No one ever told me how hard it is to write an editorial.
When you start out writing an editorial, it’s great. “Oooooh, 400 words!” you think to yourself “On any topic I like! How wonderful!”
And then you sit there. And you start writing. And after 98 words you realise you have no idea where this is going.
So you stop, you press delete, and you jump on Facebook because that’s where you find inspiration, right?
Except Facebook is boring because it’s 10:30am and all your friends are in class, at work, or puking their guts out due to the mysterious virus that has swept through your sharehouse like the bubonic plague.
Ok, back to work. Let’s start again. Let’s use the theme for the issue as inspiration.
Except then you realise that you don’t really have anything deep or insightful or controversial to say about the theme. Activism? Great. I’m an Activist. I went to a rally with 30,000 other people on the weekend. I love a good spot of marching and yelling. My favourite part of 1984 was the “Three Minutes’ Hate”.
Wait, what?
Bugger it. I’ll go eat breakfast. And then I’ll clean the kitchen. That will clear my head.
Ok, 11am. I have to be in the office in two hours. I’m not showered. Or dressed. Or even slightly presentable. Shit.
226 words. I can do this.
Ok, I’ll check The Age’s website. Malaysian Airlines flight still missing? Pilot suspected of hijacking? Bloody hell. Hope they’ve cleared that issue up by the time I board one of their flights in June.
What about The Guardian? March in March won’t achieve anything? Tell that to the 30,000 people who happily took three hours to march from the State Library to the Treasury Gardens.
Ok, still nothing. And it’s 11:30am.
I’ll ask Andrew for help. He tells me I’m doing a shit job at writing my editorial if I’m asking him for help. Ouch.
I’ll check Twitter. SBS wants me to retune my TV so I can keep watching SBS. I do it on the grounds that I deeply enjoy watching the weird documentaries that they keep showing on SBS2 at night. They make excellent conversation starters.
Hey, 370 words!
I’m nearly there, the end is in sight. I ask my housemate Edie for some ideas.
“You should write about what a great housemate I am!”
Oh fuck it, I’ll just go straight to the credits.
Thanks
My parents and nanna for the food (again), Dot for the massages, Barta for the jar of Nutella, Declan and Daniel for putting together a whole special edition – top effort gang
No Thanks
The shower door for falling off and nearly knocking me out, the air conditioning for always being turned to “sub-arctic”, people who lack the ability to adhere to deadlines – stop that right now.
