Tunnel Vision

Working With CBC

Writing this story for CBC was one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. It was my first official, paid writing job and I loved every moment of it.

So, let me tell you how it happened!

It was just a normal day. I was spending time with my brothers when I got an email. I checked it and saw it was from Caitlin O'Hanlon from Wattpad HQ. I assumed it had something to do with promotions on Wattpad like competitions and such.

When I opened the email, I read it ten times before I actually understood what it was.

Caitlin told me that CBC had asked Wattpad for young, Canadian writers to do a series on real life experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to her, Wattpad sent a list of writers they thought would work well and CBC narrowed the list down to a smaller size. And, inexplicably, I made the cut!

Before I knew it, I was talking to Lucy Mann, a producer from CBC, and planning my story to add to their collection.

While the story was for a series based on life in this pandemic, I wanted to make something a little more powerful than to just talk about my experience. Something memorable to stick with people, and maybe even help them. I came up with an idea: a story to spread awareness for suicide. I thought this would be appropriate as many people were developing feelings of hopelessness while locked inside.

With that, Tunnel Vision was made! I'm incredibly proud of the story and I'm very glad that it's gotten positive reactions from not only my family and friends, but from strangers and the kind people at CBC.

I'm so grateful to Wattpad and CBC for this opportunity. I couldn't imagine a better first writing job. Caitlin and Lucy were so supportive and kind in the whole process.

The series has a ton of amazing stories by many different writers. I urge you all to go check out the rest of the stories on the CBC Books website. Again, the series is called Transmission.

Okay, I'll let you actually read the story now.

Drumroll please....

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