Monday, October 15, 2007
ER, start your combine
It's 7:54 a.m. in God's Country, and I have four stories to go before I sleep today. And I have to select the best of more than 100 pix and write captions. I only got two of the six stories done, the hardest, and the pix shot over the weekend.
It's all due today, which means end-of-day, which really means tomorrow -- but I am weary of it, since I've not once had the luxury of concentrating only on this stuff; it's all been on top of what I usually do.
Not whining over the workload: whining because the extra stuff, having to do with Oklahoma history, is worth the attention I could have paid it, if I'd had it to pay! Especially in my beloved Oklahoma's centennial year. Grrr.
Some news stories are high-yield: A couple of phone calls, look at some documents, scratch yer butt -- voila! You got you a story done, 500, 600 words, maybe more, depending.
Even some features: One or two interviews, and if you know the subject pretty well generally, as a writer you can fill in the gaps and spin a good yarn.
Others are low-yield, like farming fricking wheat in southwestern Oklahoma.
I'd say the stuff I'm working on right now is low-yield: I've taken two trips to another, nearby city, made three trips to downtown Oklahoma City, which is just about as far, checked out a half-dozen books, consulted another half-dozen of my own books, scoured three spread sheets for local government data, most of which didn't apply, and interviewed a half dozen people.
It's low yield because for all that, these stories aren't necessarily long, and they don't appear to be that involved. That's the rub, and that's why the wheat-combine metaphor fits:
Most of what I'll do today is thresh chaff to get to a few kernels to string together to make for some interesting reading.
It is for dang sure time to get this crop laid by.
(This time of year, I should've used a bean theme, not wheat, but hey, soybeans, in eastern Oklahoma, aren't as low-yield as wheat is in the west.)
--ER
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Sounds like fun work, actually. I don't think that I mentioned that I was a newspaper editor/reporter in Oklahoma in the late 1970s through mid-1980s. Sometimes I miss it, especially the quirky, funny small town stuff. People were quirky but always fun.
Oh, this *definitely* beats workin' for a living.
A former ink-stained wretch! Shoot, we probably know, or know of, some of the same peeps, then.
A former ink-stained wretch! Shoot, we probably know, or know of, some of the same peeps, then.
Grandfield, Oklahoma, the Big Pasture,Davidson, Devol, and so on.
"Where The Harvest Starts"
Whos's first every year is the big deal
Wheaties, combine/truck crews that follow the crop North start here and are people from here: Tillman-Comanche,Love etc. counties.
Kids leaves school early to work the fields and make money in the summer as wheaties.
Old school buses coverted to dorms they sleep in 6 hours a night when it is dry or lounge in days at a time when it is wet.
They zig and zag across Oklahoma then into Kansas and Nebraska and the then the South and North Dakota and get back after school has already started flush with cash but not rich. Some say shit, one year 's enough others say man I love that and go on till their back is broken.
Mechanical Reapers,steam tractors running theshers, tractor pulled combines(reapers and threashers), selfpropelled combines, airconditioned with I-Pods today combines that cost twice as much as the average home.
How many bushels per acre?
How many wheat farmers feed how many people 1:145 ?
From 60 acre fields to 6000 acre fields in my life time.
To harvest an area used to take days, but now takes hours. Wheaties used to drift through Oklahoma going North now they move through like a Priarie fire.
Heck that sounds like a fun story.
"Where The Harvest Starts"
Whos's first every year is the big deal
Wheaties, combine/truck crews that follow the crop North start here and are people from here: Tillman-Comanche,Love etc. counties.
Kids leaves school early to work the fields and make money in the summer as wheaties.
Old school buses coverted to dorms they sleep in 6 hours a night when it is dry or lounge in days at a time when it is wet.
They zig and zag across Oklahoma then into Kansas and Nebraska and the then the South and North Dakota and get back after school has already started flush with cash but not rich. Some say shit, one year 's enough others say man I love that and go on till their back is broken.
Mechanical Reapers,steam tractors running theshers, tractor pulled combines(reapers and threashers), selfpropelled combines, airconditioned with I-Pods today combines that cost twice as much as the average home.
How many bushels per acre?
How many wheat farmers feed how many people 1:145 ?
From 60 acre fields to 6000 acre fields in my life time.
To harvest an area used to take days, but now takes hours. Wheaties used to drift through Oklahoma going North now they move through like a Priarie fire.
Heck that sounds like a fun story.
You might say ER that they harvest wheat across the buffalo commons where the prairie once substained the bison. we have traded bison for braed. Not a bad trade if you like sandwiches.
Two and a half done, one and a half to go! I'll look at the pix tomorrow. I WILL get the writin' done today...
Must be something in the autumn air: on our end of things, the guys are still working hauling corn in the dark tonight, to harvest it for corn silage before it rains tomorrow.
Hey the wheaties come from Canada too, start in Texas and end up in Alberta. It's a great way to see some of the States - friends of ours' son did it this year, the wheaties all went to the bar after one of their 16 hour days and got branded as memento!
(I saw the pics, and does that ever look painful)
Hey the wheaties come from Canada too, start in Texas and end up in Alberta. It's a great way to see some of the States - friends of ours' son did it this year, the wheaties all went to the bar after one of their 16 hour days and got branded as memento!
(I saw the pics, and does that ever look painful)
# posted by 
: 11:14 PM
: 11:14 PM
Man, I've only done it a few times, hay hauling, but there's somethin' exciting about farm work at night, tryin' to beat a weather deadline.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
12:10 a.m. I've been at it for 16 hours, except for a run to buy dog food, a phone call-interrupted 6 minutes on the treadmill and time off for supper.
But I got it done. Woo hoo!
Now I can go to sleep, knowin' the first thing I'll do when I get up is sort photos, which is mostly brainless, more instinctual.
Good. Night. All.
12:10 a.m. I've been at it for 16 hours, except for a run to buy dog food, a phone call-interrupted 6 minutes on the treadmill and time off for supper.
But I got it done. Woo hoo!
Now I can go to sleep, knowin' the first thing I'll do when I get up is sort photos, which is mostly brainless, more instinctual.
Good. Night. All.
ER said:
"....when I get up is sort photos, which is mostly brainless, more instinctual."
As a old photographer (started out on a 4x5 Graphlex) with lots of training and almost 50 years of actual experience I say that is ....bullshit. You need some more training in that area if you believe that. It will make you a better editor.
"....when I get up is sort photos, which is mostly brainless, more instinctual."
As a old photographer (started out on a 4x5 Graphlex) with lots of training and almost 50 years of actual experience I say that is ....bullshit. You need some more training in that area if you believe that. It will make you a better editor.
You damn ol' contrary shit. I mean it in the same way that playing an insrument is "brainless" -- after one has learned to play. Maybe "instinctual" ain't the right word. But dadblame it, I don't have to THINK much to frame a shot well -- and if you put 10 pix in front of me and nine of' 'em suck, I can pull out the one good one in about 10 seconds flat. Call that what you will.
"Damn ol' contrary shit..."
Say you sound just like one of my kids.
Images versus Words.
If Images come natural and words come hard then you got your career choices bassackwards.
Contrary old shit indeed.
You betcha I am.
Say you sound just like one of my kids.
Images versus Words.
If Images come natural and words come hard then you got your career choices bassackwards.
Contrary old shit indeed.
You betcha I am.
LOL!
Words don't come hard. The looong weekend wasn't long because of the words, but because of the thresshing of so much data and the fact that it was 100-YEAR-OLD data, which is questionable, and the fact that the sourcing was hit-and-miss: this old book, that old book, another old book, a pamphlet, some interviess, etc.
And the fact that I didn't have to think as I gathered it all up, since I had to keep doing my regular work. Which means that I thought it out as I wrote it up, which can be harrowing, although it's usually not.
Hell, I wrote six stories, totaling a combined 6,000 words. I didn't know what the damn story was on a few of them until I got to the end, and had to go back and extricate the lede and then rearrange the thing.
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Words don't come hard. The looong weekend wasn't long because of the words, but because of the thresshing of so much data and the fact that it was 100-YEAR-OLD data, which is questionable, and the fact that the sourcing was hit-and-miss: this old book, that old book, another old book, a pamphlet, some interviess, etc.
And the fact that I didn't have to think as I gathered it all up, since I had to keep doing my regular work. Which means that I thought it out as I wrote it up, which can be harrowing, although it's usually not.
Hell, I wrote six stories, totaling a combined 6,000 words. I didn't know what the damn story was on a few of them until I got to the end, and had to go back and extricate the lede and then rearrange the thing.
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