At the start of my Sophomore year, I was approached by a friend of mine about writing for an organization. I was already a staff writer for the school newspaper, but I wanted to do more. I enjoyed writing, so naturally, I embarked on an epic journey. This article will be a reflection on my time with the Odyssey.
At the time, Steph Kulikowski led the Clarion branch. She asked if I was interested in writing for them because I would have total control of what my articles were about, and I could make some money. Just coming off knee surgery and stumbling back to school, I played it off like payment wasn't a big deal, but in reality, it was what stood out the most. I must confess, the freedom to write about anything I wanted was incredible, at times.
More often than not, I knew what I wanted to write about, but writer's block made coming up with new articles nearly impossible if I wasn't inspired. As the weeks went by, I slowly became the sports guy for the group at CU. At least once a month, I produced an article that circled around sports. Truth be told, that was the easiest stretch of time for the organization. If I had no clue what to write about, I would just babble about sports. I was even approached by another online group about utilizing their services, but I walked away from them, regrettably. I didn't know how long I would write for the group, and I didn't pursue their offer.
As the year progressed, and I knew how the Odyssey worked, I took aim at the most shared article of the week. That, dear reader, was how you got paid. If your article was the most shared article for your team that week, you won money. There was just one problem with the whole ordeal. I would average 10 shares per week, maybe. The most shared article would hit 50, 100, sometimes over 1,000 shares. Despite my best efforts in the early stages of writing for them, that top spot was well out of reach for me.
This was where I started feeling resentment toward the community. While I was writing articles, the winners were writing lists and open letters. I felt that I was writing for Buzzfeed instead of a writing group online, but that was the least of my grieve. The biggest issue I had with the way it all worked was that the shares system was a little flawed. Basically, the website never cared who shared it and how many times, it only cared that the article was shared.
Theoretically, a writer could share their article 76 times, for example, and all 76 would be counted towards the total. Also, liking an article on Facebook counted as a share. Sharing the post did nothing, but clicking share in the actual article counted. If a friend on Facebook wanted, they could like all of those 76 posts I mentioned earlier, doubling the shared total, and they may have never even read the article. Meaning lists of 11 reasons why finals week is literally the worst, an open letter to your stuffed animal from kindergarten, and the stages of coffee deprivation told through gifs could, and would, beat out articles about political issues or some article that was actually meaningful if the right writer wrote it.
With that in mind, I had a choice to make about my writing style. Did I want to just say forget it and write some pointless article about lists or an open letter (just call it an essay), or did I want to not care and write how I wanted? Well, dear reader, I tried a list, and I hated it. I went back to writing babble about sports that no one cared about. Then, after I was done as the sports guy for the Odyssey, I knew my time was going to be over soon.
I found it pointless to keep writing for an organization like that. For the last part of my time with them, I decided to write about events and local people. I wanted to give them the spotlight. I wanted to help out. To my surprise, I actually won the top article four times writing with that mentality. I was actually enjoying the content that was coming out of my page, too. I would talk about the program I worked for, the contest I was in and so on, and I felt like I was helping people. In turn, I would, once in a while, claim the prize until they did away with that format.
To anyone thinking about joining the Odyssey, make sure you love writing. You should join the community for the love crafting clever, creative articles and not for money. You get more out of it. I thank Steph and Katie for running our Clarion branch. It is certainly a thankless, tough job. I wish the community nothing but the best, but I do wish that they look internally and never stop striving to improve themselves.
Finally, I thank all those who read and shared my articles. If it weren't for you all, I would have stopped a long time ago. Thanks to you, I pressed on and I am now wrapping up my Odyssey.
