Notes and stuff

Just going through all my Pockets of Change notes tonight. I've taken quite a few notes. It's hard to imagine what this whole thing is going to look like when it's done. It's like when I write a story, but on a much, much, much larger scale.

For an article, I take an idea like 'Council wants to build new pool'. Sounds simple enough. But I start by taking copious amounts of notes at said Council meeting. Then I pore over Council package for details, drawings, designs. Then I go through Council notes and Council package and come up with questions based on what I know, what I would like to know, what I think other people might like to know and what I suspect everyone knows but needs to be spelled out (like just how much those darn operating costs will break our tincy tiny budget).

Then I make a list of just about everyone I would like to talk to. In theory, I will talk to at least 10 people to get differing views, changed perspectives etc. Ideal candidates would be mayor, rec. co-ordinator, mom with small kids, man on street who already pays too much in taxes, senior who can't get to Chwk to excercise pool for therapy, other community pool person for what pool did for their town... This could go on and on all day. But you get the idea.

Then I actually try and reach said people, starting with the easiest (municipal staff and mayor) and working my way to the harder ones. So (again, in theory, this never seems to work in real life), I then look at all these well-organized notes with lovely quotes in them, and I assemble a masterpiece that tells a story, gives the facts, shows the opinions and is all summed up in under 600 words with a nice photo or graphic to boot.

Yup. That sure sounds like a nice way to do a story like that. What actually happened with this story was I heard it at Council, thought in my head how great all these ideas would be to do, then all of a sudden it was the next week, the paper was due in less than 24 hours and all I had was one interview with the mayor (done in the same interview with him for I think it was four seperate stories and some background stuff for future), and one interview with the rec. guy.

Anyway, all that to say it kind of feels like Pockets of Change is going in that direction. We have all these great ideas - tie it in with the millenium goals / tell the personal, the community and the larger scale picture stories / connect with readers on a real personal level while still informing etc. etc. - when in reality how can any one team accomplish all that?

Just some thoughts, as I pour over my POC notes and try to figure out how to write a bio for the website. It is not as easy as it seems. I've got several different versions that read very differently and I have NO IDEA how to make it sound like it should...