BetterBeerBlog

As you may or may not have noticed, I haven’t been publishing on the blog very much as of late. Part of it was because it started to feel like work. Whenever something I’m doing for fun starts to seem like work, it’s no longer fun. If you take into account how much money I “earn” doing this blog (essentially $0), there’s not much financial incentive to keep going.

So, I decided to take a little bit of a break. Not walking away entirely but not posting as much. I decided to turn my brain off for a bit when drinking a beer and just drink the beer. No more notepad jotting down the aroma and flavor. No more whipping out the camera to take a photo of my beers. Just sit back, relax and have a cold one. Truthfully, it felt good to just enjoy a beer.

The other part, the main reason I’ve been away from the blog, is because I’ve just wrapped up my first professional writing gig. Yep, I am a “professional” writer. Now, make no mistake, I do not honestly consider myself a professional writer in any capacity other than novice. There are people who write for a living. They’ve gone to school and learned how to write properly. They’ve busted their asses and paid their dues. And frankly, they’re talented. Me? I just happened to raise my hand.

So it’s no surprise that I contribute to Beer Connoisseur magazine’s online content every so often, probably not nearly as often as I should be. Their inaugural issue is set to come out early December and one of their regular series of articles is going to be their Innovator Series where, as the name would heavily suggest, they profile innovators in the craft beer industry. What better way to start off the Innovator Series than with the man who basically started it all: Fritz Maytag.

That’s where I come in.

I interviewed Fritz a couple of weeks ago and spent the time after the interview until just a few days ago writing up my article. It’s going to be one of the main pieces in the magazine. Altogether my piece should be about 5 pages or whatever approximately 2,400 words can fit into (truthfully I went a few hundred words over 2,400 but they were okay with it).

Writing for a personal blog and writing for someone else are completely different experiences. On this blog, I am able to free write. Sometimes I make sense, sometimes not, there’s no editor and no deadlines. How I write here is basically how I am when you meet me, except a little less handsome because this is just text. Writing for the magazine was a completely different experience altogether. My first draft was heavily edited and my editor basically told me to start over. Once I got the hang of it, it was just honing my prose down finer and finer until it was deemed complete. I had to change the tone of my writing entirely, hell, I had to change everything entirely.

I can only imagine how professional writers must do this day in and day out. I’d work on my article a few hours a night before bed and I would sleep like a baby each and every single time. Chalk it up to mental exhaustion.

Truth be told, Beer Connoisseur probably tapped me to write this article simply because I lived here in the San Francisco bay area. I am not naive enough to believe that my writing is good enough to warrant a major article right off the bat. It was a marriage of convenience.

Still, it feels pretty kick ass to say I’ve written a major article.

I’ve heard that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I’ve missed my time away from blogging. After all, this is blog is the beginning, it is the reason I even had this opportunity in the first place. Now I can refocus on the blog and bring you all the content I’ve been stockpiling over the past weeks, months really.

If you want to help a blogger out, namely me, subscribe to Beer Connoisseur magazine using my promo code of FBC-0110. I get a little cut (emphasis on little) every time someone subscribes to the magazine with my promo code. My editors would greatly appreciate it and I would greatly appreciate it. The longer the magazine sticks around, the more chances I have to write more articles.

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, I thank you. I thank you for your patience and for your time. There’s a lot of talented people out there writing and blogging and I appreciate everyone who comes to my site.

P.S. - Since I’ve pimped out Beer Conniosseur magazine, I might as well pimp out Google and Amazon. If you click on any of the Google ads on my site, I get a couple of cents. Feel free to click on an ad or two every time you visit, especially if it’s something you’re legitimately interested in. Amazon is a little different. I don’t get any money from the Amazon banners unless you actually convert and purchase something. The holidays are coming up and if you’re going to be doing any of your shopping via Amazon, I’d appreciate it if you click on one of my banner ads to get to Amazon.

I feel so dirty after whoring myself out like that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Beer Connoisseur, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.