Behind the Scenes: In which I talk about story ideas

And today, that amounts to my Happenings listing and story ideas. Look, you had your chance to give me a more exciting topic. Let this be a lesson to you.

 

We received a note last week from someone with very nice handwriting complaining about Happenings — that, because she now receives her newspaper via the post office, it does not come until Wednesday or Saturday afternoon, and by that time, some of the event listings are long over. She asserted that we should not have any listings for events that happen before she receives her paper.

 

I get the frustration. I live with the realities of our printing press being in Salem every deadline. We used to have Tuesdays and Fridays to put out the Wednesday and Saturday papers; now, we hit “send” on those editions by 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday. It is what it is, and what it has to be if we are to make our traditional Wednesday and Saturday mail deliveries.

 

However, not all newspapers are delivered by the post office. We still have carriers who deliver the News on Tuesday and Friday afternoons to homes and news boxes around the county. That means that, while there are Happenings events that have expired by the time some get the paper, they are right on time for others. And I have to take that into consideration when I put together my list in each edition.

 

So be understanding is what I’m saying. What is out of date for you is current for someone else.

 

And if you’re afraid of missing out on Wednesday or Saturday events because of your paper delivery schedule, I would suggest taking a good look at what is listed in the previous edition.

 

(I would like to point out, again, that Happenings always runs as space allows, and they have to cut off somewhere — and every single person who submits an item thinks theirs is the most important. That’s why I list them not only by date, but by time. It’s as fair as I can make it.)

 

Oh, and one more time: If you have a Happenings item in the paper but are no longer meeting, please, please give me a call or pop me an email and let me know. It’s so frustrating to hear from someone that the event they tried to attend was canceled. They wonder why we had it in the paper.

 

Because I’m not omniscient. What a pity.

 

*

 

I had the pleasure of talking to a group of writers at May Street elementary last school year, invited by Wendy Best, who had been teaching a special class to about 10 or so girls each week. I talked a bit about what it was like to work for a newspaper — the deadlines, the fact that it’s not just reporting, but a thousand behind the scenes kind of moments each day that add up to whatever edition we’re working on.

 

But what they really wanted to know was this: How do I get my story ideas? And how many stories can I write in a day?

 

Well, kids, the fact is that I have help when it comes to generating story ideas. There are some topics that I have been covering for years now — Hood River Valley High School theater performances, for example — and I always have one ear to the ground on that front. There are other topics that I hear about via flyer or Happenings submission, or I dream about writing an article and then wake up and think about how realistic the topic is. (Yes, I dream about my job. I edit countless pages in my sleep. Once I dreamt I allowed emoticons to fill an entire article. I woke up in a panic.)

 

Or I see a story in another paper and steal the idea. One of my favorite things to do while we’re on vacation or visiting another town is to look at the local newspaper. Stories are often universal.

 

Then there are stories I am assigned to write, although that happens infrequently and mostly amounts to annual publications, like Panorama and our upcoming Gift Guide (look for that in our Nov. 27 edition).

 

But mostly, I get story ideas from other people. Patricia Cooper, Hood River County School District equity and family partnerships director, emailed with the suggestion for an AVID program story (that ran as our Kaleidoscope in the Oct. 9 edition). Linda Thornton — who happened to have both of my girls as first graders at Mid Valley — told me about Suzie Root and her therapy horse, Hank, who were making the rounds to assisted living centers (Sept. 4 edition).

 

Mike Hendricks gave me the Radio Tierra tip (that story ran in Saturday’s edition) and a notice from Anderson’s Tribute Center had me looking into their Day of the Dead altar and events (that story will run soon).

 

I could go on, but you get the idea: I’m fortunate to have people in the community who let me know not only what is going on, but what is important to them.

 

If left to my own devices, you’d be getting a lot of stories about, like, coffee. (Huh, it has been a while since my June 2018 coffee Kaleidoscope, now that I think about it.)

 

I can’t always cover every suggestion that comes my way, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get something into the paper anyway — photos and information are always welcome, and you can send items to anyone on our staff.

 

Hey, by the way, we’re down to three reporters now; Caleb Lundquist, our half-time sportswriter, has struck out for greener pastures in another part of the state. We now have Gabriel Bravo working freelance on our sports beat, and he will come onboard soon to be our “half” again, splitting his 40 hours with us and The Dalles Chronicle.

 

As to how many stories I can write in a day, that depends on my notes and who has answered my phone calls or emails. If I have the information, I can write all day long. It’s actually more time-consuming researching, interviewing and photographing a story than it is to write one. I banged this thing out in an hour, but that doesn’t include the three drafts I discarded (sometimes you need a looming deadline to force you to focus). And I didn’t have to interview anyone.

 

News stories take longer than columns. I tend to manage one or two week, along with my other responsibilities. (That does not mean they run, only that they are written. Stories sometimes get cut due to space. It’s just a reality of the job.)

 

In all honesty, though, it took me three weeks to write that Oct. 9 AVID story — there were a lot of moving parts on that one — and I’ve been working on a story about the childcare crisis in Hood River County for over a month and haven’t finished researching yet, although I think I’m close.

 

Don’t even get me started on the editing. That never really ends, which is why I don’t read my own stories after they’ve been published — I always find something I could have written more concisely or differently. Done better. Or I catch that typo that wasn’t obvious until it’s glaring up at me in print.

 

Happens every time.