How Beth Spotswood Found Her Aha Moment

I’m excited to showcase our first “professional blogger/writer”, Beth Spotswood today. She is a fabulous and hilarious writer and I think that all of you will be very inspired by her story.

She writes for many different outlets (and even does video too!) so be sure to check out all of the links!

Here is her story:

Tell me about what you do for work.

I write full time as the Lifestyle and Entertainment Editor for CBS San Francisco.com, the website of KPIX and KCBS and I post two humor columns on week on SFGate.com’s Culture Blog; Monday’s column “Tourist Trapped” is about local tourist spots and Wednesday’s posts focus on politics or events.

I also write and co-host an online satire show called Necessary Conversation for the Huffington Post and I freelance for anyone that will have me.

Basically, I’m paid to write down what I think and put it on the internet. It’s yet another sign of the decline of civilization

What type of work were you doing prior to what you are doing now?

My first job out of college was as the costume mistress at Beach Blanket Babylon. After that, I left to be the Associate Producer and Development Director of the Mountain Play Association in Mill Valley.

For six years, I raised money to help fund huge-scale Broadway musicals on top of Mount Tamalpais.

What kinds of frustrations did you have with your previous job?

My previous jobs, both of which I loved and felt very connected to, were jobs. And once I started blogging, especially after I was hired to freelance for the Chronicle, my job became something I had to maintain so that I could do what I loved in my spare time.

Non-profit fundraising never felt like my career. And really at the Mountain Play, a huge part of my job was putting on someone else’s shows. I loved their shows, of course. I still do! But I wanted to do my OWN shows, as it were.

And the more I realized that was an actual possibility, the more I became focused on finding a way to make that happen.

How did you come to discover this was what you were meant to do?

It was a really slow and weird process, mainly because the jobs I have now weren’t jobs 6 or 7 years ago. I majored in fashion design, of all things. I had no idea I’d ever end up writing. But the more I blogged, especially about my life, the more new opportunities started presenting themselves. It started to feel like I was on the right track.

I think my “Aha Moment” came when I participated in the Literary Death Match Holiday Show at the Elbo Room in 2009. I was terrified to get on stage and tell a story in front of a crowd, much less have them publically judge me by applause.

None the less, I wrote this story about knocking over the class Christmas tree in 5^th Grade. About 30 seconds into my story, as the audience started to laugh, I thought to myself, “Oh! This is it. This is it for me.”

What fears did you have to overcome to take the leap?

My main fear in taking the leap to write for CBS full time was stability. New media is a constantly changing landscape. My job didn’t exist a few years ago, and I have no idea if it’ll still be here a few years down the road.

But I just kept reminding myself that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. That is my very unhealthy and morbid mantra, by the way. If I was going to get hit by a bus, though, I wanted my obituary to say I was a writer.

What do you love most about what you do?

Positive feedback. Isn’t that horrible? Ultimately, I love when someone really connects with something I’ve written, especially something really personal.

When I write about being stuck as a wallflower at some creepy society party or a childhood humiliation that I refuse to move past, and people not only think it’s funny but relate to it, I feel like I’m not alone in my weirdness. It’s very comforting.

Also, making someone laugh…it’s the best feeling in the world.

If you were to give advice to people thinking about changing careers, what would it be?

The worst advice I ever received, which was given to me when I was 19, was that I had too much personality. Apparently, if I wanted to succeed professionally, I needed to, “tone it down.”

I have done the opposite.

And here I am answering your lovely questions. Which brings me to the best advice I’ve ever received, which I didn’t receive so much as I paid for. It was in Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants. She says, “Do your thing and don’t care what they think.”

And I remind myself of that every time I hit ‘publish.’

Tags: beth spotswood
Categories: Uncategorized

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 6:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.