Big Wheel Keeps On Turnin' Dept.

So now I can finally answer the question: What in the name of $DEITY is this Really Cool Thing I Haven't Been Able To Talk About For So Long?

::ahem::

As of a few minutes ago, I was officially hired as the new anime guide for About.com.

This is something I've been working towards for a very long time. Not just the weeks and months that I spent in the training process, but in the years before that when I did both my own fan-blogging and wrote contributions for Advanced Media Network's anime site. Anyone who has even peripheral involvement to the business side of the anime industry can tell you it's terrific fun — you're doing something you love, and you're making money, and you're treating it like a career and not simply a hobby. It's a massive step in the right direction for me.

I'd originally applied for this position back in January, and after several months went by I assumed they'd found someone else for the position and thought nothing more of it. Then, outta the blue in June, I heard back from them: they liked what I had submitted and wanted to see more. So I was accepted into their guide training program, went through the steps, and bit off all my fingernails several times over. Until today.

Here's what this means in the short and long runs for me.

1. The next month is going to keep me really busy. I'm going to be training and getting the anime.about.com site prepared to go live. I don't know how much, if any, of the existing content is going to be duplicated; I might well be starting completely from scratch or inheriting what there is and be expected to pick and choose. We shall see.

2. I'm going to need to rearrange my priorities. It might take some time to figure out how much of my daily schedule will need to be devoted to this, but that's something I must eventually do. It also means some of my other projects — the blogging I do here, the novels I write, etc. — will have to be pushed down in priority or taken off the schedule entirely for now. I will probably not be able to attend shows as anything but press from now on — although the die has more or less been cast for the other shows I'll be attending through 2010, since I doubt there's time to secure press credentials for any of them (especially NYAF).

I would like to think I don't have to cut major chunks out of my life, but there are only 24 hours in a day and only one of me (as the old saying goes), and an opportunity like this is not going to come along again any time soon. I need to do right by it.

3. This will lead to even bigger and better things. Fun encounters with people in the industry, in-depth stuff I wouldn't have been able to pull off on my own, etc. This is just the opening of the door; I haven't even started to walk through it yet.

But here I am. I hope I can do the right thing. And I'm thrilled.