10,000 words and 15 weeks later.

This is my first column, written for my last day at The Kingston This Week.

How many words do you think one person could write in four months of community digest items?
I can tell you.
About 10,000 of them.
Digest, digest, digest.
It’s all I thought about for the past four months straight, “Is the digest done?”, “Did I forget anything?”, “Is the 39 Dance Club in this week?”
Despite all of the really great assignments that I’ve had all summer, the great people that I’ve otherwise would not get the chance to meet, I have and the experience has been great, but the digest has been the most entertaining and most difficult, to say the least.
Even more nerve wracking than shooting a front page photo, if you don’t get the shot there is always a back-up but if you don’t get a digest item in, you’d hear about it.
A few times we’d get phone calls that we’ve missed an event and some were more understandable than others, we did what we could to accommodate everyone.
I got to write everything and anything, even items that I never thought existed, like Senior Belly Dancing. But I wrote it anyway, one right after the other.
First thing in the morning I’d walk over to the shelf scoop up papers and head back to my desk and type, and type, and type.
Finally, finished. So I thought.
I’d head back grab some more and finish those, but it just keeps coming, uncontrollably - especially around Strawberry Social season.
I wrote digest once in the morning, once after lunch and then again before I left, this seemed to do the trick. This way, I wasn’t sitting here with digest up to my eyeballs in digest for hours on end.
But we’ve managed this summer and somehow it all got done.
For something so insignificant to some, it means all the world to those who rely on us to advertise their bake sales, dinners and entertainment, and it taught me a lot.
Be prepared to write - forever, get organized, stay organized, and it’s never really over.
10,000 words and 15 weeks later and I think that I have finally got it under control And it’s my last day.
Good luck guys, you’ve got your work cut out for you. It’ll never stop coming.
But you knew that.
And if you need the digest done, call me, I have experience.