There’s something to be said for the aftereffects of good news.
I got the go-ahead for a work thing last week that I… wasn’t really expecting? That might not be entirely accurate, but it was one of those things that you pitch half-convinced that it’ll never happen, and then the response was so fast and so enthusiastic that the first reaction is to think, wow, I don’t think I could have imagined that going any better.
What made this such a positive experience wasn’t just that I got a paid gig out of it — nor that it’s a paid gig at a new outlet, although that’s lovely in and of itself — but that the entire experience left me feeling as if I should try and repeat it elsewhere, and pitch to more outlets that I’ve never written for, just in case history repeats in some magical, unlikely way.
It took a day or so for that to sink in, admittedly, and it did so in a slow manner; there wasn’t an instant of clarity that I really could pitch anywhere just to see what happened. (If nothing else, if that had happened, I’m sure I would have immediately thought, well, obviously, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.) Instead, it was this deliberate, glacial reveal of, “well, if that worked even though you thought it wasn’t going to… then… what if…?”
The upshot of this is that I’ve already sent off a pitch that is almost certainly going to be either rejected or ignored — while I’m certainly feeling more confident about such things, I’m also not entirely unrealistic about them, and pessimism runs deep in my bones when it comes to this topic — while also applying to a job that a couple of people had quietly suggested I should throw my hat into the ring for.
It’s possible that none of these things will work out, but there’s a happiness in at least believing for a second that they might not be entirely outside the realm of possibility after all.