Taking Risks

Accomplished today: Major brainstorming, one informal query to an editor I've worked with before, some minor market research, organized my office.

Music mood: Pump it Up, by Elvis Costello

I'm having one of those reflective, life-is-good kind of days.

Maybe it's the fact that when I walked outside at 6 a.m. to let the dog out, I heard birds chirping -- which any Michigander knows is a sign that Spring really will get here eventually. Maybe it's because my daughter played so well on her own today that I was able to get some major brainstorming done. Or maybe it's because my last client paid me without even needing an invoice. All are reasons enough to put me in a good mood.

Anyway, one of the things I've been reflecting on today is the course of my career. How did I get here? How did I actually realize my dream of being a freelance writer? I started jotting notes and quickly discovered a theme.

Taking risks.

I have a bit of a split personality on this issue. On the one hand, I'm a total rule follower. I never speed. I never run in the far left lane at the gym track because that's for walkers. And I never try to sneak 11 items into the express lane at the grocery store.

Yet, when it comes to my career, I have always broken the rules.

In college, when conventional wisdom demanded that I work at the award-winning student newspaper, I instead chose to work at the local weekly paper. It paid off, because I was given major assignments that directly competed with the local daily paper. The local daily noticed and recruited me when I graduated.

People in the news business like to say that once you leave, you can never come back. But my decision to leave newspapers for a few years and work as a senior writer for a university has paid off ten-fold. It broadened my horizons, opened up new writing avenues and gave me time to work on my craft.

Anyway, my point is that I owe so much of my career to calculated risks. I did things people say you're not supposed to do.

Writers must always be willing to take risks. Create unpopular characters. Have the bad guy win in the end. Don't let anyone tell you that rules can never be broken.