For me, stepping into the world of journalism could be characterized by my usual clumsy steps and tumbles. Everything I usually undertake is not done with much grace and finesse (look at my quiz grades and AP grammar and style reviews and you'll empathize).
Journalistic writing is so different from how I've been trained to write. I'm used to the intro-body-body-body-conclusion format with a clear and concise thesis with concrete details and supporting facts. Besides that, I've adapted to fiction writing with lots of dialogue and imagery and spreading out my story. Taking on journalistic writing so far has forced me to seriously narrow my focus so much that each sentence I write feels like a thesis statement. Turning ten pages filled with notes into a 500 word story is going to be insanely difficult for me. I like to ramble. I like to describe in excruciating detail. I like to write. Period. Furthermore, I can't just keep to myself and write anymore. I have to pay attention to what OTHER people say and how OTHER people feel. Shoot. Who the heck cares? (I'm kidding.) That is what's so hard about writing journalistically. There are so many things I have to consider compared to the way I used to write.
On top of the style of writing, you shove AP style and a shat-load of grammar into it and you basically gave me the equivalent to controlling the BP oil spill. (I'm actually kidding and being very exaggerative.) But I hope you'll understand my pain.
As I've expressed before, it's difficult to make the switch between how I was trained to write throughout all my years in middle school and high school and even how I have trained myself to write through working on my novels. Couple that with my very refined long-term memory and my outstanding ability to quickly adapt and...
Yeah, who am I kidding? I've got a lot of work to do.
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