50th Suite101.com article published!

I've been visiting friends outside the country, and then managing a restaurant for 50+ hours a week. Hence my absence. Sorry! Anyways, about my soundtrack review articles...

They’re all here. I tend to write more reviews for Suite101 than I do for this blog because, hey, they pay me to do it! The downside is that, it being a journalistic website, I have to be far more professional. But the money I earn from the gig makes up for that. Kinda.

And now that I’ve written 50 of ‘em, I get a 10% pay increase! I still can’t believe, more than a year after landing this freelance job, that I’m actually getting paid to listen to and write about film soundtracks. Admittedly, the pay is peanuts, but still: I’m getting genuinely published, and getting my writing exposed to a wider audience; and doing it by writing about my favourite hobby! I’ve actually gotten in contact with a couple major composers in the film and videogame industries through publishing on this website, and it will be cool to see where things go from here.

This gig was the first instance in which I ever had to write in a journalistic style (i.e. far less personal and casual than I’m used to being), and the website’s strict formatting/composition rules make it a bit hard to be descriptive and engaging, but I’ve certainly learned a lot about being articulate and concise in my writing: the gig requires conveying an accurate, serviceable overview of my topic with less than 600 words.

Basically, these articles write themselves as long as I’ve had enough time to listen thoroughly to the album I’m reviewing (typically 5 or 6 times through), and as long as I have an hour to devote to typing out my thoughts. The only complicated part is finding good quality pictures of the composers whose music I’m reviewing.

In a nutshell, I’ve learned a lot about acceptable, publishable writing since getting this job, and I only wish I had more time to devote to it.

Plus, this gig has looked really good on my resume. :-D

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Hopefully sometime soon I can post here more regularly. In my list of priorities, this blog has gone done pretty far. Things are starting to finally calm down and get settled for me, though, so I should be back on here fairly often again pretty soon. I haven't forgotten you! Stay tuned!