Julie's Web Journal

Her assignment, which Scalzi picked up for his weekly assignment: Take a picture of an award or plaque or certificate.

Somewhere in a box are some certificates from school days. I wasn't much of an award winner, though I did manage third place in a city-wide essay contest in high school and somehow earned a II on a vocal solo piece in junior high. Yeah, you're impressed. I knew you would be! ;-)

I have a couple of awards sort of related to writing, though nothing as cool as a Campbell award. One is stuffed away in a file somewhere. It was the first-ever presented by a local Sherlockian society in their annual contest. The idea was to concoct a way for Sebastian Moran to actually do in Sherlock Holmes and get away with the deed. My entry and the award are in a file somewhere, but darned if I can find them.

My other award dates all the way back to 1988. One of our local newspapers pioneered an online service called StarText. That link goes to a Wikipedia article about the service. Unfortunately, most other references to it have vanished off of the web. I can credit StarText with my start in freelance writing. One of the cool things about StarText was its community aspect: they encouraged subscribers to write columns. I started off with a humor column that was called (I didn't make this one up) "Bareit." Let the groaning commence. That column was actually picked up by a local print newspaper. I was only compensated for that in copies, but it gave me a start on a clip file. More columns followed. I wrote about Timex1000 computing, and that column got referenced in an early book about online services. I added another column about British TV. That had a wide following. At the time I worked for a radio station in Dallas, and I added another weekly piece on happenings in the Dallas area.

But wait, as they say on TV, there's more. My bud L. and I started an online soap opera set in the Silicon Valley, and helped start a couple of chain novels. L. and I also worked on a few bits for April Fools Day each year. Those were fun. Eventually I was asked to write a column for the print companion to the online service. I'd come up with a different theme every month and highlight aspects of the service in relation to the theme.

In 1988 StarText decided they would honor a columnist every quarter. I was the second person to get the award:

The plaque is a little nicked, but it still hangs in a place of pride in my office. And somewhere (in those files!) is a picture of the publisher of the newspaper handing the award to a very pregnant moi.

But back to the rest of the story. The Timex column led to a call from a local computer publication asking me to do a review of the new Sinclair QL. (Yes, QL stood for Quantum Leap.) That was my first paying gig, and that led to a few more bits for that paper and a column on online communications with a statewide computer paper.

But just to show how some things go full circle, my first freelance sale has a relation to my first professional mainstream publishing sale. (Yeah, I need to rescan that, not to mention redesign the page!)

I can't say that the award itself led to anything, but it was kind of cool to be one of the first recipients.

So there ya go.

Tags: Pictures, Writing, Monday Photo Shoot