Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Pieces on writing - by Michael Kruse, Bethany McLean & on Tom Bodett

It's been a while since I last posted on pieces about writing and I was fascinated by three that I came across recently.

For his personal blog, Tampa Bay Times writer Michael Kruse wrote "How I did the Bounty story," which had fascinating stuff in it about the year-long process of researching and writing (really about the dogged researching) of a lengthy story and I saw on Twitter a few writers noting as great wisdom the final two sentences...

"No matter the story, no matter your process, no matter the timetable — somewhere in the middle, you won’t be able to see the end. Can’t stop. Keep going."

"But the most important thing I learned doing Bounty — the most important thing I learned in 2013 — is that you can’t try to make something happen. All you can do is try to make something."

The shorter pieces to note here were one on fact-checking by Bethany McLean for LinkedIn and an interview with Tom Bodett for Alaska Magazine. The Bodett interview stood out as interesting to me with him having lived for quite a while in Homer, AK (where my parents have a house) and in that it showed how sometimes unexpected opportunities can develop.