How Content Writing Can Make You Famous

As of October 2010, I have about 450 articles I have written on Associated Content. I mainly write about topics that I have a passion for, as I'm sure most writers do. Sometimes I write according to whatever is going on at the moment. Often times, an idea pops into my head while driving down the street. As we all know, this can become frustrating, especially if you don't have a pencil and paper, a computer or a cell phone handy to record your ideas. I have even had ideas pop into my head at a midnight potty break. One topic idea occurred to me at one of those midnight moments. That article, out of 450, has turned into our one minute of fame! Explanations are needed at this point.

A couple of years ago, our daughter started asking for a tattoo. We advised her to wait till she turned 16. When she did, a year ago, we gave her a tattoo for her birthday. Our daughter chose Hebrews 6:19 as the Bible text her tattoo would be based off of. She decided a heart with an anchor through it would be a perfect representation of the text. Later, at one of those midnight moments about a month later, it hit me! Many parents are against tattoos, so I would write an article about why they were a good idea. Luckily I remembered the idea and wrote about it the next morning. Associated Content printed it, and I thought no more about it. We fast forward to a year later

Around the middle of September, I received a phone call from a journalist with the Wall Street Journal. She had ran across my article on Associated Content while researching her article, which was going to be on the trend of teenagers getting tattoos. She asked if she could interview us for her article. I of course agreed to the interview, as did my husband and our daughter. Two days later, a camera man was at our house and took about 200 pictures. The following Wednesday, there we were in the Work and Family Column by Sue Shellenbarger in the September 29th issue of the the Wall Street Journal. It was also carried on line on their website.

Let's move on to about a week after that, actually October 7th, 2010, on a Thursday. I came home from work and nonchalantly checked my voice mails. Mary Pflum from Good Morning America had called. She had heard about our interview with The Wall Street Journal and you guessed it, she wanted to interview us about the same topic. God Morning America was also doing a piece on teens and tattoos. I was a bit nervous this time around, as it would be televised. I also was concerned, as I have dental work to get done, and I haven't had the time. I was promised they could 'not show' my teeth, or lack of. The next day, a film crew was out to our house. We became Hollywood for about 2 hours, complete with all types of camera equipment. Still shots were taken, as well as videos of our daughter and me interacting. We even walked down the street, three times as a matter of fact. Can you believe it took three times to get walking straight? On the last walk, I shouted, "Take 39!!" For some reason, the video crew didn't laugh! I found it quit amusing myself. I also was instructed on making food when they said
'go'. My daughter pretended to work on the computer. Then we interviewed while watching the sound man's head, as the interviewer was on the cell phone, which was on the chair. It seems that staring at a chair doesn't video too well for television. The following Monday or October 11th, we were on at 8:15 a.m. on Good Morning America. it happened to be Elisabeth Hasselbeck's first story. I have to give her accolades, as she did an excellent job, as did the editors, camera men and everyone else involved. Only problem was, I was there with my missing front tooth. Oh well, somewhere along the line, the message got lost. The title of the piece was Growing Trend: Teens With Tattoos.

Who would have ever thought that writing for Associated Content would lead to a moment of fame? I am now rather excited again about writing. Who knows where else my writing will take me in the future? The sky's the limit, as some people say! Whoever would think that writing content on line would have resulted in all of this? By the way, if you desire an autograph, they are five dollars a piece!!