So at the moment Im a loser..... to take steps away from being a loser today I sent a job application to Tupelo publishing with 2 chapters from my 5 books..... a bunch of poems and Unearthed....... also, Im applying for a job at The Springfield Republican because what the hell, I am easily a good enough writer to work for the newspaper, so here is the application letter I wrote to the editor and publisher..... Dear Mr. Arwady, My name is Justin G. Page, you can find me every morning before the sun comes up including Sunday at your Distribution Center on Clinton Street in the old Peter Pan garage, and the purpose of this package I am sending you, as well as Mr. Phaneuf today, is to apply for a job as a reporter, and a writer with The Republican. I will attempt to make this letter as professional as possible, but I should be clear that I have limited college education, and other than half a semester of a Journalism I course, no reporting experience to speak of. I am however, an artistic polymath with the eyes for seeing a story, the ears to listen to it, and the pen to bring it to life with a limitless amount of potential who really needs nothing more than proper direction, the right environment, and someone to believe in him to extraordinarily succeed in whatever line of work I choose. My intention with this letter is to explain a little bit about who I am as a person, to say what I have to offer The Republican, as well as why I feel that I am qualified to work for you, what I would expect to gain as far as my career is concerned working for The Republican, and also to show some examples of my writing to back up the claims I will make. I am applying in this unconventional way out of necessity because I feel that for someone like me without a college education, and without any publishing credits on my record that I would easily, and mistakenly be overlooked in favor of someone else who does not have the life experience, writing talent, and undeniable passion and drive to succeed like I do if I were to apply through the normal channels. To begin with the part about me that does not qualify me to be a reporter for the Republican I will say what my two jobs are right now, which are helping my mother with her paper delivery route, and working five days a week as a pizza cook at Village Pizza in Chicopee. My pizza cook job is likely of little interest to you, but helping my mother with her newspaper route every morning you might be somewhat intrigued by since it is the bottom rung of your food chain so to speak, so I will tell a little of what it is like at the distribution center (DC) every morning. I meet her at the DC every morning at 2:45 AM to help get her started for the day. She is almost sixty years old, her route has been her full time job for over sixteen years and she is too old to be lifting those heavy bundles every morning by herself, especially on Thursdays when the bundles are even heavier and she has an additional two hundred papers to deliver, so that is the reason I show up to help her every day. What I do is I meet her in the parking lot, go inside to the main desk where Diane (The Manager at the DC) or John, or one of the other workers hands out the papers, then I load them onto the carts, take them out to the parking lot, un load them off the carts into her car, bring the carts back inside and then come back out and help her make between fifty and a hundred of them depending on the day so she has a bit of a head start on her route. It is a very hard job and very few people truly know how much hard work is involved with doing a newspaper delivery route every day. This does not even including the paperwork that comes with being sure all of the customers are paid on time, who is on vacation, who are stops, who get free samples, who only get the paper on Thursday’s and Sunday’s and which older or handicapped customers need special front door type service. Now obviously my experience showing up at the DC every morning and helping my mother with her route does not qualify me to be a journalist for The Republican, although at some point in the future I do have a novella planned revolving around the Thanksgiving Day madness that goes on down there, because every year is a different adventure and as far as I am concerned it is worthy of turning into a good work of fiction that is based on a true story. What does qualify me to work for your newspaper is both my talent and determination as a writer, and my ability to seek out a story, often times from places I maybe should not have been, and bring it to life. I am incredibly resourceful, I have the ability to turn nothing into something, I am adventurous, outgoing, personable and a very inquisitive young man who has a passion, even a lust for life, for creating and for writing that just doesn’t quit. I enjoy meeting new people, I do not get nervous, or scared speaking with people who are bigger than me, or who are famous in some way that a normal person would perhaps be intimidated by. I think the reason for this lack of fear in approaching and speaking with these types of people is because I believe in myself enough to feel that I am going to succeed incredibly as a novelist in the near future, so I kind of consider myself to be one of them even though right now I am still a nothing and a nobody. Some of the other positive attributes that I can bring to your newspaper include that I am very good at solving problems. I don’t ever panic, or get out of control when I am in a tight spot or a pressure situation. I thrive in pressure situations and kind of pride myself on the fact that I very rarely get nervous and am able to perform in situations where other people might have a hard time. When there is a problem of some sort I don’t worry or whine about the problem, I assess the situation and offer possible solutions to it. Then I narrow down the solutions to the one that seems the most practical and realistic and narrow them down again. When I have the one that seems like it will work I apply it, and if I can’t find the right solution to a problem I seek out the right person to help me solve it. My attitude and personality are two very positive attributes as well. I’m very friendly and outgoing, and if I am having a tough time with something I don’t go bringing down other people because of it. I do go against the grain at times, but the reason I took an interest in journalism is because I was inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s The Great Shark Hunt, which is a collection of a large portion of his career as a journalist. I am a bit of a risk taker, and I do believe in chasing impossible dreams because that is the only way that they will ever come true I do not demean other people, I do not strut around saying I’m better than anybody else just because I have some talents that other people do not have. I do not bully people, though I have been bullied myself, relentlessly at times. I try to help other people achieve what they are after if they need it, or at the very least wish them luck, I try to be a good influence on other people by giving them positive reinforcement, and constructive criticism when it is appropriate. When I start something I finish it. As an example are the novels I’ve written and am currently writing, as well as my poetry books and other artistic endeavors such as singing, acting, photography and drawing pictures. An eighty thousand word book is no easy undertaking and to date I have five completed or nearly completed, not including my three books of poetry, so when I get an assignment of some sort it will be completed on time, in high quality without any complaints from whoever my boss might be. The kind of stories that The Republican would be truly be able to utilize me on would more than likely not come up more than once or twice a week I wouldn’t think. Due to my schedule of staying up all night every night I inevitably am going to have a very good idea of what the night life in the area is all about. Couple this with my outgoing personality and willingness to talk to everyone I meet and I can go and get anything you might want after the sun goes down. For example if you need a story about night clubs, or the atmosphere in downtown Springfield on a Friday night, or the local music scene which could always use a boost, or what is going on at UMass or Westfield State in the middle of the night I would be up for it. I was actually at the Blarney Blowout at UMass a few weeks ago and I could have given you a hell of a story about that night. I was there from eleven PM until three in the morning and it was there was more violence than I expected and anything resembling good hearted fun was gone by midnight from what I gathered. I got a good face to face interview with some angry police officers from Hadley and from the majority of the students I talked to I learned that they did not even go to UMass, which I found interesting. There were also an alarming amount of high school kids from eastern Massachusetts up there, not to mention what was going on down Hobart Lane. In a very real sense I am a reporter entirely by accident because it’s just the way I am naturally. Just by being me, I do a lot of the things a reporter does. Wherever I go or whatever I’m doing I talk to people to find out who they are, what their story is, where they’re from and what they’re doing wherever I happen to be talking to them. I was in Alaska for three days at the end of January and got more stories than I could put into three novels just by talking to every local I could get my hands on. I intend on using that trip as a sequel to my book ‘Re-Railed’, which is the sequel to the book I wrote about my trip to the US Virgin Islands ‘Dronningen’s Gade’ As far as what type of stories I would prefer to cover and write about for your newspaper I would feel most comfortable doing whatever I was told. Sports, politics, business, local events that are going on, basically wherever I am asked to go or whatever I am asked to cover, I will do so without complaint or hesitation because it will be my job, and because I simply love writing regardless of what the subject matter is. Sports is probably my most knowledgeable area, but that does not necessarily mean anything as I am also a history, geography and political nut as well, plus I am always up for learning something new. So whether I would be assigned to a Falcons game, or a girl’s lacrosse game between high school teams or to some greenhouse in Southwick to report on their pickle growing operation there would be no objection from me. No one likes to admit their own weaknesses, but I think it is kind of necessary so you have an idea what kind of person you would be hiring. My greatest weakness is the combination of procrastination and laziness. Perhaps my ability to put things off because I don’t feel like doing them would be a better way to put it. If I’m excited about a project, I’m all in balls to the wall and I’ll tear through at a pace that would make the hardest worker look like a turtle with three broken legs. As an example when I decided I was going to start my book ‘Dronningen’s Gade’ I wrote 60,000 words to it in twenty-eight days, and that includes while I was working my job at Village Pizza and helping to do the newspapers every morning. The only reason I paused on it was to do this application because I can’t live off of 140$ a week anymore, and I got, inspired I guess you could say to apply to The Republican when I saw the change in the layout of the paper, which had the pictures of you as well as a few other people who are responsible for The Republican being what it is. It gave me the idea that I belong there, writing stories, being with people who are more interested in participating in the world than just going out to the bar on a Friday night and getting hammered. That morning, during another day of delivering newspapers instead of writing them I just kind of felt like at this point in my life, with the amount of life experience that I have in life and in writing, coupled with what I know, even if by accident from being locked into a mob bar on the wrong night or talking to an Alaska State Trooper 90 miles north of Anchorage in the middle of the night where no one can a live rock band let alone a scream, that it’s time I started taking steps to start my career as a writer and the book deals will come when I find a way to get them to the right people. Far too many people feel obsession is a weakness, but I feel that as long as it is directed in a constructive manner it is actually an incredible strength that is better described as passion. I am very passionate about writing and creating, which is why I am so confident that I will make a career out of being a novelist, despite the fact I have been rejected over a hundred times. All it takes is one. Now I am not applying for a job with this paper because I am intending on being the number one best journalist who wants to get all of the best assignments and have my articles on the front page of the paper every morning because I know that is not going to happen and I don’t want that to happen because I am trying to become a novelist. Rather I am applying for this job because I love to write, I am passionate about it and I am trying to start my career as a writer and finally, after fifteen grueling years, get out of the food service, roofing, construction, paper delivery, car fixing, car sales, fast food, liquor store cashier, dishwashing, glass cutting, pizza delivery and factory selector type businesses I have worked in throughout my life, and into a field that I belong. In fact, the only time I would ever hope for any of my articles to make it above, or under the fold would actually not even be for me, it would be for you, and the people that work over at the Distribution Center. For the past three years or so, basically since the DC opened in the old Peter Pan garage, I have consistently had the idea to write something about the adventures that come with doing Thanksgiving Day papers. I’ve had the idea to write a novella, or a short story about the entire day from beginning to end, from arriving at the DC at midnight when there are close to 200 people (with all the extra helpers) down there and the place is literally alive, awake and ready to go with an excitement that is difficult for words to capture, to loading all of the papers up, to bringing them up to the ‘Lois and Clark’ plaza next to WNEC where we have made and bagged them for fifteen years going back to when they used to be dropped off there before the DC opened. We still go there now so my mom can come back and reload while my brothers and cousins are making and bagging them for her, instead of her having to drive all the way back downtown to the DC. My idea always was to write a bit of a sample of my story idea, maybe ten or fifteen pages and mail it to someone at The Republican’s main office. But I never did it because, I always put it off being distracted by some other project I was working and I’d just say maybe next year. Well next year is this year and I think it would be a good idea to do a story about the DC on Thanksgiving Day. It could be a cool story with a headline like ‘To you family from ours’ or something and I think a lot of the customers would like it because it would show them where their paper comes from every morning and the people who work in the DC like my mom, and Mike, and John and Diane, and Laura and all of the other carriers and workers bringing the papers from the main building over to Clinton St. deserve a little recognition for the work they’ve been doing through the years. As a writer I have yet to be published, but to my credit so far I do have close to a hundred rejection letters from some of the biggest literary agencies in New York, L.A., Boston and Chicago. The farthest I was able to get with one of my books was with the Dupree Miller Literary Agency in Dallas, Texas with offices in New York who requested a full copy of a book I had written, but after reviewing it with her editorial staff the co-owner Jan Miller decided it was not the right time for her to take on my project. She has represented Dr. Phil McGraw, and Joel Osteen as some of her clients and while she didn’t sign me to a contract she did give me the motivation to continue trying, even though she did something very mean to me. What she did was send me an envelope from her agency with ‘CELEBRATE’ postage stamps on the front of it, way more than were necessary for postage, and it lead me to believe that after four years and nearly a hundred rejection letters that I was finally going to get an agency contract and become a writer, so I was very excited and I think I stared at it for like fifteen minutes in anticipation because I had never had a dream come true before, and my grandparents who had supported me very much were standing there waiting for me to open it and it was going to be the best day of my life ever, but then I opened it and it was a rejection letter, which sucked and was very upsetting because there was no need to trick me like that. Mr. Arwady I write, every day and there is rarely an exception when I take a day off. In the past few months I have been average over two thousand words a day, every day, on my novels ‘Dronningen’s Gade’ a goofball comedy love story about my trip to the Virgin Islands in December, and ‘The Idle of March’, which is my third poetry book. I explain my books with an attachment sheet at the end of this letter, and I have enclosed some sample pages because I felt it was important to show my writing style, and to show that I am the kind of writer that I say I am because anybody can make the claim of being a writer without actually backing it up. Also I only really have one example of journalism type writing, which is going to be included on top of the writing samples I’ve enclosed. It is from the Tour De France last year when I covered it for my friends on Facebook and took it upon myself to teach anyone who wanted to learn about it. I didn’t send everything I had on it, but I did send enough to give an example of my journalistic writing style. In closing I will say that I understand that all newspapers have been taking a hit from the internet in the past few years and you may only have a limited amount of openings that come up, but I am worth taking a chance on as a writer. Whether it is full-time, or part-time, which I would probably do better with to start since it is still going to be necessary to help my mother every morning, I can assure you that I am worth taking the chance on, if for no other reason than what I can potentially become. As far as what I get paid, well that is naturally up to you, and while I obviously do not have to accept it, I will. I don’t get paid helping my mother with my route and I’m making seven dollars an hour under the table at the pizza restaurant I’m working at to afford the office space I’m renting in Chicopee Center. I will list my contact information below, as well as a list of what I have enclosed in this package that are examples of my writing. I’ve enclosed several photo’s, which are examples of either places I have been that have, or will lead to novels. Hunter S. Thompson used to back up all of his stories with audio tape recordings and photographs so that they could be verified as factual and that particular habit of his is one that I thought was worthy of copying. Some of the other photos I’ve shot include where I have been just out on adventures including Alaska and the Caribbean, the Leprechaun Plunge from a few weeks ago, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Notre Dame University, and of the Distribution Center from Thursday morning March 27th and Sunday March 30th of this year. I included them because I just thought it might be useful if a reporter was capable to take his own photographs from time to time. There are some differing photos in the package I’ve sent you, and the one I’ve sent Mr. Arwady, and aside from the photos the only other difference between the two applications is that there are different sample sections of the stories I’ve written in each package because I did not want to jam several hundred pages of material you would likely not care enough to do anything other than skim through at the moment. My ‘Tour De France’ pages I did send to both of you because that is the only example of actual journalism that I have, even though I have never actually been to it. Sincerely – Justin G. Page Justin Page PHONE: 340-642-1385 – Primary cell 10Center St. 413-532-07 Chicopee, MA, 01013
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 04:19:39 +0000
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