A Pony in the Writing Stable

This morning, as I made coffee, an idea swirled in my head--I've been assuming that to find a job where I'd be using my writing skills, I'd need to be a freelance writer.  I've been assuming that without a surprise best seller, I wouldn't be able to make a living with my writing skills.

But what if that's not true?

I started thinking about the kinds of jobs that might need my writing skills.  I'd like to do more than write accreditation documents, so I've been thinking about jobs outside academia.  I wonder if PR departments (do we call them PR anymore?  they've probably morphed into social media somethings) still hire staff writers.

I remember one of my jobs I had as a student, writing for our college PR department.  That was back in the days when each small town still had a local newspaper, and many of those newspapers were happy to run feature stories about students from the community.  I wrote some of those stories, and I was good at it.  It was a thrill to see my work in print, even as I knew that everyone was benefiting from my work--newspapers got free stories, the college got cheap publicity.  Heck, I was benefiting too--I've rarely been paid so well purely for writing.

Could I find a job at a retreat center or an institute where I'd do a lot of writing about ideas that are important to me?  I'm willing to do other things too--run conferences, go to visit local institutions, create both onground and online retreats.

As I created the meditation on this Sunday's gospel reading that I create every week, I thought about the people who create resources that are used widely.  I don't know if much of that work is done by freelancers.  But someone must be in charge of managing the freelancers.

Well, time for me to get ready for this day.  It will not be the type of day in the office that I like--it will be a day full of meetings and grumblings and a luncheon that is not supposed to generate extra work but probably will.