Thoughts of an Editor

Abby -  I always looked at the plaques lining the walls of George’s room—the ones with all the editors proudly displayed in forest green font—and wondered if maybe, just maybe, I could be up there one day.  But I always pushed the thought away because it seemed too far-fetched.  It was my lack of belief in myself, especially as a freshman and as a sophomore, too. I didn’t believe in my abilities...

Abby -  It’s not really having nothing to say—it’s not finding the right words to say them with. It’s getting angry at the words I do have that aren’t good enough for me. It’s recklessly using the words at my disposal, caring not about how abruptly and despairingly I pick them up, pocket them, and throw them away as quickly as I discovered them.  It’s wanting the contents of the dic...

Abby - When the first semester of freshman year—WFP—came to a close, it didn’t even cross my mind that I wouldn’t be continuing the path I so haphazardly stumbled upon.  I decided to continue, and I decided to stay, because of the pure rush I feel when a story I’ve worked tirelessly towards gets published and praised. I decided to continue, and I decided to stay, because of words and...

Abby - I remember so clearly the nervous energy dancing through the room during WFP when Ken George said that we would be learning our last type of story: features. He had been hyping them up for weeks, preparing us for the “hardest story” of the class, and I was actually terrified. WFP had gone well by this point—I won a lead contest, I was feeling comfortable with most of the stories, ...

Abby -  In the middle of my first day at the high school, I walked into a classroom that was set up in a completely different way than my previous classes—it looked backwards, upside down, turned around.  There were no desks—just a circle of chairs.  With a group of kids I had never seen before seated in the chairs, I immediately had second thoughts about joining a class I had never re...

Abby -  We know that I am endlessly attracted to words, so when I was flipping through the high school course catalog in eighth grade and saw “Writing for Publication” amongst every other extracurricular, I was instantly intrigued. Writing for the school’s newspaper sounded exciting and intense and fast-paced and fun; the description for the class in the catalog made it sound so appealing...

Abby - As I clicked on the document for our editor’s column, the third different article I’ve worked on for TCT tonight alone, a thought danced across my mind. A quick little waltz of a thought, a moment of pure, exasperated exhaustion. Why am I even doing this? It was clipped. It was sudden, but it was there. It was that thought amongst many others: it’s late, I want to go to bed, I�...