First Fruit of Blogathon-Confidence

Having something published is a big deal to me. The first positive effect of doing the blogathon revealed itself to me this week. This past Saturday, the editor of the local paper in Cape May called and asked if I could do a piece about the president honoring one of our local veterans at the Normandy celebration of D-Day. And he needed it roughly within 24 hours. I’ve been writing a little everyday, no problem.

I’d previously blogged about other veterans in town, and then when they were offered free and well-deserved beach tags.

Agreeing to write the article (and blog post), wasn’t what I referred to as the benefit of the blogathon, although it certainly helped. I think  my growing confidence from the blogathon helped in what happened next.

The layout person from the paper’s main office called with a question,  fact checking really.  I had to soften the opinion part of my article that overflowed from blogging into the straight news piece – no problem.

When I asked where the article would go in the paper (it’s okay to ask), the lay out person replied: “A-4 or 5.” I responded with: ” The President of the United States of America honors a local 90-year-old veteran on national television and you’ll bury the story?”

I’m not sure where that came from, other than feeling the man’s story should be told. Possibly though, the challenge of writing something every day (and the encouragement of copy editor friends), might just be bringing to the surface something new in me and I like it.

Our local paper, the Star and Wave,  is not a huge publication, but it has tenure in our town. While I was president of the local chamber of commerce, close friends and family jested that I liked my name “in” the paper.  Now, my name still gets in occasionally, but as a byline.