My name is Nick Farrar, and I”m here in Lake County to pursue my destiny. Throughout my life I have had a passion for language and expression. Interning at the Record-Bee fulfills a life-long dream of mine. For years I have envisioned being part of a newspaper staff working tirelessly to accurately record events in history as they occur. I have imagined myself a proud member of a dedicated staff working to shed light on important issues previously shrouded in darkness. Other than the idealistic dreams of bringing truth to breaking stories, I have thought of working with a group of talented writers committed to strengthening their writing.
I look at my time here as being enrolled in a journalism boot camp. A recruit in boot camp is pushed well past his breaking point, leaving his physical limitations far behind. He is driven beyond the limitations he has placed on himself, and then pushed further. This continues until the weakness and fear leaves him completely, and there”s nothing left but strength and perseverance to the core of his soul. I want to do this with my writing. I want to shatter the very highest standard I”ve set on myself, and push beyond it.
My introduction to writing and to the Record-Bee have a common root in Lyme disease. When I was 8 months old I contracted Lyme after my mom received a bite from a Lyme infected tick while still breast-feeding. After almost a decade of sickness and struggle I was understandably depressed. It was then I began to write to express my despair. Writing was a much more positive outlet than the many destructive but appealing alternatives at my disposal. Very soon after falling in love with language I became involved with VOICE Magazine, a youth art and writing magazine based in Paradise. Now, almost six years later, I am the lead editor of VOICE.
I was introduced to the Record-Bee by Mandy Feder. I first met her in 2006 while she was volunteering at VOICE as a contributing editor. We became friends, but in the years that followed lost contact. We connected again earlier this year, while she was writing an article about young people in northern California with Lyme disease. She was interested in my story, and asked to interview me. I agreed, and she soon began an intensive and exhaustive interview process with my family and I that easily spanned over six hours. It was an extreme experience. Any interview has the possibility of being emotionally and physically draining, but trying to tell every aspect of a 16-year Lyme journey was especially so. I”m sure I would”ve been fatigued by the end of the interview even if I didn”t have Lyme.
Despite the mountain of information that we dumped on Mandy during several interviews, the article she wrote supported her reputation as a talented, award-winning journalist. The article was quickly picked up by MSNBC, Lymeblog.com, San Jose Mercury News, and numerous other prestigious publications. I soon began to hear from friends both old and new who had read the story. There were some who knew of my Lyme history before the article, and others who didn”t know I had Lyme. It was encouraging to hear from people with Lyme who had read the article and gained strength and inspiration from it. Receiving thank you letters from people suffering from Lyme made me feel even happier about agreeing to do the article.
While I”m here at the Record-Bee I hope to write articles that give readers hope and inspiration. My goal is to learn as much in as many areas as I possibly can, from the sensational to the mundane. I hope to acquire the tools necessary to pursue my dreams. One of my favorite authors is Chuck Palahniuk. This is my favorite quote by him, one that I am continually inspired by. “We all die. The goal isn”t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
Nick Farrar is a writer and editor who is completing a journalism internship at the Record-Bee as his senior project.
