risk-taking: it does pay off

There is a certain local publication that I have practically been begging to give me work for something like two (or more) years. (Did you read that? TWO years.) I even went so far as to risk coming off as a semi-psycho fan girl to meet the people behind the masthead. The story goes something like this…

It was 2nd Saturday in Midtown, and I happened to know where the owners and publisher would be that night. How did I know, you ask? What a silly question! When you obsess over something, you make it your business to know these things. (Really, they had advertised the event in their own magazine.) So, being the risk-taker that I am, I got all gussied up, made the rounds to a couple of venues (so as not to appear uber eager) and eventually wound up at the aforementioned exhibit sponsored by — well what do you know? — the very publication I’d been pitching for the past 6 months. Imagine my surprise.

I chatted up the intern working the promo table, who, upon asking me what I do (freelance write and edit), dutifully introduced me to the appropriate people. We made small talk, traded cards, exchanged a couple of emails and, a few weeks later, met for drinks.

Some people may call this stalking. People who claim to be my friends accused me of stalking. My own boyfriend accused me of staking. But do I care? No. And I’ll tell you why: Last week, the publisher from this story called me up and offered me a project. He needed someone with experience as a managing editor to turn it around in less than two weeks. He called me.

Maybe I was stalking just a little bit. But I don’t see the non-stalkers, or should I say non-risk-takers, getting this kind of phone call.

My point is two fold: 1) risk-taking does pay off, and 2) sometimes it just takes a while.