Opportunity Knocks

As some of you may know, I have a habit of buying writing magazines. Mostly I don't read them. Today, I bought two. I know, bold of me. Still, I went through them and marked all the things that are immediately of interest to me. I might read the rest, but for now I'm focusing on these parts. I don't buy them unless I can find at least one thing of interest in them to me. Normally if I find that one thing, I find another thing, too.

Today... a grand total of 16 pages marked for reading. Okay, pages means the double-page, not a single page. And it doesn't necessarily mean I'll read the whole thing. These are just places where there could be just one tiny section of interest to me, highlighted again. But other times there are a couple of articles on these pages that are of interest. It was kind of worth the money, this time!

What I hope to do, as a result of finding a few of these things, is take advantage of the opportunities available in them. There are competitions and submission opportunities highlighted that I want to actually do something about. I just felt the need to tell people about this. And really, bothering my friends with texts that are only of interest to me feels a bit weird. (Especially since about three people would get the same text, and one of them might reply...)

In other news (that was news?), I've begun to bother the people of Twitter for my new feature - I'm looking to "interview" people every Friday. This will entail a discussion of 1. them, personally (who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, etc.) and 2. the creative thing they do that has me getting in touch with them in the first place. I'm more drawn to writers, but as I'm also a fan of music I won't turn that down. This is to replace my Friday Friend feature from last year. Well, it's to change it. The old archive is about people I know, with nicknames I gave them for this blog. This new feature will have people's real names - if they use them online - but I won't specify if I know them or not. It occurs to me I'll be able to bother some people I do know, but that's a different matter.

So, why am I doing it? Well, firstly I want to network. I figure the best way to do that is to get a chat going. Through the personal discussion, I'll get to know the person better (and may continue to talk to them privately after the post) and through the other discussion I'll be showcasing new and interesting people to my readers (it feels weird to say I have readers, when it's mainly friends from college who aren't sick of my blog posts). The hope is that the people I interview will also link to the interview they're in, and maybe come back to see who else is being interviewed.

Secondly, I want a feature on my blog that actually interests me and won't dive into people's privacy without their permission. Bold Paul was bold last year. This new idea has me excited already, and I'll be bothering people who I think are suitable for this pretty soon!

Thirdly, I want the practice. As I plan on writing for a living, doing interviews and stuff like this early on will show that I'm fully capable of doing it later in life. I'll be working around college, too, so things will be a little bit busy for me throughout the year. And I'll have basically nothing to do in the summer...

So, if you're interested in being interviewed, please get in touch - if you comment, make sure that I can follow a link (either by including it in the comment or submitting it with your name when you post) so that I can see how suitable you are, and please have some way of being contacted through that - even a Twitter page will do! What I ask in return is that you answer the questions, keep in touch, link to the post (it's showcasing YOU anyway!) and maybe suggest other people afterwards (so I can keep the feature going).

Now, time for me to start answer the door to opportunity. It's raining tonight... must be soaked!