Saphhous

Zerofest

Hey, something had to replace KrazyFest. Check out the Zerofest short movie here.

More on the festival and the bands playing is here.

You're welcome, COB

Good news!

I like him way better anyways: Conan O'Brien gets the Tonight show when Leno's contract expires in 2009. NYT story.

Addition

In hopes of making this blog less about me and more about my writing, I've added a box on the right with links to things I've written recently. So read them, damnit.

The square

A short, but not depressing, entry. Here's the first draft of my "lonely painting" piece. Excerpt, then link.

Paintings live the life of a supermodel. They're stared at, talked about and taken care of. They spend their days just, ah, hanging around. But like on the runway, there's always one who doesn't get noticed.

Such is the story of Franz Kline's "Square," on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the American Moderns gallery.

Read it here: The Square's lonely life

School.

The more I'm here, the less I like it. The people I would consider friends are, on the whole, quite flakey and unreliable. Therefore, I spend little time doing things with them, but when the occasional thing comes up, they're not dependable. It's really annoying.

It'd be much easier to just sit alone in my room all the time, but that gets old after a while. Apparently my stories aren't very entertaining and nobody seems to care what I'm saying, including the people who trespass here (judging by the comments), so I'm not sure what I should do.

And one wonders why I don't like being here. It's depressing and lonely. Last year it was only fun when we were partying, but I don't think being drunk is a good solution to the problem. It invariably leads to additional problems.

What I'd really like right now is to be painting my new apartment and talking to E, who has yet to begin filtering out my stories. Instead, I'm sitting here in my semi-dark room trying to figure out why people agree to do something then drop out at the last minute. Ridiculous. Guess I'll do some work instead. Or just sit.

In brief

Just a few things real quick: I don't want to go to school anymore, I want to go home and live in mine and Eric's apartment. Plus, school just sucks.

I had three hours of sleep before getting up at 4 a.m. this morning; I got maybe two more on the plane. I'm really hungry and I have class in 10 minutes. Today = not a good day. I also have to work tonight, probably till the wee hours of the morning, and I may have to go talk to my Russian teacher, which I'm really not ready for.

My Freep story got published correctly, as far as my quick once-over could see. There might be problems with it, but it appears to have been left as is (including the lede). That's kind of exciting. Anyways, read it here

Gotta run, more on the weekend (the absolutely fabulous weekend) later.

Writing

I'm pretty bored right now, waiting on a phone call to be returned so I can finish an article.

And by finish, some might say start. I haven't written a word of yet, and I have only a vague idea of how the story is going to go. The writing part, while none to easy, is probably the easiest part of writing an article — at least for me.

I am, in fact, somewhat shy and I get nervous every time I prepare for an interview. I have a feeling I'll never completely get over this feeling, but that it will continue to become part of the process I go through.

Speaking of process, that's pretty much what this entry's about. I've been analyzing my techniques since I started feature writing, and especially since I received the "slug sheet" that goes with my DFP story. I got the slug sheet. Keep in mind, I've never seen anything like this thing. I think it's pretty useless and probably a major part of why the DFP sucks so bad. Granted, my friend N (an assignment editor at the paper) is probably right when he said most of the Freep's reporters couldn't interview their way out of a paper bag. But that tells me they shouldn't be getting story assignments period. Yeah, great, I'm glad the Freep staff is promoting a happy world where anybody who wants to be a writer can be, but that's just not how the world works. A small number of people are writers. An even smaller number are journalists. And while I don't want to discourage people from trying out writing if that's what they're interested in, they really need to know when to quit and move on. There are many types of writing, so if you suck at writing news stories, please stop.

I digress. Back to the slug sheet. It's nearly a whole page of questions I should ask the people I'm supposed to interview. I skimmed the sheet, trying to figure out what kind of story they were looking for, then pitched it aside. It's pretty worthless, for two big reasons:

1. If you're going to take all the time to write out all the questions, it's only going to take 30 more to do the rest of the article.
2. If the reporter calls the person and just asks those questions (which many of them do, I'm sure), you're going to have stories that all sound the same, and you're never going to hear the real story.

Right now, said slug sheet is laying under some napkins. My room is slowing turning into my own mini-news room, complete with cigarettes by the window and fast food on the desk.

So. This is going somewhere, other than my usual DFP rant. Let's see. Oh, yeah, writing. The process thereof, at least.

With the slug sheet out of the way, here's how things went down. I got the assignment late Tuesday. Wednesday morning I did some background reading about the accident that had happened Friday. I found some information about the BU group that is my (supposedly) main focus. I sat down, typed up the contact names and phone numbers, typed up some framing questions — main things I needed answered, I think there's about 10 questions on the list altogether, and stopped.

I mulled over the story for a little bit, getting ready for the scary calling people part. I don't know what I'm worried about, but I always have this feeling of dread. But I really don't know what I'm afraid is going to happen. So, I'm finally ready. I pry myself away from my comfortable post at my computer and go outside where my phone works.

The contact isn't in. I leave a voicemail. I then track down email addresses for the contacts, and leave an email explaining the story, deadlines, etc. After some phone tag, I get ahold of the contact. I plop down on a convenient bench, because I was nowhere near my house, and talk to the gent for about 15 minutes. I knew he had probably talked to many reporters since Friday, so I let him tell me the story I wanted to hear. I asked more questions as we went and made plans for a follow-up call.

The other contact was being very elusive, apparently she was in Michigan. I spoke with her today, another 15 minutes on the phone, and I was a little disappointed. I didn't like talking to her. Hard to explain, but some people just upset me. She was one.

So now I'm waiting on my follow-up. I left a voicemail, and if I don't hear back from him in 15 minutes or so (that's just a very handy measurement today), I'll start my obnoxious phone-calling. I do, in fact, have his cell phone number, and while I loathe to use it ... Sometimes things just have to go that way.

Oh, yeah, the story has to be turned in by 5 p.m. Am I worried about the deadline? Absolutely not at all. Writing the story will take about 30 minutes to an hour. I have plenty of time.

I've mulled over the topic a bit, trying to decide how I wanted it to go, where it would start and end. I have a couple of ideas, but nothing's concrete until the interviews are finished. I don't write stories and then fill in parts, I let the story write itself. I also pride myself of having pretty tight writing, where I've cut out pretty much all the crap and there's really nothing else to cut without screwing up the piece. Hopefully the Freep will give me the space I need.

Well, I've got a story to do, I suppose. That's all for now.

Buzz buzz buzz

Busy, busy, like a bee. I wrote that in an IM earlier and decided it was worth recycling. Look for it in future away messages, too.

I accepted my first-ever Freep story. Due tomorrow night, it's (going to be) about a BU grief counseling group that is going to nearby Norwood High School, where a 14-year-old girl was struck and killed by the car of a former teacher. We'll see how it all goes.

I also have a very strange assignment for feature writing next week. More on that whenever I actually figure out what I'm supposed to do.

I'll be home at 12:30 p.m. Friday. I can't wait. There's E to see, a new apartment, and a few other things I've been left to guess about until I get home.

There's a good review of the new iMac (aka MacPod) in the NYT today. Read it here.

Stonehenge for skyscrapers

I always intended this blog to have more of my writing on it, and less of my ramblings about my boring life. So here's the first draft of my feature. Please tell me how to make it better within the next 24 hours.

And if you need a preview before you bother to click the link:

Finding a place to worship in a major city is usually easy. Churches, temples and mosques dot every block. But what about pagans, who prefer green trees over glass towers?

Paganism, like other religions, comes in a variety of flavors. Unlike other religions, they're usually willing to worship together regardless of particular affiliations. In major cities, there's no shortage of like-minded individuals to practice with.

But there is a shortage of space. True, space is an issue for everyone in an urban environment. That's what makes them urban.

Many pagans only convene in large groups for holidays, so a permanent space, like a church or a temple, isn't very important. What is important is outdoor space. And that, Boston area pagans say, is hard to find.

Stressed?

A short entry, for now. The NYT has an interesting piece today, about people who work better under stress. I've always felt I was one of those, but I found it curious that so many people don't. The story makes us sound like a freak show at the circus. But if anyone has every wondered why I act how I do, well, there you go. Check out that article. In the meantime, I'm going to try to wait till the last minute to write my feature, rework major portions of a Web site over the weekend ...

Anyways, I promise, promise something interesting up here before the weekend is out. But right now I need orange juice and coffee.

Back in Beantown

I'm here. I'm in one piece. The drive was long, but saying goodbye was longer.

I've finally unpacked; I still need a night stand and maybe a chair.

Classes started on Tuesday. So far, Russian is easier than expected, feature writing harder, history of folk song more fun and myth just as easy. I'm excited about all of them.

The weather here has been absolutely ridiculous. It's rained for two days, off and on, and when it's not raining, it's humid. So humid that when the wind gusts — as it has been — the humidity forms little raindrops. Disgusting. Oh, but Z, yes, the weather here is very nice and I'm sorry I ever doubted its quality.

I have a thousand-word feature story due Tuesday. No, I haven't started, it's not a rough draft and I don't have an idea. Should get on that, but figured I would post so I didn't have to hear so many complaints about my lack of updates.

Farewell for now, expect more posts in the next couple of days.

Updates.

Hm. Several things of note.

My fantastically awesome grandparents took me to dinner tonight. My grandma bought me some jeans and forced me to get a jean jacket that I had decided was too expensive regardless of who's money I was spending. But it is really nice and I do really like it. I also got a Fom neck pillow from Brookstone.

We might have found E an apartment today. It's wicked nice. The complex is great, the apartment is really nice, and Beast (his doggy) can come too. And E said he thought his interview at ComAir went well; I heard the same via my stepdad from the interviewers.

Another thing ... Bomb scare at Warren Towers. Pretty crazy. Gotta watch out for those metronomes.

We leave on Friday. I'm excited/sad all at the same time.

Oh. The new Snitch site is up. Anyone who's talked to me in the past two weeks knows how much I've worked on it, so go check it out. Now.

Well, since I'm not slaving away on the site, I don't really know what to do with my time, so I guess I'll go lay down. Night!