Why I'm here

I'm taking this class because I'm pretty much social media illiterate. I have a Facebook, but I only use it for keeping in touch with old friends and stalking new ones.  I've never understood Twitter as a means of communication between friends because the tweets never seem to be anything worth communicating; there's just too much chatter, too much noise.  But as journalism and business begin using these kinds of media, it might be prudent for me to become familiar with them, especially if I want to write for a living (which I still haven't decided).

I hope to sharpen my reporting skills and become versed in the language of Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. I think this will be a great opportunity for me to push myself to use concise and precise language, something that I sometimes have trouble with.  I would also like to push myself to write about things that I don't know.  In the past, I feel like I've taken shortcuts in writing about myself or my family, and, while there may be some good stories there, I need to get away from that. I would like to try some creative science writing if possible, because, for someone who loves science, I rarely write about it.

It's hard for me to say who my favorite nonfiction writers are because, as a writer, I know that I don't read nearly enough.  But I really like Michael Paterniti, especially his essay and book Driving Mr. Albert.  I love how easily he can find a narrative in scientific research, how effortlessly he can pull together information about Albert Einstein and turn it into a story.  This is something I would love to be able to do. To me, science is a story, but I haven't figured out how to tell it the way that Paterniti does.  While I'm not familiar with a lot of his work, David Grann's "Trial By Fire" is one of the best articles I've ever read, so I'll include him as one of my favorite writers.  One of the most remarkable things he does is that he tells the reader how the story will end (Cameron Todd Willingham will be executed), and yet he is somehow able to build tension and a part of me still wondered how it would end; I felt sure that the truth would come out and Willingham's life would be spared.  I hung on to Grann's every word, and this is something I really admire.