What to do now?

I got my office copy of the January 2011 issue of The Ring today.

Seeing my name in print was even more exciting/surreal than seeing my name in the table of contents on a website. Reading my article was a kick. The trouble is that my brush with print has me wanting more. It also has me wondering if I can juggle a serious effort at freelance writing and a day-job that is more than just a little time intensive. I certainly can't make a living writing, not anytime in the near future.

If it were just the writing, then I wouldn't be worried. Writing is the easy part. I've never had a problem with writing. I beat my deadline easily once I had everything I needed to sit down and hammer the keyboard.

The hard part was getting to the people I needed to talk to and making sure I had the framework on which to build. I never did receive an email reply or a call-back from the fighter's promotional outfit. I was fortunate that the Nevada State Athletic Commission forwarded an email I sent them to Jimmy Alex. I was even more fortunate that Jimmy called me back. Even after speaking to Jimmy and getting point of contact info for the promoters, I was still never able to get a quote.

I did speak to Alex, to co-manager Ralph Heredia, and to Sharif Bogere. They were great. If Jimmy had not been so easy to talk to and happy to talk to me then everything would have died a slow death then and there.

Of course, due to my inexperience, I ended up not speaking to Kenny Adams before sitting down to write. This was partly due to my own insecurity. I was nobody and, being nobody, I was concerned about wasting his time. I have since been given to understand he was not terribly happy to be left out. Since Kenny Adams is not the boxing personage I would most like upset with me, I admit to feeling pretty stupid. Lesson learned: always ask to talk to the trainer. Hopefully, if I ever have to talk to Adams about one of his fighters in the future, he won't remember me. I don't want Kenny Adams to beat me up.

Whether I've been writing about boxing or about politics, I've always fallen back on the line 'I'm not a journalist.' While I'm obviously not a career journalist, I don't know if I can still fall back on that safe haven.

I don't know what happens next, but something has to happen next. Otherwise, why did I do it in the first place?