Doors Closing, Others Opening

Sometimes things end with a huge bang, bursts of smoke and lots of noise.

Other times things end with a whimper, a whisper or an uncanny sigh.

Sometimes stuff just ends.

So it is that after working as a "perma-lancer" for the last 15 years for a single newspaper entity, my work is done.

Yesterday I received word that there is no more money for the stories I wrote and poured my heart into.

Just like that, the door closed. It was a pretty powerful slam.

Essentially I lost a major client, since I am self-employed. I have a few other folks I write for on occasion but this was my bread and butter. This was consistent and constant and I lived and breathed it.

It was also my joy. I cannot tell you what it meant to me to be the person who interviewed interesting folks and reported on them, the person who spent time at meetings and then worked hard to explain what happened so that everyone could understand it.

I loved writing my little stories, my vignettes of someone's life and the stuff that makes up the day to day news.

I did the job well, as a number of Virginia Press Association Awards will attest. I worked hard and I took the job seriously. If I said I would be at a meeting, only an ambulance ride would have kept me away.

I am told it is difficult to find freelancers who are true to their word and who will continue to produce near-perfect copy and who require little editing and oversight. But that is me. It's how I have always done things. I always tried to determine my editor's needs and I met them in the best way I knew how.

Now I will take a long hard look at myself. Maybe with a little repackaging I can find a new route. New clients and new stories of a different kind are perhaps in my future.

Maybe this time I will find a career path that will lend me down even more exciting venues. Perhaps they will be more lucrative, but I honestly have never been in it for the money.

I have been a newspaper writer for the love of the word, the ability to share and teach the public, and the pure unadulterated joy of being part of my community in a way that made sense and worked for me.

I write because it is the way I share parts of myself and the world. It is how I express what I am thinking and feeling.

It is who I am, and now who I am must be revisited.

While I am sad at this change, and a little worried about my financial future, a part of me is excited at this opportunity. My calendar, filled with reoccurring appointments in the form of town council and other meetings, is suddenly a vibrant mostly white blank, another page for me to fill.

Filing cabinets full of newspaper material will be empty, and I will have to find something else to fill them.

And maybe, who knows - this is the time to write that book.