First published article

My first travel article, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Park Corner, was published last week! It was wonderful seeing my work "in print." And encouraging.

For any aspiring author out there who might be reading this, I will offer my first piece of advice as a "published writer": proofread your work, even after it appears in the publication. Formatting errors can occur, and might pass unnoticed. In the case of my article, there were apostrophes missing. And dashes - resulting in two sentences being awkwardly merged into one. I sent the corrections to the editor - and a few hours later, the mistakes were gone. That, by the way, is one great thing about publishing on the internet. Whereas if "its" has inadvertently been typed instead of "it's" in a print publication, the embarrassing mistake will remain as it is forever.

I have three other articles completed; one is hoping to find a spot in a newspaper, and two others are in the process of being proofread / edited. All these articles are related to my one-month stay in Rome. When finding a goldmine of material, a writer ought to use it. I searched online as well as print publications for whom I could write articles relating to certain aspects of my stay in Rome. I chose three topics, and adapted them to the style of the publication. One in particular, Transitions Abroad, offers a very broad scope of travel articles. It took quite a bit of time and research to find and decide on which section of the website my travel experiences would best match. After deciding on a section, I read a few examples of published articles to get an idea of what the publishers are looking for. It takes time to research a publication, but it is necessary. I do not believe my first article would have been published if I had not taken the time to research before writing.

Speaking of time: I cannot imagine how I would have found any without having someone to take care of my daughter while I work. I have a 15-month old toddler who is not yet in daycare, and a husband who is in Afghanistan until Christmas. I am a new writer, with no more than one published article to brag about. I needed help. And boy, did I find it. It came as no less than a gift to me over the phone one day back in June. My best friend's mother, who is retired, called and offered to babysit mornings for the whole summer. I wanted to fall to my knees with gratitude. There is hardly a better person to take care of my baby. She started this week, and I have had every morning, from Monday to Friday, to write. I come to the university library and sit, undisturbed, at my "usual" table, with my Oxford English Dictionary and Thesaurus. I could not ask for better.