A chip off the old writer’s block

Everyone gets writer’s block and finds times when they have

nothing to write about.

Unfortunately, my writer’s block came around right around the time

I had to turn in this very article to the Pilot. It might not seem

like such a big deal, but considering this is only my second article

and I will be here the rest of the school year, it poses quite the

problem. (Then again, if this article doesn’t pick up quick, it might

just be my last.)

So, back to my original predicament: What should I write about?

Any ideas? It’s harder then you think.

Huh?

Should I spill my life story as a Paularino Panther wronged by the

system when I lost a student council race. Although I’m still bitter,

I don’t think the residents of Newport-Mesa really care. I could

touch on important issues, like the new people elected on the school

board or the mistake it was that Gay Sandoval wasn’t elected judge.

But who am I kidding? I can’t pull that off.

So swallow your coffee while I reach into the depths of my mind

and try to come up with a topic.

What is so ironic about my current problem is that I have been

dying to be in the paper. When I was told that I was to follow in the

footsteps of my friends and fellow newsies with writing for the

Forum, I was so excited. Finally! A place for me to express my

feelings and tell all my best jokes.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to be in the

newspaper. I imagined running to the front porch (there are always

porches in these fantasies) and grabbing the paper, bringing it to

the table and looking at the front page. There in bold type, the

paper still warm from the morning sun, I’d see the headline: “Local

gymnast Tierney Smith wins gold medal.”

What a great dream! Now, this was about the time I was really into

gymnastics but hadn’t figured out yet that three months of training

won’t get you to the Olympics, especially if you haven’t even

mastered the cartwheel.

My dream of making the front page never died, it just transformed.

The headline would just change with whatever activity I was

determined to perfect that week. Then my dreams retreated a little

further into the back of my mind as I started focusing on other

things people describe as important and fun, things like “school” and

“friends.” However, those distractions only, well, distracted me from

my dream for a short time, because soon enough I again felt the

overwhelming urge to be in the newspaper.

This obsession only got worse when my sister started popping up on

the front pages of sports sections all around the world (by world, I

mean Newport-Mesa).

My sister, Autumn Smith, was one of the great high school girl’s

basketball players circa 1997-2000. Her face would appear everywhere.

There would be huge pictures of her grabbing a rebound or towering

over a lesser player, a look of intense sportsmanship on her face

with that one perfect bead of sweat rolling down her cheek. Oh man,

it was great. Her accomplishments as an athlete only made me want my

dream so much more. I had to be in the newspaper. Now if only I could

think of a way, without being arrested, to get there!

Now many of you are probably saying, “You can do it, Tierney,” or

“Be a b-ball star, kid,” between your bites of breakfast. But, alas,

I cannot. I have the hand-eye coordination of a fish, and the genes

that gave my sister the ability to defend the ball or make a free

throw somehow never got to me.

Not to be one to complain (try telling that to my parents), I

decided that if I can’t play basketball, why not write about it? So

freshman year, I joined Mesa’s journalism staff to write about

sports, but I quickly learned that writing about basketball wasn’t

half as fun as playing it, and I moved on to topics more my style. I

have been there ever since.

Though I still have no idea how to do a cartwheel, and I will

never be on the front page for breaking the school’s rebound record,

I am still in the newspaper. And that is exciting!

Now if I could only change that small mug shot into a detailed

picture of me laboring over the computer with that perfect bead of

sweat rolling down my cheek.

* TIERNEY SMITH is a junior at Costa Mesa High School where she

is co-editor-in-chief of the Hitching Post.