When An Assignment Goes Wrong

I still remember my first article. A small medical trade journal wanted me to write a medtech piece. I hadn’t written any long articles at this point. I could add another piece to my (at the time pitiably small) portfolio. It didn’t even require an interview; I just needed to email the contact they gave me a few questions.

From the title here, you’ve probably guessed that it didn’t go smoothly. I wrote the contact and awaited my response. To their credit, they responded quickly. Unfortunately, that was all I could say about it. They hadn’t answered the questions at all; just given me a canned statement. I couldn’t write any article from that, no matter how brief.

This threw me for a loop. Should I write back? Should I contact the editors? Give up on writing and go back to bagging groceries? None of them seemed like good options. I decided to write both the contact and editors. The contact seemed easy enough; I didn’t think I’d hear much more from them though (and this turned out to be right). Writing to the editors was harder. What would they think? Would my inability to get answers be seen badly? Would this be the final straw and my first article assignment be over before I even had a chance to write it?

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. One of the editors apologized and took the source to task for not giving real answers, and another found me another source willing to answer my questions. My article was published on schedule, and I felt proud of getting over that hurdle.

The moral? Assignments can go bad quickly, and sources aren’t always up to snuff. But a good writer is ready for the challenge, and there are always good editors willing to help you do better.