Lassiter High School days and string

When searching through archives of Lassiter High School, I wasn’t surprised to find that the most articles were about senior Hutson Mason in his final season in high school. Mason had set several state records and was leading the high school to an undefeated regular season. I was a freshman at the time and can remember it vividly. It was our best football season in years and Mason gave the school life again. The article  I found first was after Lassiter won its second round play off game 70-49 over South Gwinnett. In the next game of the playoffs, Lassiter fell to Colquitt County to end the undefeated season. Mason went on to play for UGA after sitting behind Aaron Murray.

 

I find the most effective way for myself to keep up with my facts, notes, and interviews is google docs. I saw a couple other people wrote this, too. I think it’s great that it can be accessed through any computer and that helps for when I pick up on a story while at the study center or on my laptop at home. Also it helps in group projects cause we can easily share things. It also helps when your computer used to be prone to crashing, the auto-save and backup of the google drive is a lifesaver on many accounts.

Schooldays/String

I chose to go way back with my school post, found here. This is an article about my high school, Starr’s Mill, getting ready to open in 1997. It’s a sweet piece for me, as I grew up going to school in the complex mention and gives me a little bit of history about where I spent 12 years of my life. I did not know there was a Starr’s Mill school in Fayette county long before ours opened, I thought the name of the school was based solely off the mill that was a mile down the road.

 

In regards to Clark’s writing, I probably need a better way of keeping track of my material for stories. Although I know we briefly discussed in class, there are some really great resources out there. My best method is a little bit of organized chaos, but it works for me. I have grown very fond of Google Drive, so I make a folder in Google Drive for each piece that I work on. I have a doc for story links, a doc for transcriptions, one for background facts and one for the actual story. I intend to use the same method for this class but hope I can weave in some new techniques as we learn them.

Saving My Strings

I have started to stick with a general strategy when it comes to keeping track of story materials.

When the story idea first pops into my head, I’ll pull up the “Notes” app on my iPhone and jot down just a brief description of the idea. I’ve learned to write the description instead of just two or three words from experience because I have ideas still on my list whose meaning I am still unaware of.

Then I make two separate Google Doc folders. One is the document that has the transcript of any interviews as well as links to relevant stories or videos about the story topic. If there are key pieces that I need to seek out for the first document, I’ll leave a sticky note on my laptop background with keywords to look for in case I forget. I’ll normally transcribe entire interviews even if I think certain parts are irrelevant, because more than once I’ve used something I initially thought was a mere throw-away quote.

From there, I just transfer the necessary information from the first document into the second document as I write. Writing in your classes has converted me to using Google Docs, and at this point I swear by it.

Organizing and keeping track of material

 

Every since class last week, I have downloaded the Pocket extension for Google Chrome and have already found that very useful. I plan to use that a lot to save stories that I find on the internet that I can use for research and help with the background of my story. If I’m just using an article or a google search to find a quick fact or piece of background information I’ll type it down in Word on the notepad formatted page. This type of format is where I take all my notes for class, I just find it’s super easy to use. All of the background information I need for the story I’ll have on one Word document. What I love about the notepad is that I can have different tabs on the document and different aspects of whatever I’m taking notes on will have its own tab.

I will create a folder for each piece I’m working on and within that specific folder there will be lots of documents and pictures and what not. It’s not the most organized but I will use very specific titles on the documents and can tell just through preview if they are a normal formatted Word doc or a notepad formatted one.

This summer at my internship whenever I’d get an email from my editor I’d read what he want me to write and copy and paste that into a Word document so I didn’t have to search through my email to find it and I could just refer to the document for specifics. I do like how Clark immediately writes down his goals for a story and how he wants to format the story. I also love the whole section of the chapter about procrastination because I find that to be very real.

Personally “saving string” in a plastic box overwhelms me, while I think it’s a good idea, I don’t know if it’s right for me. I don’t like clutter and having multiple boxes of information for stories that still need to be written, gives me a little bit of anxiety. I will definitely try it though because I’m not the professional writer and Clark is. He made a lot of useful tips throughout this section that I plan to incorporate into my organizing my material for stories.

Methods for gathering information

I keep track of my notes and things I need for a story usually on a single Google doc. This is, for me, an easy way to consolidate everything in one place. Operating on one document also is a memory exercise to where I can remember where something was on the document and remember putting it on there. I like having everything in one place and not having to go to several different places to find something. It might not be the most organized or efficient method, but it is the one that works best with the way my mind works and operates when I undertake a big project. When it’s time to write, I usually just scroll up and down on that document. It becomes a game of sorts, as I put all the puzzle pieces together where they need to go based on what I have. That is my process, and while I am definitely open to change, it’s what has worked best for me thus far.

Research and planning throughout my reporting

I’m obsessively organized in most areas of my life, and I do the same with reporting and writing. I like the comfortableness of having a routine and that’s how I typically produce my best work. Even though the process is sometimes elongated (for a story I report for a month or longer) or condensed (when doing 15 minutes of research prior to football availability), the steps stay consistent.

I have a reminders list on my computer that is called “Stories to write.” It’s essentially anything I’m curious about and think could turn into a story. This reminds me of how Clark said he had bins with big-picture themes. I leisurely explore those topics, simply because I’m interested, and slowly I’ll make additions to the bullet point, such as a possible source to talk to, a stat I need to I look up and sometimes even an entire lede.

I read a lot. I do a ton of background research, particularly if it’s a story that’s fairly large. It gives me a feel for the angles that haven’t been explored and it helps me create better questions. This is the step I never skip, even if it’s just rapid research at a football availability. I don’t write unless I’ve read something on that topic. In terms of reading to become a better writer, I try to do that whenever I have the time. There are a few stories that I’ll read every month or so simply because I think they are so well-written that there’s no way I can’t continually learn something from it.

For a few of my biggest stories I’ve done, I print my transcriptions. I read them, highlight and make notes. I constantly ask myself, “What is the story? Who are the characters? Why do they act they way they do? Is there a conflict?” That’s helped me more than anything, just asking myself, “What is the story here?” I outline because in the long run it saves time. I outline when I’m on deadline, and I outline when I have all the time in the world. I don’t do sophisticated Roman numerals or anything of that nature, but I think of all the main points I need to hit and write them down. That way, it’s easier to make structural changes. When I write, it’s quick because of the work I’ve done on the back end.

Writing Tools: Keeping Track

When I am working on a big story or one that contains a lot of gathered materials, what I try to do is keep all the parts in one folder. Whether it’s interview transcripts, secondary research, field notes, etc. I think creating a desktop folder specifically for that story is the best way to go about it. However, technology has it’s tweaks, so saving all the work to a jump drive, is also very important as well.

I prefer keeping everything in a digital form is better that have physical copies because it’s easier to find and keep up with. Using a computer is also very convenient because you can access your information from different sites. If I send the folder to my email then I can have that information at any computer I have access too. I can also create neat little checklists, reminders and calendars to make sure I am making deadlines and not forgetting to do anything.

Since we have a class project that everyone will be working on, I plan to make a “High School Transfers” folder on my desktop and keep all my material for that project in there. And I plan to so the same for my individual projects.

I started off with a folder just labeled “School,” my freshman year in college. I was too fond of using a laptop for pretty much all my work, so I figured that one folder would suffice. It did not take long though for me to realize that I would not only need to categorize my classes into different folders but also make individual folders inside of those to categorize work for my different projects and assignements. In my opinion it’s the easiest way to go about it and you can file almost any type of document.

Saving String

Clark has some great suggestions and tips on preparing for writing in general, most of which I do to some extent but have never consciously considered. I think I could do better on “doing my homework” in some cases, as I find myself having to ask follow up questions while writing some of my stories.

I also have a goal for this semester to read more for form than content. More often than not, I skim quickly through stories by journalists I love on the bus, and then never think to read them again. As a writer myself, I know the amount of time and painstaking effort that goes into writing a story and I feel that I’m being a bit disrespectful for not taking my time and appreciating the writing.

In terms of saving string, I’m excited about this class because I don’t think I have ever taken on a story that allows for so much time and research. This will likely be my biggest string-saving endeavor to date. I’m a sucker for having physical copies of my material, so I usually keep a folder with printed copies of articles I’ve found pertaining to my topic. I also make notes in journals or notebooks, often sketching potential outlines or infographics when I get an idea. Though not directly related to writing, I save string for upcoming events, like my law school application. I’ve printed the application information and keep it in a folder with my LSAT scores and the business card of an advisor from my dream school. I’m a bit of a pack rat so I like the idea of saving string, but during this semester I want to make more of a concerted effort to look for information about my topics and give myself more than enough information to write these stories.

Saving String

Google Drive holds the key to success when I prepare notes and info for a story. A bare bone online for the story comes first, with a layout of what info I need and where to put when it comes times to write the story. Each person gets a Google Doc with interview quotes transcribed. Those transcripts sit in a folder called ‘interviews”. Then I have another folder, call facts/stats, with background facts/stats about my main characters on separate Google Docs. No real, upper-level management when it comes to keeping my files organized.

Keeping track of material and writing

When I sit to write down a story it’s slightly haphazard.

I can’t outline. I’ve tried. Constantly. It just doesn’t work for me. So I assemble all of my materials in front of me and just write.

All of my notes are in the form of outlines however. Everything has dots, dashes, and is indented. That’s the only way I can take notes. I’ve been taking notes like this since 7th grade.

All of my background and interviews are in this format. It just makes sense to me even though I can’t form a story from an outline.

As for holding onto materials, I jot random things down in whatever I have near me. If I have a notebook I write it down there. If I have my phone I type it in the Notes app. If I’m on my computer I write it in a word doc and save it for later.

So when I sit to write a story I have to find where I wrote down whatever I’m writing abut and go from there.

Once I start writing, I just take an idea and run with it. (I have to type it though, mostly because I don’t want to write it all out and then have to retype it) I write as much as I can and put in quotes then I step back.

Some paragraphs get cut and pasted to other sections of the story while some get cut all together. It’s a process that would drive most people crazy but it works for me.