A writing assignment!

I work in education – for the customer service department of a large private college here in London. I spent a lot of the second half of last year off sick, and am only now coming back to real, proper full time work (this week will mark my first full-time week back in the office, and believe me, I’ll be celebrating this weekend. In a quiet and careful way, because my energy levels are still pretty dubious).

Anyway, all of that isn’t what I want to write about.

I want to write about one of the cool things that’s happened since I got back to work. I am part of the team that’s producing our brand new Customer Service Newsletter – the first edition just came out, and I’m on board for the second issue and going onwards. As the customer service rep for the newsletter, I get to act out the role of reporter, visiting a couple of our regional colleges and interviewing some of their customer service staff.

It’s not the first time I’ve had a writing obligation, but it’s the first time that Writing Actual Words has been part of a job for which I get paid. It’s also the first time that the Actual Words have needed to be fact instead of fiction. I’m getting quite excited with the process of working out interview questions, scoping out potential interviewees, and even the physical preparation of things like borrowing a digital camera (from a lovely colleague of mine) and a dictaphone (from our equally lovely staff training team).

It’s also the first time I’ll be subject to serious editing and the first time that I’m unlikely to be personally involved in the editing process. At least according to the experience of my manager, who wrote for Issue 1.

All in all it feels like A Big Thing for my tiny, larval-stage writing career. A big scary thing in some ways, and a big exciting thing in others, but definitely a big thing! Words are required, actual words that sound professional and are the kind of things that my editor wants to publish. Preparation is required in order to make sure I get the most out of the visits I’ll be making. I’m making expenses claims, taking a trip to Birmingham, and making contact with all kinds of people I don’t know. There’s a file on my desktop entitled “Article ideas”. It has actual ideas in it. I’m really doing this. And the hardest part of it is having to wait – I don’t get to do any of this stuff until next week!

In the meantime, I’ll be taking phone calls and answering emails. And hunting down tips for budding journalists on the internet. And making sure that all my technology works.

Wish me luck?

Tagged as: producing words, stories from my world