constant narrator

Last weekend I went to San Antonio to the National Writers’ Workshop put on by the Poynter Institute and the San Antonio Express-News. The conference is billed as a skill building workshop for professional journalists. Since I’m moving in this direction, I thought it was a sweet opportunity to learn some skills from the pros, hobnob and have an adventure. I found when I arrived, the conference was full of daily newspaper reporters, but this didn’t put me off too much. I was certainly the oddball, having just my name on my badge and no paper affiliation. People introduced themselves thus: “I’m Kimberly Johnson, education beat for the Killeen daily.” Uhhmm. Yes, well, I’m just a lowly freelancing oddball who doesn’t write for newspapers at all, so I see you’ll be going off to get another beer now, bye! Despite not having a newsroom team around me, I learned a ton about interviewing techniques, story idea generation, different viewpoints on a writers’ voice and all sorts of new jargon that I’m still looking up.

The highlight of the seminars was David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer winner for tax reporting in the NY Times. I’ve seen this guy on Jim Lehrer (groupie points) and he was very enthusiastic about catching tax indiscretions and daliances of large corporations. He was a big guy that filled the room, walking all over, pointing at people and calling their names out, demanding answers! Answers to his questions! Which was what his session was about: asking the right questions. He taught us good things like instead of asking someone why they did something to ask them the reasons they did something to avoid putting them on the defensive. Another good tip was to repeat an interviewee’s verbs back to them to let them know you’re listening and really getting the jist of what they’re saying. He also had a nice little instruction on asking sidelong questions to get information that wouldn’t be given with a frontal approach. The crowd was very receptive and he was the rockstar of the event.

Other good sessions discussed narrative, long-form reporting; places to generate story ideas; how to work on them when you don’t have the time to; and a good freelancing forum where I met a fellow I’m going to pester now and again for some long-distance mentorship.

I had been hoping to meet some magazine peeps but quickly realized this was just not the forum for it. I instead got some excellent recommendations for other conferences to meet folks at and some web sites, including magazinewriters.com. I feel very fired up and ready to tear into writing and querying and being rejected until I succeed.

But as a brief interlude: I go to Flipside tomorrow.

My brother is home from the hospital and recovering. The doctors have him on blood thinners so he’s screwed for work for a while: he’s a carpenter and uses power tool day in and day out. Being they won’t even let him shave with a real blade, the possibility of nicking a finger off and bleeding to death isn’t one he should toy with, and so, he is home. He gets a raft of tests back this week which should explain how the clotting happened. One of the outcomes of this could be that he has a genetic predisposition toward spontaneous clots (likely, given my family’s history of strokes), which would mean I and my siblings should be tested for the same condition. Blood! Who’d have though it would cause so much trouble?

Zub is home from the hospital but still very sick. We decided she’d do better at home than at the vet’s. She still isn’t eating on her own but today I gave her some new medicine that might help that. She’s hungry, I can seeing her eyeing her food like she’d really like to chow down but then she starting throwing up again and I can’t blame her for not eating at that point. Poor, pathetic kitty.

I’ve gotten lots of love and good vibes for my sick peeps. Thank you and keep them coming!

My 3rd brother is in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in L.A. with blood clots in his lungs. This is bad news. Even if they let him out, he’ll be on blood-thinners and have travel restrictions like no planes and no long road trips. This is practically a prison sentence for him.

My kitty is having kidney failure and is hospitalized at my vet.

This sucks! People, stay healthy!

I don’t have a pic of my brother, but please keep him and Zub in your good-vibes thoughts.

After weeks of being immersed in bad news about Iraq, I have had a beautiful news-junkie day of watching the progress of hundreds of gay couples getting married in Massachusetts. I knew intellectually it was coming but to see all of the folks turn out for midnight marriage licenses in Cambridge really got to me. I’ve been happy and teary all day.

I talked with my brother on the phone tonight and he said he and his partner are considering going out, getting married and bringing that certificate back to Illinois to see what transpires. The repercussions are going to be widespread and yet I think, in the end, subtle. The Massachusetts folks are banking on the two years that it will take to get the anti-gay marriage State Constitutional Amendment to the voters to mellow the issue out. By then, the hope is, it will be no big deal.

And it isn’t.

But it is. I am very happy for the folks in Massachusetts. Congratulations, you’re all beautiful!

Photos:
http://www.hrc.org/
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/gay_marriage/gallery/around_the_state

Webast of Cambridge at Midnight:
http://nmmstream.net:8080/ramgen/hrc/marriage/midnight.rm

“One small kiss for us, one giant kiss for mankind.”
- Erin Golden, on her marriage to her partner of 25 years Eileen Counihan

I had one of the stranger business meetings of my life this morning. It was held by candlelight. The VP (see: “boots-wearing”, “yankee” in previous post) who has taken on the task of ‘habitat improvement’ of our workplace. Since they laid off the marketing woman last week, I work alone in my cubical in a room that is about 2300 square feet. It’s my own domain that the occasional crazy VP wanders through in search of the color copier. This morning the VP tacked up a set of black plastic streamers in the entrace doorway like you might buy for a Halloween party. Then he turned off all the lights, closed the blinds and handed out candles. There we are, with the candles in the dark, dripping on the blue berber carpet. The meeting proceeded as most other meetings, with the VP talking a bunch, some of the developers mouthing off and then some committees being set up. All by candelight.

It turns out that my vast domain has now been allocated as ‘the developers’ cave’. Goodbye domain! Luckily, I’m a sucker for any project that means I don’t have to do the work I was hired to do, so this afternoon I helped a guy measure the whole room and brainstormed on cube layouts and Visual Factory cues for the room. I am strategizing on ways to keep my privacy and my prime window spot while still appearing as a ‘team player’. I guess if I end up hating it I can go back to my old spot, the (it’s so cold it’s a…) Morgue Corner.

These are the things that occupy my mind today. Time to go home.