photo property of Mountain Freepress

I cannot seem to get enough details about who I am and what I am supposed to do in this world.  This week a trail of web links led me to The Authentic Happiness website where I took a 240 question VIA Survey of Character Strengths.  The Authentic website is based on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Department at Pennsylvania University.  The site has almost two million users and all the resources are FREE.  With such questionnaire headers as Life Satisfaction, Meaning and Emotion I could be there all day if real life was not scratching at the door.  As it was, the character inventory took longer than I would have liked, about 40 minutes (see the Brief Strengths Test for a shorter survey), but in the end I was left with what I consider to be a fairly accurate list of where my energy and verve live. 

 

 

Who I Am or the Results

 

My top three character strengths according to the Authentic Happiness Testing Center:

 

  1. Curiosity and Interest in the World

 

  1. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence

 

  1. Love of Learning

 

 

What to Do with These Hippie Traits?

 

According to these results I am a consummate student, which I already knew and was a big part of the reason I came to the website in the first place.  Being a student is not a career or purpose.  It is a way of life.  While I am content enjoying the beauty and excellence of the journey, I would love to enhance the experience with a little guidance in the direction department.  Where can I best be utilized?  Where can I do the most good? 

 

Fortunately, these questions only had to simmer for a week before the answers bubbled up. 

 

 

Arts and Entertainment Freelancing

 

 

I had signed up for a writing workshop titled The Basics of Arts and Entertainment Freelancing.  Arts and Entertainment covers such areas as reviews (book, film, music), interviews (Q and A and profiles), and cultural event coverage (art fairs, concerts, gallery openings).  Prior to the class we were to create a sample Query or Pitch Letter to be dissected.  So I diligently Googled sample query letter and learned the basics of designing a letter that will make magazine/newspaper/online publication editors want to snuggle with me.  Then I wrote one.  And it was not difficult.  The only drag in my flow was my byline; where I list my published writing credits or clips.  I have no clips.  So I found an article titled How Do I Get Writing Jobs if I Have No Clips? It supplied me with options such as: Use website/blog writing and list specialized knowledge or subjects you have read about extensively.  And that is what I did.

 

I attended the five-hour workshop with five other beginner freelancers.  The instructor, Kathryn Savage, was at the same point in her writing life four years ago, that I am at now.  She had no clips.  Now she has clips galore in various publications from City Pages to The Harvard Review.  She gave us her secrets and a good dose of encouragement.  My favorite part of the class was reading a music feature Kathryn had written for Minneapolis’s City Pages (free alternative weekly publication). This was a profile story titled Doomtree’s Cecil Otter Finds His Voice Apart from the Rap Pack.  The interview was a flowing piece about a hip hop artist and his band.  It was more than an advertisement for a new CD.  It was a short story about their life experiences, artistic influences, underlying spirituality, and other intriguing morsels teased out by Kathryn.  All my senses were awake.  I would do that kind of work/writing for nothing.

 

Another fascinating part about free-lancing and, for me, arts and entertainment free-lancing in particular, is that you get to pick your topic and then find a built-in audience through an established publication.  Find a subject that piques your passion and then submit a pitch letter to an editor. Granted there has to be an interest in the subject, but if there is an event scheduled showcasing an artist you can bet there is some love there already.  Of course, content must be mind blowing and there is still the matter of accumulating clips but…

 

Connecting an artist to the world through questions and writing appeals to me on the highest level.  It ticks all my boxes: curiosity about the world, appreciation of beauty, love of learning.

 

 

The Power of Awareness

 

 

The overt awareness of these strengths, the fact that they were recently planted in the soil of my consciousness, and the water and sun of coincidence, made the connection burst into the open.  I knew writers possess strong observation skills, love to dig on existence and are ecstatic about beauty but did not know they are allowed to pitch ideas.  I always thought a complete work was required for submission.  Subjects are waiting to be picked.  I understood that sharing the world through words was a writer’s gift, but now I know how to do that.  I have direction.  I also have a more narrow field to cover, so I do not become an exhausted student popping no-doze (I am so dating myself here) to stay up all night writing full pieces on broad topics that never get picked up.  I can use the flexibility of free-lancing and the power of my curiosity to guide me down the path.

 

Take some time to think about your character strengths.  Write them down.  Plant seeds. Let them grow in your consciousness.   Let them bloom where they do the most good.

P.S.  I intend to unleash my possible inner-freelancer in the fall when my kids are back to school and I can really chase the arts and entertainment world.:)

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