Patrick Stumbles Through Journalism

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all well. I'm on Spring Break right now, and watching Scarface for the first time. It dawned on me I hadn't written a blog this break yet, and I should at least write weekly. Not to mention my History reading for a class is really boring (fingers crossed my Prof. doesn't find this!😅) I might try and create a schedule for when to post, so that it's a bit more consistent. Don't quote me on that.

So, as I said in my last blog, I'd talk about Journalism, or rather my stumbling through it. I wouldn't call myself a Journalist, and it's not writing that I passionately want to do as my job. No offense to Journalists, it's just not entirely my thing.

So about last year I figured "Hey? Why not take my hand at Journalism? It might be an easy way to make some money." The later part was my first mistake. So Lesson #1 of Don't Do What Patrick Did: Don't think Journalism is a way to make a quick buck.

Now my mindset was, I could write articles about trains, which I'm passionate about, perhaps help give some organizations some well needed spot-light, like the Indiana Transportation Museum, which I felt would be easy. Right? Wrong.

It turns out article writing takes as long as fiction writing, and requires a fair share of drafts. I realized later on that there were different standards for articles, such as writing paragraphs with only 3 sentences. It took me a while to get the swing of article writing.

After writing my article, I began to find the emails of magazine editors that were train related. Some had requirements to have photos, some about a specific era of railroading, such as the 60's, 70's, 80's, as I learned.Well, I did get a response from one of the editors of Trains Magazine. I felt deeply honored by this, I read articles by the editor before.

So I sent him my "article." I say "article" because it was in actuality a 10+ page document, I want to say 15 pages, with 5-7 sentence essays. So Lesson #2 and #3 Of Don't Do What Patrick Did, Don't write with paragraphs longer than 3 sentences, and keep your essay as short as possible. I recommend 2000-3000 words, or about 4 pages.

I've learned a lot since the summer of 2018. Some things I learned the hard way. In regards to the ITM, I figured I'd gather exclusive information on the ITM with a poll. This is something I'd end up regretting. Now I'm not saying "Don't do a survey about an organization," or "Don't do your own research," definitely do that, but know the situation.

For those who don't know, the ITM went through a lot of controversy in July of 2018 when moving from Forest Park in Noblesville, with historic pieces being scrapped. I held this survey shortly after this passed, when the final move out day set by the courts, July 12, passed. So Lesson #4 of Don't Do What Patrick Did, be careful when you hold surveys after a controversial event.

The biggest mistake I made was adding a little "comedy" in my first survey question. I had the question "What do you think of the ITM?" The options were good, bad, and worse than Steamtown.

Now for those who don't know, (So all my readers 😆), Steamtown is a federal organization in Pennsylvania that has one of the largest collections of steam locomotives in the US. It's controversial because many of their steam locomotives are exposed to the elements and are rusty.

Now, needless to say, when I look back on that, I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't dislike Steamtown, for some reason I imagined people getting a kick out of it.

This did not happen.

That survey was a disaster. I got responses such as "You don't know what you're talking about," and criticized (fairly) for adding "comedy" in the survey. For a long time I stopped working on the article. I also left a steam locomotive related Facebook group because of the back lash I faced. So Lesson #5 of Don't Do What Patrick Did, don't use comedy in a survey that mocks an organization, even if unintentional. Thankfully, I can say I've grown some tougher skin because of this, and also matured.

Coming to college I realized the mistakes I made on the article covering the ITM, and resolved to expand my writing skills. I've published four articles with my school paper, and hope to publish some more in the near future. I might put the links in a future blog post, though I'll have to wait and see on that, as that would reveal on the internet land where I live, and I'd prefer not to do that.

As you might've realized by my last blog post, my article hasn't been published yet. Don't think I haven't tried. I've made changes the Trains Magazine editor asked for, made sure its relevant still, and worked doing interviews. If I have to publish it on here for it to be read, I will, though I'd prefer not to. As can be seen with my interview with Mr. McConnell, I'm still working to get it published. Well, that's all from me for now. I've got some history readings I need to finish. I hope you're all doing well, and to my fellow writers, keep writing. And if you're not writing, start writing! Or do whatever you're passionate about. Here's Lesson #1 of Do What Patrick Learned from Others: Don't give up, no matter the challenges.

See you on the Tramway!