attempt by me to achieve something big, something that no one else had really covered...and when I tried to get interviews, I had to tell the truth and admit I was nothing more than a college student. However, since I now write for Gannett, I may have an easier time securing interviews.
But what excites me more than anything about something like Scienceline is that the NYU SHERP students have bonded and collaborated on a project dedicated to science journalism. I really felt like I was on my own as far as generating story ideas and double- and triple-checking my stories for the Science and Health column of The Signal. Now, I will be with a class filled with people as dedicated to this sort of thing as I am.
So the prospect of doing SHERP is extremely exciting. But what about all the other writing that I do?
I'll have probably THE most important thing I've done for Lee's Toy Review published in a couple of weeks. Wait...scratch that. Celebration III was the most important thing I've done for Lee's because that was a phenomenal way for me to feel like a press correspondent. But what I have coming in August is important for it's content. I'm the only one who's going to have this kind of review to my writing credits. AND there's talk that I may get to cover Celebration IV...except that's going to require some advance payment to cover the plane and hotel. We'll see. My fingers are crossed.
Then there's the playwriting thing. I really want to do this again. When I had the opportunity to do it for college, I had a play written in three hours. I'm not sure that NYU will allow me the time to do something like that. There's some secret desire for me to write a "Thundercats" script. Yes, it's extremely ambitious. Yes, it stands no chance of ever becoming a movie or anything. But damn it, I have an idea racing through my head, and I keep seeing it working out! I can see the teaser...a perfect live-action recreation of the beginning of each Thundercats cartoon episode. I can see the plot...a combination of "Exodus," which explains the origin of the Thundercats, and the Anoitment Trials, where Lion-O truly earned the title of Lord of the Thundercats. I'd make the mutants actually pose a threat, and I'd play around with more species than just Monkey, Jackal, Vulture, Rat, and whatever the heck S-S-Slithe was supposed to be. Mumm-Ra would be crazy cool. Panthro would HAVE to be played by Michael Clarke Duncan. Of course, I'd sneak a Lynx-O, Ben Gali, and Pumyra cameo...which would definitely foreshadow the sequel.
This is all just talk. I may make it my escape for when stuff at NYU gets too overwhelming, and I have to prepare myself for that.
I'm pretty happy with where things are right now...as long as I know they are leading to something bigger, I'll be happy.
Writing for The Daily Journal remains satisfying, even though I'm not churning out stories as frequently as I was allowed last summer. It's really been an incredible opportunity to write professional health stories. I still get a tremendous satisfaction out of interviewing doctors and communicating scientific ideas to a wide audience.
However, NYU's current Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program class (SHERP 24, as opposed to my class, SHERP 25) recently launched their own website.
Check out Scienceline!
There's some very exciting things in there that may not be immediately noticeable to you, but as a budding science journalist, I've caught them immediately.
Perhaps the most exciting thing that I saw were interviews with people from the National Institute of Health. There have been many times where I would have LOVED to have done interviews outside of Cumberland County for some of my health stories. In fact, some story ideas that have been thrown at me (like child-onset aphasia) simply cannot be done within the confines of Cumberland County.
However, there are some things that serve as a harsh reminder of my reality...I'm still a student, and a few of the articles focus on NYU faculty. This reminds me of when I couldn't get any interviews for my feature story about Airborne that was published in Unbound.
My Airborne story
This was an attempt by me to achieve something big, something that no one else had really covered...and when I tried to get interviews, I had to tell the truth and admit I was nothing more than a college student. However, since I now write for Gannett, I may have an easier time securing interviews.
But what excites me more than anything about something like Scienceline is that the NYU SHERP students have bonded and collaborated on a project dedicated to science journalism. I really felt like I was on my own as far as generating story ideas and double- and triple-checking my stories for the Science and Health column of The Signal. Now, I will be with a class filled with people as dedicated to this sort of thing as I am.
So the prospect of doing SHERP is extremely exciting. But what about all the other writing that I do?
I'll have probably THE most important thing I've done for Lee's Toy Review published in a couple of weeks. Wait...scratch that. Celebration III was the most important thing I've done for Lee's because that was a phenomenal way for me to feel like a press correspondent. But what I have coming in August is important for it's content. I'm the only one who's going to have this kind of review to my writing credits. AND there's talk that I may get to cover Celebration IV...except that's going to require some advance payment to cover the plane and hotel. We'll see. My fingers are crossed.
Then there's the playwriting thing. I really want to do this again. When I had the opportunity to do it for college, I had a play written in three hours. I'm not sure that NYU will allow me the time to do something like that. There's some secret desire for me to write a "Thundercats" script. Yes, it's extremely ambitious. Yes, it stands no chance of ever becoming a movie or anything. But damn it, I have an idea racing through my head, and I keep seeing it working out! I can see the teaser...a perfect live-action recreation of the beginning of each Thundercats cartoon episode. I can see the plot...a combination of "Exodus," which explains the origin of the Thundercats, and the Anoitment Trials, where Lion-O truly earned the title of Lord of the Thundercats. I'd make the mutants actually pose a threat, and I'd play around with more species than just Monkey, Jackal, Vulture, Rat, and whatever the heck S-S-Slithe was supposed to be. Mumm-Ra would be crazy cool. Panthro would HAVE to be played by Michael Clarke Duncan. Of course, I'd sneak a Lynx-O, Ben Gali, and Pumyra cameo...which would definitely foreshadow the sequel.
This is all just talk. I may make it my escape for when stuff at NYU gets too overwhelming, and I have to prepare myself for that.
I'm pretty happy with where things are right now...as long as I know they are leading to something bigger, I'll be happy.
posted by Ben Leach @ 4:04 PM
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