Truth be told, I didn't really know what I wanted to be, but I had just gotten this sweet scuba diver Barbie and the kid next to me had already claimed Batman.
My teacher told us we should grow up and do something we loved to do. What did I like to do? I liked to play with my younger sister - not silly noob games like "house" or "babysitter" or "school," mind you, but really complex adventure sagas about cowgirls and Indians or ninjas and spies - and I liked to play Barbies (they were also often cowgirls/ninja/spies/superstars who raced around the basement in bright pink Jeep Cherokees on the hunt of the Evil Kitty Nala), and I made up stories. A lot. I scribbled before I could write, but I drew pictures so I knew the general storyline. But I didn't think that was something you could actually do for a living.
But later that afternoon, when I approached my teacher and confessed that I had lied (because even as a first grader I was a good girl), she told me five words that have stuck in my head ever since.
"You could be an author."
Granted, it was a little while later that I put two and two together and figured majoring in author didn't necessarily mean a steady income. But my love for writing and English and vocabulary quizzes and DOL exercises never ceased, and then I joined a journalism class my sophomore year of high school.
BAM. Writing. Steady(ish) income. Not having to worry about drowning 543659847 feet deep in the ocean.
And so by the end of my sophomore year, I had secured the editor-in-chief position of The Massie Quarterly newspaper for the following year and had pretty much decided I was going to school for journalism and minoring in awesome or psychology.
It took a little experience to fine-tune my journalistic desires, but I knew by my senior year that I wanted to pursue entertainment journalism.
- I was an avid Entertainment Weekly and People magazine fan and I would dieeeee to have the job Michael Ausiello had at EW.
- I had/have no desire to report about wars or politics or other scary things that may involve me becoming a hostage somewhere.
- People need some light, fluffy journalism.
But entertainment journalism is where I want to be. And when those skeptics say "Oh man, I had to cover the most boring court case ever yesterday" and I'm all, "Oh, that sucks, I had lunch with Steven Spielberg, we're like BFF now" and their jaws just drop ... I'm just going to shrug. And then smile, and offer them an autographed head shot of my man Steve.
I believe, that done correctly, entertainment journalism can be taken just as seriously as business or community news journalism. After all, there's the universal human aspect, just magnified to celebrity status.
Honestly, it's not the celebrities that make entertainment appeal to me as much as it is the characters they play and the stories they help tell. As a writer, I'm much more invested in the story-telling aspect of Hollywood, and sometimes I forget that the actors and actresses are, you know, real people. It's likely that I'd have a hard time running into Hayden Christensen and not calling him Anakin, walking by Neil Patrick Harris and recognizing him sans Barney Stinson suit or seeing Andrew Garfield and ... not passing out.
I don't feel as if I've really gotten a taste of true entertainment journalism just yet, though. Even though I've been writing movie and TV reviews for Speakeasymag.com for two years now, it's sort of difficult to find a gold-star celebrity walking around Athens, Ohio. And I'm just not all that interested in the like 6 local bands that are covered to death by the Post, ACRN, etc.
But everybody's got to start somewhere, even if it's by lying to your first grade teacher.
(Haven't thought of a catchphrase yet, but you'll be the first to know when I do)
Holly
