Today I met and had coffee with Jessica Tholmer, one of the writers for the blog HelloGiggles. The coffee date, appropriately, was chalked full of giggles, girl talk and writing tips.
Besides the fact that I have always loved her snarky-cute EINTKILF column, a few weeks ago I discovered that Jessica and I went to the same high school (Shorecrest–represent!) and university (WWU Vikings! Woo!) These coincidences were too uncanny for me to ignore, so I emailed her (yep, I’m that bold girl that risks looking like a creepy internet stalker) and asked her if she had any writing advice for me. One thing led to another, and tonight I found myself drinking hot chocolate with a blogger whose posts have gotten 10k facebook likes. She has one of my dream jobs, and she rocks at it! I mean, talk about being starstruck!
But I should take her off this pedestal, Jessica is completely down to earth. She’s a fun-seeking, hard-working, coffee-loving, boy-analyzing, horoscope-believing twenty something just like me. She just got lucky when, as a distraction from a bad break-up, she submitted some writing to HelloGiggles. Soon after, the editors told her they loved it and asked her to do a weekly column. She’s been at it for about six months now, and the popularity of her stuff is skyrocketing. Her biggest piece of advice is, “submit, submit, submit, and never stop submitting!” and after seeing what happened to her, I plan on following that advice ASAP!
Besides being an all around lovely person, Jessica’s living proof that by the time I’m 25 I could have my writing posted on a big-time blog; I could have regular readers; I could be a voice for twenty-something women all over. And that, my friends, is incredibly inspiring.
