me versus this goddamn story, or me versus myself

instead of charting out this story like i should be doing, i’m here blogging about the story.

my heart hasn’t been in it. i am anxious, because i can feel the weight of the work on me, because i keep getting rebuffed. because i am scared out of my mind every time i glimpse the breadth of this undertaking and what it’s asking of me. i would rather sit in my rental car outside the building than get out of it to go talk to strangers who i know do not want to talk to me. sometimes that’s exactly what i do. i sit in my rental car and glare at the building.

every day is a test of my outgoing guts. do i even have them? is what i often wonder. why do they so often abandon me?

can i get someone to talk to me? can i get someone to agree to share what they share with me with the public, who will read about it in an article that i am going to write? can i talk my way into a guarded public institution–and do more than just loosen people up. can i win OKs and administrative clearance to gain access to parts of the institution that will not pay me any attention? i am unaccustomed to inquiring multiple times about something i want after i’ve been told no. i give people their space, i respect people’s privacy, i let people who would rather keep to themselves keep to themselves. in my line of work these characteristics of mine are liabilities.

unlike a court trial, where all the action happens inside one box of a room from 9:30pm to 5pm, with an hour’s break for lunch, and whatever reactions you can scrounge up before people split for the day, i am the single driving force of this story. there is no story until i push it along. there is no action until i create it, or go to it, or stick my nose in it, until i pick up the phone, until i get the cold shoulder from mothers who are in the process of losing their homes, who’ve long ago lost their jobs, who initially are willing to talk, but then think better of opening up.

i was talking with a friend of mine who’s an organizer, and i compared pursuing a story to pursuing a lover. he said his job was something similar, thankfully. except that unlike dating, in reporting, i cannot take no for an answer. once i’ve decided i must speak with you, it is up to me to get it right, or risk losing a crucial source. like dating, though, nothing is that personal. but god every rejection throws me. i’ve hit so many reticent sources and found so many perfectly appropriate people who i would like to speak with, only to be stood up or ignored, that it’s making me seriously question my people skills (which is what good journalism, and good organizing, is all about.) like a rejected suitor, i find myself wondering often: is it me? what am i doing wrong? instead of pursuing people closely i’d rather give up and move on to the next person. i’ve little patience these days for cagey sources, even less patience for myself. i’ve never been that adept at the dating thing, either.

where is this story? this is my third trip for this project, and i often wailed this question as i stomped around town, cris-crossing the city to find what i was sent here for. calling dozens of people, never leaving any conversation without the numbers of three more people to call, pursuing every lead and doubling back again to scrape my sources clean. perhaps that is the benefit of multiple trips, a new dilemma now: it is not that the story must be found, i know it’s here. the story must be excavated. it is here. it is one that can be told, if i have the courage to push hard enough, the journalistic dexterity, to get this right.

the downside of this being my 3rd trip for this story is that i just want it to be over. my feet made leaden by fear and uncertainty, my brain paralyzed by my anxieties, about what? i can’t quite pinpoint. picking up the phone to call people is not such a huge task. one day this week picking up the phone and waiting nervously for the other person to pick up, and then being met by an anonymous voicemail (and feeling relief for both of us), was my only accomplishment.

i want to go home. but first i need to get people to talk to me. and before that i need to get up the guts to really talk to them.

Filed under: reporting, reporting

repeat it till you believe it:

i can do this. i can do this.

i will not come home empty handed.

i know what i am doing.

i can do this. i can do this.

Filed under: reporting

you could call it courage

i hate cold calling people, and after that the thing i hate most is follow-up calls. i hate bugging people, calling them and saying: did you get in touch with that mom? do you think she’d talk to me? i hate texting people and asking: any word from that student about whether or not they’ll talk to me? i hate being the nag. but the options are few: if i do not call people i do not have a story. and if i do not have a story i do not have a job. the fear of coming back home empty handed, my pride, is what allows me to make phone call after phone call, to offer to show up at people’s doorsteps, to offer to drive people places just so i can talk to them.

i wish it came easier to me, but i respect authority, i hate to upset other people, i hate intruding. i hate asking people for access to parts of their lives like this. i think these are all qualities that, if i gave into them, would close off my future in reporting forever. it’s not my infinite curiosity or tenacity or commitment to justice and uncovering the truth that compels me to keep moving forward. if only! right now it is absolute terror that keeps me on the phones, that has me doing things that are totally out of character for me. i think about what kai tells me all the time, that everyone hates reporters. and if i’m doing my job right, people occasionally should not be able to stand me, and that is something to get used to.

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i missed my uncle’s funeral this past weekend because i was in chicago for work. he was quite old, well into his 70s and frail long before they figured out he had lung cancer. he was married to my auntie betsy, an auntie who played a big role raising my sister and i–she ferried us to and from elementary school to chinese school, would sit in our living room and make phone calls for beauty supply companies while sharon and i napped before chinese school, and then she’d come into our bedroom and stand at the foot of our beds and flap the blankets up and down to wake us up, a truly cruel alarm clock. she was brash and gregarious, with a smoker’s growl of a voice and a bad hip that gave her a limp. uncle david was reserved but sweet. quiet, and he kept to himself, made few demands on those around him. in the end, he’d sit in the back couches with his oxygen tank and a cup of coffee on a stool nearby. i think the last few months were not very comfortable for him.

uncle david’s was not the first family funeral i’ve missed because of school or work–in inexplicably did not go to my uncle johnny’s funeral a few years ago because i thought i couldn’t get the time off from work. i have no idea what i was working on at the time–it’s own sign, but it was not that important. i should have been at my uncle’s funeral.

Filed under: family, reporting

a real post, some actual thoughts, a proper bit of writing:

i’ve got two primary pursuits these days. i’m learning to be a reporter, which is to say i am learning to research, and to probe into issues beyond the surface, and to ask the right questions, and to find the story, and to write well and concisely. which is also to say i am learning to be brave. i am learning that most of the time there is no way around picking up the phone to get someone to talk to me, i am learning that if i pick up the phone and start dialing before i’ve enough time to let my fear hold me back, i automatically commit myself to having a conversation with whoever picks up on the other end. i’ve learned that for every 4 calls i make, i usually can get 2 people who are by their desks, ready to speak to a stranger about their work, about their life experiences, about the issues they confront every day. but that doesn’t mean that for every two calls i make i’ll always get one person to pick up. the odds don’t work like that, for some reason. i usually have to call around four people before i hit two.

i’ve had bad interviews. really shitty interviews. i’ve had 6am interviews. i’ve had end of the day “is that enough for you?” interviews. i’ve had “you have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?” interviews. i’ve also had great conversations that open up a lot for me. there are so many generous people out there who, even though they’re at the top of the field, will start at square one with me. or people who are tucked away in corners of the country who have never done press calls who have incredible stories to tell. so i’m learning to be brave, and to trust the odds. i have more decent interviews than i do dead-end and awful interviews.

two weeks ago i spoke with a man in louisiana whose brother was shot to death by the police. five times in the back. he’s an organizer now. he speaks calmly and slowly, with a sometimes indecipherabale southern accent, calm words and stretched vowels that lulled me into saying “y’all” at least twice during our conversation. if i were not a reporter, i am fairly certain i’d never be able to have the guts to ever ask him what went through his mind when he found out his brother was killed. none of that made it into the piece, but we still got to talk about it for a bit. what a privilege.

i am learning to write fast and let it go, to start from scratch every morning, to pound out copy (and am intimately acquainted with dawdling, which makes me feel like a worthless good for nothing speck of a human being), to send it away and then to think later what went wrong, what needs polishing again. a flat headline? shitty lead? i hate writing headlines. but every day there is no choice. i write copy, i read a lot of the internet, i digest it, i try to make what i’m producing better.

i guess the other thing i realize is that i have a responsibility to attack life with all i’ve got. my great grandparents and grandparents and parents worked really hard all their lives, ostensibly to provide opportunities for their kids. maybe my long dead grandparents wouldn’t really approve of me becoming a writer–just today an auntie of mine bragged about how she put her foot down to her college student daughter who wants to be an english major–but they worked so that i’d have the ability to even have options. and so now i must decide for myself what i want to do with my life and talents. i think for those of us young people who have the privilege of being able to choose what we want to do with our lives, the real question is whether or not we have the courage to really go after what we want. do we? do i? i’m trying to find out.

and now it’s the end of the night and i’ve still more work to do, and i didn’t even get to writing about the other big thing in my life! all i did was write about writing! typical. i think it calls for some sylvia plath, a quote that tumblr at least gives her credit for:

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Filed under: reporting, work, writing, sylvia plath