Whirlwind

Hello. How are you?

I'm back. I got a good excuse for not blogging.

The March 29^th entry (god is it that long ago already) mentioned a story I had stumbled on. Itchy fingers and all.

Well, as I felt would happen, a foreword thinking editor did jump on the story. Boy, and how. Generally you get a three month (or thereabouts) lead with magazine articles. Not this time, not with this story. She wanted to put it right in the next magazine. Boom. Twelve days till press time. Yikes. And this is not a "how to" article or a human interest story. This is dead serious research, investigation, interviewing – trying to pin down people as they run behind their lawyers, and weeding out the real from the fake. As I joked to a friend of mine, I've been Bob Woodward for the last two weeks. Quite a rush.

Twelve days to deliver it all.

So that's what I've been doing. The initial story, the one I thought was good when I mentioned the itchy fingers on March 29^th turned out to be a whole lot bigger. Strange how those things happen. It turned out the editors quick decision to go with putting in the next magazine was a good thing too. In the course of some interviews I crossed paths (though I don't think they know) with two other newspapers that were rooting around the same story. One is a little paper that some call the "gray lady", the other the local 'weekly' paper. I think I may be scooping them both, which would be so incredibly, delightfully, comically, surreal'ly cool.

With tomorrow being the deadline, today was to be for last minute interviews, a few double checks on facts, final revising. So, of course, Old Man Murphy came along with a ferocious windstorm that knocked the power out. All day long -- No phone, no Internet, battery power for two hours. Done.

Luckily, unlike the days of old where I would be writing papers at the last minute, the story was pretty well complete – fourteen hour days for a week straight will do that. Around five 'clock, some power came back on the other side of the neighborhood and I took a quick drive to find an internet friendly spot.

Using web based email, I was able to email the story to the editor – officially completing the process in a very strange, and slightly anti-climactic way.

Now, the power has finally returned to the house and an email from the editor tells me that they were without power too. I will have to wait till tomorrow at least to hear what thoughts they may have about it.

Once I know how they feel – and that the story is really going to go to press, I will make sure to alert you to the actual magazine and when it hits the newsstands.

Stay tuned.

Damn, with the internet back, I just see that Kurt Vonnegut died.