Before I begin the story, I'm going to do this backwards and tell you what the moral of the story is. The moral of the story is that no matter where you work, which paper you work for or what towns you cover, you will always find some kind of drama. Good or bad, it's always going to be there.
I'm working in a different office for a few weeks until the company hires two new reporters for this particular paper. It means three things for me. First, it means that it's going to take me about four times as long to get to work in the morning because I'm working in a different town. Second, it means I get a break from the two Hell-towns I cover at my office. Third, it means I leave the drama of those two towns and come to the drama of these two towns.
It took me three hours to get to work this morning; it's only supposed to take forty minutes, and that's without traffic. It takes me ten minutes to get to work at my regular paper, so you can see why I'm a little extra cranky today.
But the reason it took so long was because of the road and traffic situation. There is only one road getting into the town in which I'm filling in. One road. There are three roads that converge onto this road. Two of the three were closed due to flooding.
This is what happens: In the same weekend, your state governor ends up in the hospital because he wasn't smart enough to wear a seatbelt on the high way and several towns get buried by a northeaster. So this northeaster comes in and one of the towns I'm covering right now was almost completely under water. It was bad. Really bad.
So I went today to the refugee building where they evacuated almost 300 people to. It was lined with cots and plastic bags of clothes and sleeping bags and people who just looked like complete zombies. I can't even imagine sitting in a room like that with hundreds of other people just waiting to hear if I'd ever be able to go back home or not.
So between flooding, a governor who's in the hospital, and coping with people who are associated with the town I cover and the Virgina Tech incident, it's been really hectic around here. Drama is in every town, no matter where you live, no matter what town you cover, no matter what paper you write for.
Harry Truman said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." This is what reporting is about, folks. It's about covering the drama in a way that doesn't completely kill your Bullshit Goggles. It's about going to cover the hard stuff and talking to people who have found out they just lost everything except the clothes on their back.
On that note, happy writing.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A Novel Idea
"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unforunately, no one knows what they are." --
I love going to used bookstores. Every time I go, I always look for the section that has books on writing. I'm not sure why; I never end up buying any of them. I've never found "that book" that explains exactly how to start, work on, finish, and publish a novel. I'm of the belief that you can't find out how to write well from a book on writing as well as you can from an actual book.
Ie., if you want to write fantasy stories, you'd better be reading fantasy books to see how the "masters" do it and learn what type of fantasy story really markets itself well.
I've written a few novels (none of which are published yet) and I think the best novel advice I can give anyone is to learn when to let go.
I've been working on this novel for six years now. I wrote the first draft in high school and it's been through about four major overhaul revisions since I finished the first draft. Everything from completely changing the ending, to completely changing the beginning to moving the whole story from first-person point of view to third-person limited point of view. It's been a long time coming. Several people have read it and given me feedback. I've queried about five or six agents with no luck.
I'm at a point now where the novel is sitting on my computer staring at me with this mocking glare, daring me to edit it some more. And I always fall victim to its mocks. It's almost an annual thing to do an overhaul these days on the book and part of me thinks the reason for this is that I know if I'm still editing it that I can't send out query letters.
And there's plenty of reasons that I'm afraid to query. Having the novel accepted means that I'm done. It means that the story has been abandoned until an editor rips through it and I guess having an editor rip through my story is the equivalent of being raped. It means that my vision for the story becomes lost as an editor looks at the story merely as an item for sale. To me, this story is part of my life. It's an actual, tangible piece of my soul stuck on two flash drives, two hard drives, two floppy disks (You can see my paranoia of a technology failure) and two large 3-inch binders. It's a piece of my life and the idea of someone else judging it bugs me.
Which is why I'm telling you that if you ever want to write and publish a novel, learn to let it go. Learn that if you want your work published, you have to learn to create and let it lead its own life. It's very much like parenthood. Your novel is your baby, and whether you believe it or not, if it's meant to be shared with the world, it will do so, whether you really want it to or not. But you have to let it go. I have to let go of my novel and let it try and stand on its own two feet in front of a literary agent and potential editors. I'm not of the illusion that this is going to be a quick and easy process. I realize it will be painful. I realize that I'm going to see a lot more rejections before I see a few acceptances.
But I also realize it'll be worth it when the book is on the shelves and I can walk into Barnes and Nobles and see it on the shelf. It makes it a little easier to move towards the process of letting go.
I love going to used bookstores. Every time I go, I always look for the section that has books on writing. I'm not sure why; I never end up buying any of them. I've never found "that book" that explains exactly how to start, work on, finish, and publish a novel. I'm of the belief that you can't find out how to write well from a book on writing as well as you can from an actual book.
Ie., if you want to write fantasy stories, you'd better be reading fantasy books to see how the "masters" do it and learn what type of fantasy story really markets itself well.
I've written a few novels (none of which are published yet) and I think the best novel advice I can give anyone is to learn when to let go.
I've been working on this novel for six years now. I wrote the first draft in high school and it's been through about four major overhaul revisions since I finished the first draft. Everything from completely changing the ending, to completely changing the beginning to moving the whole story from first-person point of view to third-person limited point of view. It's been a long time coming. Several people have read it and given me feedback. I've queried about five or six agents with no luck.
I'm at a point now where the novel is sitting on my computer staring at me with this mocking glare, daring me to edit it some more. And I always fall victim to its mocks. It's almost an annual thing to do an overhaul these days on the book and part of me thinks the reason for this is that I know if I'm still editing it that I can't send out query letters.
And there's plenty of reasons that I'm afraid to query. Having the novel accepted means that I'm done. It means that the story has been abandoned until an editor rips through it and I guess having an editor rip through my story is the equivalent of being raped. It means that my vision for the story becomes lost as an editor looks at the story merely as an item for sale. To me, this story is part of my life. It's an actual, tangible piece of my soul stuck on two flash drives, two hard drives, two floppy disks (You can see my paranoia of a technology failure) and two large 3-inch binders. It's a piece of my life and the idea of someone else judging it bugs me.
Which is why I'm telling you that if you ever want to write and publish a novel, learn to let it go. Learn that if you want your work published, you have to learn to create and let it lead its own life. It's very much like parenthood. Your novel is your baby, and whether you believe it or not, if it's meant to be shared with the world, it will do so, whether you really want it to or not. But you have to let it go. I have to let go of my novel and let it try and stand on its own two feet in front of a literary agent and potential editors. I'm not of the illusion that this is going to be a quick and easy process. I realize it will be painful. I realize that I'm going to see a lot more rejections before I see a few acceptances.
But I also realize it'll be worth it when the book is on the shelves and I can walk into Barnes and Nobles and see it on the shelf. It makes it a little easier to move towards the process of letting go.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
The Last One To Know
So, here's a funny story. Well...funny for me. Not for the people it involves. I'll explain.
Since I've started at the this newspaper, there have been three instances where I've had to break bad news to people. The first time was when one of the school boards that I cover announced that they were suing the state Department of Education and the state Education Commissioner. So I called the state DOE and asked for a comment about the lawsuit and the comment I got was, "We're being SUED?!?!?!"
Oops.
The second time was when another school board I covered voted to write a letter to a fellow board member asking him to resign his post after he allegedly made racial comments (I've mentioned this before, I'm sure). He knew the letter was coming, but when I called he hadn't received the letter yet, so that was not as big of an oopps, but an "oops" just the same.
The third and most recent time was the other day when I got a news release from two people that filed an ethics complaint against a committeeman in yet another town I cover (I cover six towns). They filed the complaint five years ago and the state Local Finance Board found him guilty of violating ethics law because of a vote he made in office. He was fined $500. Then he appealed the decision with the state's Office of Authoritative Law who decided that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that he acted in self-interest instead of violating ethics law, so they tossed out the decision. Then, last Friday, they announced that the LFB rejected their decision and the final decision was that he was going to be fined $500. So I called him to see if he would be willing to comment about the decision. Here's how it happened:
Me: Would you be willing to comment?
Him: That's old news. They made the decision to toss that out two years ago and they haven't made a final decision yet.
Me: Not according to a news release I got. According to this, the decision was made last Friday.
Him: Well then I guess I'd better call my attorney, shouldn't I?
So yeah, that was awkward.
I don't especially like being the bearer of unhappy tidings. It's always slightly amusing when I know stuff like that before the person directly affected knows, but hey. It happens. The three people weren't angry with me, of course, since I'm just the messenger doing my job. But it's always awkward when that happens. It's a little frustrating when news comes out a day before press time, so then I have to wait for people to track down their attorney and get me an official statement. Sometimes they get back to me, sometimes they don't. When they don't, the official statement is, 'So and so declined comment' and that's just the way it has to be.
In other news, it's pouring outside today for the first time in like...two months. So, we need the rain, but I still don't like walking into my office soaking wet. Ew.
Since I've started at the this newspaper, there have been three instances where I've had to break bad news to people. The first time was when one of the school boards that I cover announced that they were suing the state Department of Education and the state Education Commissioner. So I called the state DOE and asked for a comment about the lawsuit and the comment I got was, "We're being SUED?!?!?!"
Oops.
The second time was when another school board I covered voted to write a letter to a fellow board member asking him to resign his post after he allegedly made racial comments (I've mentioned this before, I'm sure). He knew the letter was coming, but when I called he hadn't received the letter yet, so that was not as big of an oopps, but an "oops" just the same.
The third and most recent time was the other day when I got a news release from two people that filed an ethics complaint against a committeeman in yet another town I cover (I cover six towns). They filed the complaint five years ago and the state Local Finance Board found him guilty of violating ethics law because of a vote he made in office. He was fined $500. Then he appealed the decision with the state's Office of Authoritative Law who decided that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that he acted in self-interest instead of violating ethics law, so they tossed out the decision. Then, last Friday, they announced that the LFB rejected their decision and the final decision was that he was going to be fined $500. So I called him to see if he would be willing to comment about the decision. Here's how it happened:
Me: Would you be willing to comment?
Him: That's old news. They made the decision to toss that out two years ago and they haven't made a final decision yet.
Me: Not according to a news release I got. According to this, the decision was made last Friday.
Him: Well then I guess I'd better call my attorney, shouldn't I?
So yeah, that was awkward.
I don't especially like being the bearer of unhappy tidings. It's always slightly amusing when I know stuff like that before the person directly affected knows, but hey. It happens. The three people weren't angry with me, of course, since I'm just the messenger doing my job. But it's always awkward when that happens. It's a little frustrating when news comes out a day before press time, so then I have to wait for people to track down their attorney and get me an official statement. Sometimes they get back to me, sometimes they don't. When they don't, the official statement is, 'So and so declined comment' and that's just the way it has to be.
In other news, it's pouring outside today for the first time in like...two months. So, we need the rain, but I still don't like walking into my office soaking wet. Ew.
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