How many kilobytes can your heart hold?
LIGAYA A. REGIS
Division Supervisor, Journalism
I saw this certificate in my brother’s room while I was helping him clean up. I wanted to cry when I saw the name. Mrs. Regis used to be the Journalism adviser of my high school’s campus paper. She was the only teacher who made me cry. I cried not because she treated me harshly, but because during my second year in high school, she said goodbye to us. She was promoted to a higher position. There was no doubt about her promotion. During her stay in our high school as a Journalism adviser, our school was in the top 10 high school papers in the whole country for 10 years. She was that good… and that’s also the reason why she has a special place in my heart.
I started writing when I was six or seven. I kept a diary, and I would write all sorts of stories, poems, essays, etc. On my fourth grade in elementary school, I tried signing up as a writer for our school paper, but I failed. I tried every year until my sixth grade, but I never got in.
I finally graduated and moved to high school. I have heard about Mrs. Regis in the past, and so I was a bit scared of signing up. I still tried, though.. And I got in. She accepted twenty students from hundreds of first-year students. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was just pure luck, but still, I did my best. I listened well every time she discussed lessons on how to write news articles, feature stories, opinion pieces, sports articles, etc. She let us to get a feel of the different kinds of sections in our school paper, and she encouraged us to write for the section where we excelled. I wrote for the features. She rarely made us write about a topic that she thought of — she trained us to think, brainstorm, and come up with our own ideas. I could really say that it was her who made me fall in love with writing. She helped us sharpen our skills according to our own pace and style.
During the last few months of my second year in high school, she made the announcement that made me cry. She got promoted to a higher position, and so she has to leave our school and start working in the Department of Education’s office. As I sat at the back of our school paper’s office, I tried my best to not let the tears fall from my eyes… but I failed. I looked away and muffled my cry into silent sobs. The next year, she was replaced by another teacher. I don’t know if I got used to having an excellent teacher like Mrs. Regis or if she’s really a bad journalism teacher, because she sucked big time. I started avoiding meetings because I hated how I never learned anything from her. I could write more about her but that’s another story.
Anyway, I stayed until my fourth year in high school just for the sake of being a writer in our school paper. One time, the teacher who replaced told us that we’re going to to a general cleaning of all the files in our office. While I was looking through old records and papers, I saw Mrs. Regis’ class record where she our grades for the articles we wrote. I was surprised to see that among the twenty students that she accepted during my first year, I got the highest average.
I just couldn’t believe what I saw, especially because I felt so intimidated by her excellency in her job and the great skills of my classmate. Sometimes I think that maybe she made a mistake in grading my papers, but deep inside I felt very happy. She was the first person to make me feel like I actually have writing skills.
I haven’t hear anything from her since then. She probably doesn’t remember me anymore, but the tears that almost fell from my eyes when I saw this certificate proves how much I am thankful for getting to know her. She’s now the supervisor for dozens of high school journalism classes, and I’m sure that she will get promoted again someday. She’s amazing, and I wish I can thank her for building up my self-confidence in writing. If not for her, my Tumblr would just be another generic “reblog blog”. Haha :P
Plinky: Do you prefer to write notes on paper or on an electronic device?
I still prefer the traditional way of journal writing. Although it’s easier and faster to type on a keyboard, I feel that writing on paper with ink has more ‘feelings’ to it. My handwriting changes depending on what’s currently happening in my life. Am I in a hurry? I’d probably write in illegible scribbles. Am I angry? I’d probably write heavily and in big letters. Am I in love? I’d probably use cursive writing. I also draw on the edges of my journal notebook — it’s something that I can’t do on a computer (unless I upload photos). Sometimes I stick related stuff on my journal like tickets to a concert, dried petals of a flower, small printed pictures of me and my friends, etc.
I have been writing a journal since I was ten. I use different notebooks for my journals — big sketchbooks, small notepads, ordinary notebooks, etc. I have accumulated almost two dozen journals since I started, and I definitely won’t stop soon!
You’ve never heard of me, but there’s a good chance that you’ve read some of my work. I’m a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can’t detect, that you can’t defend against, that you may not even know exists.
I read this from the beginning to end! In a way, I was able to relate to him because I am a shadow writer, too. However, I do NOT write for students. The company I work for provides essays and articles for marketing purposes. Our job is to write articles that are informative enough to convince online consumers to purchase our clients’ products. I may not be as ‘good’ as him but I feel his sentiments about stepping up to the client’s crazy demands and almost impossible deadlines.
Today, I signed up for *something* (not gonna tell you what that is, but it has something to do with writing), and they asked me to show them samples of my work. They also told me that I can just link them to a website, portfolio or blog, if I have one. I have been working as a web content writer/online ‘ghost’ writer for some time now. Although I’m not claiming to be an excellent writer, I feel that whatever talent I have for writing is improving. I really have to be careful with my words, haha. I don’t want to be labeled as a braggart, because I know that I have nothing to brag about.
Anyway, I was able to submit a few articles that I have written as a web content writer. It’s a good thing that I never delete the articles that I write. However, I realized that it would be better if I had an ‘online portfolio’ of some sort where I can regularly write. When I was asked for a blog, the first thing that I thought of was this blog, but there’s NO WAY that I’m gonna link them to this site. NO. FREAKING. WAY.
I can start writing sensible posts today, but I don’t want to change the theme of this blog. It just means that I can’t post FFUUUUUU images anymore. No more photos of sexy girls and handsome guys. It signals the end of reblogging cute stuff. Besides, this Tumblr blog is almost like an ‘online diary’ to me, and this is a place where I can vent and rant about anything under the sun.
I wonder if I should start a new, ‘serious’ blog. Writing for leisure more often would probably be a good way to improve my writing skill. I won’t have to lie anymore when I write ‘10’ on résumé’s that ask me to rate my written communication skills. It’s really an advantage to —-
Hold on. What was that?
I think I just heard the lazy side of me shouting in protest against the idea. Oh well.
- A conversation about my opinion on the difference between infatuation and love with my ex-boyfriend
- Hypocrisy
- The things that I need to change to become a better person
- Other people’s smelly shoes
- A song that I used to like
- My new friends
- The things I want to happen before Christmas
- The choices that I have to make soon
- The amazing feeling in my heart whenever small children call me ‘teacher’
I wish I can write about them but I’m always busy. When I’m not busy, I don’t feel like writing. Whenever I travel, I can think of a thousand things to write about, but when I get home, everything would be gone.
Maybe I should start scribbling down thoughts while I’m traveling.
As some of you may know, I write to earn money. It’s true that I love to write — I have been faithfully doing that since high school. However, some people confuse my job as conventional writing. As much as I would like to do that and get paid for it, I can’t.
This is what I do:
A website content writer is a person who specializes in providing relevant text content to websites. Their expertise lies in adapting themselves to whatever particular website demands of them to compose. Most of their work centers on marketing products or services that sites are selling or endorsing.
Function of content writers:
1. Write content that would entice and engage visitors, so they stay browsing in the owner’s website. This operates on the premise that visitors who stay longer surfing a particular site [which offer some sort of product/service] will eventually become clients/customers.
2. Write content that is keyword smart, meaning composition must contain relevant keywords/phrases [typed by users for searching] associated with the actual site for better Search Engine indexing and ranking.
3. Maximize user readability; usability; together with being up-to-date so that the company represented in the site conveys a sense of awareness on what is current and new to the industry in which they are operating are important aspects of quality web content.
4. Write content that will serve like a sales representative or marketing person of the company. Its function therefore is to interact with the visitor to the site about the purchase.
5. Aims at two things i.e., relevance and searchability. Relevance means that the meanings represented by texts should be useful and beneficial to readers. searchability indicates usage of keywords to help ease findings by search engines.
Online Writers vs. Conventional Writers:
Writing online is very different from composing /constructing content for printed materials as surfers tend to scan instead of read in the internet. Skipping what they think is unnecessary information and hunting for what they really want. It’s estimated that 79% of users scan web content. It is also said that it takes 25% more time to scan content online compared to print content. Content writers must have the skills to not only insert paragraphs and headlines with keywords for Search Engine Optimization purposes, but also to make sure their composition makes sense so that they will be able to tap their target market.
Since most websites need fresh content regularly, we must work on our articles quickly — usually, we are only given 24 hours to finish 5-10 articles (each article having 200-500 words each). The company I work for have clients with different products and so we write topics about almost anything under the sun: relationships, hair, costumes, gadgets, product reviews, sex enhancement, forex, guitar lessons, weight loss, vaginal warts, travel, nutrition, skin care, stuffed toys, bathroom tiles, bedsheets, kitchen furniture, football, baldness, card games, insurance, cell phones, student loans, web traffic, hypnosis, anxiety, pets, weddings… anything. I’m just thankful that the company I work for allows us to choose the topics that we want to write based on the list of topics demanded by the clients. I have learned that it is possible to write about something, even if you have no idea what the topic is — a writer must have good research skills.
When I was younger, I thought that being a writer means waking up, sipping coffee, living in quiet house, writing about my life and anything that interests me, and traveling around the world, armed with a camera and a journal in my hand.
I guess I was wrong. :D
So I’m here in the office and I have nothing to do. I have finished every single thing that Sir Harold asked me to do and I’m waiting for him to arrive so that he can give me new tasks. Problem is, he arrives at around 11:30AM-12:00PM every Thursdays. I have no idea what to do to waste time.
I wish I could finish the set of articles that is due later in the afternoon for my other part time job (content writing), but my current assignment is to review some online flash games and I can’t do that here in the office. Yeah, I’m writing reviews about online flash games like Naruto, zombie games, car racing games, etc. How funny/weird is that? It doesn’t bother me, though. I have been getting bad topics recently (luxury bedding sets, hotel reviews, scar removal, etc.) and it has been a while since I got an easy set. *sigh* When would I be able to grab a nice set again? Too bad, good sets like spicing up marriage and music reviews get taken easily.
Truth: I don’t know how to whistle.
