Remember the First Time You Saw Your Byline?
February 8, 2008 by Deb Ng
Filed under Freelance Writing
The other night my husband and I were watching the movie "That Thing You Do" on television. We had both seen it before and were only half paying attention while we read books or magazines, but one scene caught my attention in particular.
In case you’re not familiar with the movie it’s about the rise of The Wonders, a "one hit wonder" Beatle-esque band in 1964. The scene I’m talking about happened after The Wonders heard their single, "That Thing You Do," being played on the radio for the first time. The band was so thrilled they danced around an appliance shop while listening on the shop’s stereos. My sedate husband thought they looked rather silly, but I knew exactly how they felt.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw my name in print in something other than the school newspaper. It was in 1994, I interviewed a band for a now defunct music and tattoo magazine. The other writers had plenty of experience and bylines were nothing new but for me, the lowly Administrative Assistant, it was a big thrill. I didn’t have anymore bylines for a few more years but once I started actively freelancing, the same thrill was there. Even now, I have to pinch myself. Am I really a writer? Do people actually enjoy what I write? Is that really my name up there?
I think the key to being a success, and really digging what you do, is to never forget how you felt the first time you saw your name in print. When it becomes routine or mechanical, it’s just another job. Whether we write to educate or amuse, whether it’s for ourselves or for others, remembering our first sale or byline and thrill we experienced reminds us what it’s all about.
Tell us…
When was the first time you saw your byline and how did you react?
hah, never mind the first time, I still get a thrill from it, especially when it’s a new-to-me market.
I broke out of medical writing this year and will have an article in the May edition of The Quilter. When they sent me the PDF of the article, I was happy dancing all around the kitchen not only when I saw the by-line, but when I saw the bio at the end.
To me, the thrill never goes away. Just one of the real perks of my job.
I was watching that movie too this weekend!
The first time I saw my by line wasn’t too long ago, and when I saw it I had to send everyone an email with the link. It’s a great feeling for sure.
Maybe I’m odd, but I made sure that they spelled name right and then turned the page. There’s nothing I hate more than reading my own stuff, and having it show up in front of me in the StarTribune was a little too close for comfort.
Last summer, I wrote for Bellaonline.com for a few months. Right when I started, I had lunch with a good friend I’d had since the 6th grade. She had graduated from college with a computer science degree, and has been a corporate server tech guru for two huge national companies in her career.
Anyway, she was excited to hear about my new writing gig, and after I got home I sent her the links. I also told her to just look up my name online to see my articles come up.
She said she was a little jealous of my “Google cred.” Coming from her especially, that was the coolest compliment I’ve ever had about my writing!
After getting back into writing after a 15-year sidetrack, I wrote an article for a brand new site looking for volunteer writers.
I saw my name on the byline after it was posted and almost lost my lunch. Truly. My name was OUT there, in cyber-space. For all to see. There was no going back.
Some 100+ articles and a number of fiction pieces later, I still feel like losing my lunch on ocassion when I see my name “out there”. But I also get a thrill and a sense of satisfaction that pushes me forward. I want to jump up and down like a kid and run in circles. Now, that’s a rush.
The first time I ever saw my byline was for a publication in a college literary magazine, probably around 1992 or 1993. That was pretty cool, but I have to say, I got a bigger thrill the first time I saw my byline in a publication that paid me. Maybe I’m a greedy, capitalistic jerk (well, no maybe about it), but it carried an extra thrill for me to know that somebody liked something I wrote enough to actually part with money.
I think the part I liked most about that movie was each time the lead actor would say, “I led you here, sir, for I am Spartacus.” Somehow, that always touched me.
Byline… *wince* What happens if I say I can’t remember?
My first byline was in (I think it’s closed now) the June 2004 issue of Do! Magazine. I was alone, so no one could see me doing the happy Snoopy dance from the living room into the kitchen . . . while waving the magazine in the air. hee hee
My first byline was in 1987. I reviewed a play for my paper. Even though I’ve seen my name in print lots of times since, I still get excited.
Here are my memorable firsts:
February 1998 – first local print publication (monthly column).
October 2002 – first online publication (newsletter)
December 2003 – first online publication (monthly column)
September 2006 – first fulltime print/online publication (weekly column)
I did my special dance each time. And I have a mini version for the weekly column. The thrill goes on. I believe that the day we lose the thrill, we lose a part of the joy and passion for writing.
The first time I saw my name in print I screamed, jumped up and down and danced around the room. And then I looked again to make sure it was real.
I watched That Thing You Do last night, that scene is my favorite part of the movie. I am always jumping around the room and dancing when I see my name on something, or if someone links to something I wrote and I get major traffic from it etc. It’s all too fun!
Every little one is a thrill. I am super excited to see my name in a new local magazine. But I have to go with Erik – it is a bit weird having a lot of people actually READ what you’ve written, and then mention it in conversation. That’s new, and something you don’t get with online writing.
Time to really date myself:
1973, back when we used glue and exacto knifes to paste galleys at Circle’s (now UIC’s) newspaper. Article was cranked out on manual typewriter at home and brought in.
By the way, if I want to see my name in print now, I look in the phone book.
It wasn’t the byline that did it for me — the first check I got for writing something about blew me over, though. It was $10, I was in high school and my mother had to talk me out of framing the check and into cashing it!
I have similar feelings and reactions as most of you. For me it was just a couple of summers ago. “Snoopy” happy dance for sure. Each time since, I tell friends, send them links, tell family…etc. I’m just so delighted each time, and especially if I’ve been paid for it. I do hope I don’t lose this feeling anytime soon.
@Phil my husband’s name is in the phone book so unfortunately I can’t see my name in print there.
The first time I got a byline, I e-mailed the link to my mom (after I did my happy dance!). She e-mailed it to a bunch of relatives and told them to check it out. I always get a bit of a rush when I see my name in print (a lot of my work is ghostwriting).
@ Jenny B and Phi: I show my husband his name in the phone book so he doesn’t feel left out!
@Jodee and the phone book topic
I love it! I’ll have to remember to do that. My husband, who is not a writer, actually beat me to print a few years ago with a paper he wrote.
I feel that fame and all that nonsense really gets in the way of what I’m doing. I write to convince more than I do to inform or entertain. If what people remember is my name, then I’ve screwed up – bad. I’m not what matters, it’s my point. We can talk about all kinds of things happening in the world, but when someone comes up to me to talk about “What you wrote”, I simply cringe. Who the Hell am I in the first place? Why do you care?
That’s my problem in this whole thing. And I think if I wrote to entertain, I’d feel the same way. This ain’t about *me*, it’s just not that kind of party.
[O, the perils of being Taoist!]
Now I’m not saying it’s all about the byline and fame and glory – that’s not why I write, I write to share what I know and, hopefully, inspire others.
What I’m talking about is the excitement of seeing your byline for the very first time and the feeling it gave. Writing should always be so exciting. When it’s humdrum it’s time to throw in the towel.
Sorry, but it’s not humdrum, it’s just not about *me*.
I find it very exciting to see policy change around what I’ve been saying. I love it when I read a State Senator repeating my arguments on the floor. That’s a real thrill for me, and I’m about to get another big one when a major project here takes a nosedive and I can salvage the whole operation through the power of my writing (I hope!).
Nearly all writing is inadequate in some way. I’m as hard on other people’s work as my own, so it’s all even. What matters is the spark you can create in someone else, that feeling that they are somehow aware of something that they weren’t before. I do my level best to write something that will do it, but the proof is in the reading as far as I’m concerned.
That first moment I saw my name in the by-line, I knew only that it was judgment time. I appear to have passed that test, and once I was sure of it I got as excited as I was when I wrote it. So I wrote more. I heard my arguments repeated, and I kept at it.
It’s a lot of fun, but being in print is just not my goal. I want to hear my stuff repeated with someone else’s name attached before I get excited.
woops, sorry Eric. I didn’t mean to imply you were humdrum, just sort of clarifying the message behind the post.
I felt after re-reading it maybe I sounded too self-serving, that it’s all about the byline. It’s not about the byline, it’s about the excitement of knowing you’re a writer.
And it sounds like you have a wonderful job. Being able to make a difference is why many of us do this. Congratulation for being a person who isn’t afraid to make changes – or rather the person who challenges others to make changes.
The first time I saw my name on print in something other than the school newspaper was when I was 18, for a fictional piece. It was great but my efforts then are yet to be duplicated. The moment I see a byline for another fictional piece is the moment I get to relive the glory. As for online publishing byline, I get hundreds of them each month, the novelty has worn off.
What really does it for me these days, though, is when people actually *READ* what I write. Like when people drop me emails to tell me they’ve read my stories, or when companies unexpectedly thank me for featuring their products, or like that time when one of my articles got a link at the New York Times.
(As much as I want to get my name on print, I’m also self-effacing. I always, always tell my mom to never enumerate my publishing credits to relatives who come over.)
Oddly enough, I was ecstatic.
I had my first article printed in (say whatever you want) 2600: The Hacker Quarterly.
About a year later, I did it again.
Not a major accomplishment for many people, but a big one for me, especially since it was the first article I had EVER written for any reason.
Oh, for the record, it wasn’t about breaking into anything, it was about a piece of radio/tv equipment called a Gentner GSC3000.
Like you care ;P
*grin*
The bylines have been fun but there was one experience that came as a byproduct that’s a favorite.
After acting as Editor-In-Chief for a couple of years, I started getting requests to do interviews on the topics we covered. One of those interviews was on MSNBC’s Hot Lunch. For me, it was no big deal, a spot on a segment on a Labor Day as filler. To my Dad, however, it was a bit more.
Pops taped the show, and for the next few months, dragged it out whenever someone came to the house. He’d force them to sit through it, showing off my 4 minutes on national TV.
But the priceless moment was when an aunt told me “Your Dad is so proud of you! He said he was so proud that one of his sons was on TV, and it wasn’t on ‘COPS’!”
That may have been the best ever. It wasn’t exactly from a byline, but would never have happened without them.
I remember it quite well. It was 1992 and I got a byline on a story for the city newspaper. I was just an intern and had been assisting reporters, not expecting that they’d give me a story of my own. I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw it. I kept asking people I barely knew whether they read the paper and had noticed my story.
The first time I ever saw my byline it was in a local newspaper and -horror of horros! – there was also a picture of me right next to it. I had always assumed that no one actually read our local paper, but for the next month I would constantly get people telling me they’d “spotted” me. Very embarrassing at the time, but I still have the cutting, and I still get excited every time it happens!
I guess the first time I saw my name in print was when I was a kid, and I sent in a joke to a kid-oriented newspaper that was a part of our local newspaper–the Funny Pages–something like that. That was over 30 years ago, so my memory’s kind of foggy. My next ‘by line’ appeared in the Orange County Register when I was a teen, in the “Trouble Shooter” column, which was a place where you could ask for help on projects, etc.
But yes, I was thrilled when I received my first byline in a glossy, local magazine, and my picture was in there, too! I think I got my biggest thrill when I had something published in Family Fun Magazine and I received a $100 check! It was such a pretty check, too, that I didn’t want to cash it, so I took it to a copy place and had a color copy made of it. And, keeping the Disney theme, I spent the $100 on tickets to Disneyland and took my son there for the day!
Also.. there have been times when I’ve seen my name in the magazines and wanted to take it up to the checker at the store and say, “Look, see this, that’s ME!” LOL!
Have a lovely day.
I love that movie!! My first byline was when I was around 16 and got my first clips in Teen Ink and Teen Voices. But I think the really exciting thing for me was when I got my first paycheck from writing. I loved (and still love) writing so much that it seemed almost too good to be true that I could do it AND get paid!
Another milestone was when I wrote for a paper that’s owned by the NYT company (unfortunately, not the NYT… yet) and got a paycheck with the NYT logo on it. I have the envelope clipped to my bulletin board for when I need a little boost of confidence.
I was lucky to write a political piece on the local powerful and it made the cover of the magazine I was writing for… along with name on the cover as the local expert. I felt like an imposter and somewhat overwhelmed:-) I survived and landed a lot of cover gigs after that one …
Not to turn all these good vibes sour, but has anyone ever experienced a downside to having your name out there? I had an annoying experience in my first newspaper job that ended up with me getting an unlisted number, and I wondered if anyone else ever had that illuminating type of experience.
@Brandon – Quite the opposite here. The real “first” time I was in print was for the local paper. They’d been doing a story on how one town was adamant against allowing a portion of an unused logging trail to be turned into a trail for ATVs. This one town was the only hold out preventing ATVers from having a trail that ran from one end of the state to another.
I live in a relatively rural area about 20 miles from Burlington bordering Lake Champlain and the amount of ATV traffic we get through here is absurd. One night, a couple of drunk ATVers drove right through our yard and ripped a foot gash in our pool that couldn’t be repaired. (Those pools with the inflatable top ring that are 48 inches deep by 10 feet across).
My husband and I were furious, but it was July with the hottest months to come and our then 9 and 12 year olds were suddenly without a pool for summer vacation. I couldn’t afford a new one and the police told me I had no way to prove that the kid I was certain was responsible actually did it – though that morning in the dew I saw where the tire tracks went – apparently that isn’t proof enough. We didn’t have the money to buy a new one and the kid who I am certain did it obviously wasn’t going to be held responsible by the police.
I fired off a letter to the local newspaper about having these ATV trails open so that people wouldn’t drive across yards. Within hours of that editorial being printed, I had people calling up telling me that they loved the letter. But one phone call really stood out, the area ATV association called up and said they’d bought me a replacement pool and wanted to deliver it ASAP. So my article truly paid off that time!
Brandon — Not the first by line… but about 7 years ago, I did a cover story on a billionaire arms dealer whose wife lived here in town. She okayed the interview but when it came to printing, her family went crazy. I was getting death threats and early wake up nasty calls for a few months. My editor stayed tough, but the publisher caved and we soft sold the cover — article was the same, the cover headline changed. Both have been deported since but what a group!
@Sarah> That was crazy! Good thing you came out of the experience alive.
@mariella — It was creepy… but maybe I’ll write a “tell all” book and start them going again:-) NOT!