So I wrote this whole long blog post about the future of news, lessons learned from going to the 2009 Online News Association conference last weekend in San Francisco. The conference was great on so many levels – one session after another of journalists taking about the cool new tech tools they’re using to tell stories, how they’re connecting with the communities they cover in new ways online, and how those communities are being empowered to get in on the storytelling process.
Then the computer ate my blog post. Actually, I got busy with some other projects that day, decided to finish the post the next day and shut down the computer without realizing I hadn’t saved all my brilliant work (and apparently whatever auto-save feature WordPress.com uses isn’t available on WordPress.org, or I haven’t activated it yet). All my brilliant observations vanished into the electronic ether. And I haven’t been able to face doing it all over again.
Then it dawned on me. One of the biggest takeaways from the ONA conference was that good enough is good enough. There are some times when anything less than perfect won’t do, like an investigative piece that’s based on number crunching, court documents and multiple interviews. There’s no way to publish that kind of thing before it’s cooked.
But for some things, like blog posts that are observational v. reported, good enough is good enough. Sure it would have been great to have had the complete 10-step manifesto I’d almost finished on what journalists need to do in order to make it in the brave new world of online media. But I don’t. And I was stuck on not having perfect. So instead of going with what I had, I stalled out, waiting for inspiration to strike, or enough time to materialize on my calendar to write the whole damn thing over again.
Well, that’s not going to happen, thanks to a confluence of work and life events that’s made me busier than I have been in a while.
So I’m going with what I’ve got. And I’m asking readers to make this an interactive experience. I’ll share some of the tidbits I picked up at the Online News Association conference, and you share what you learned. And instead of one big long blog posts, I’ll share my lessons learned in a trickle, with your help, starting tomorrow.
I’m adopting the ‘good enough’ mind set for my paid assignments too. Sometimes if a project is important enough, it pays – literally – to spend that extra day doing additional research or that extra hour or two writing or editing. But other projects don’t call for that kind of meticulousness. I’m not talking about fudging the reporting or failing to live up to the terms of a contract. A 500 word story doesn’t have to be the definitive account of a subject: if you write about something often enough, 500 words might cover one small corner of a topic that you can revisit again and again.
I’m also taking a similar approach to the redesign of this blog, which some of you have already noticed has changed rather dramatically in the past week. Once again, I wanted to wait until everything was perfect before announcing it to the world. Instead I’m taking a page from my techie friends and going with what I’ve got now, and will tweak what needs tweaking as I go.
I’ve been working behind the scenes for the last couple weeks with a very talented Web design partner and fellow freelance writer Ron S. Doyle to give WordCount a look worthy of the subjects I cover. I think he did a splendid job – a round of applause for Ron please. If you usually read WordCount through your RSS feed, come take a look at the site and let me know what you think.
Wow — I really struggle with this. Since my hyperlocal site (http://parkrosegateway.com) is a part-time project, and I’m working a full time day job, I usually don’t have time to make phone calls (especially to offices open in the daytime), interview people, be on hand for breaking news, etc. And I can’t always attend events and meetings. So all too often, that means I just don’t post about something, because I feel I can’t do it justice.
I am right there with you. That’s why I didn’t post here for what, four days, even though I got enough material at the ONA conference for a month’s worth of posts. But if I learned anything at the conference, and in the past 18 months of blogging, it’s that something is better than nothing. Consider a blog post the start of a conversation, not the end all and be all on the subject. That became very apparent in the posts I’ve been on writing for content aggregators, which attracted so many comments the comments really took on a life of their own – and that’s what bloggers live for.
Michelle
I really do hear you, Michelle. I’ve also learned, after much perfectionistic fretting and sweating, that good enough is, well, good enough. A manifesto is usually not called for or needed. It doesn’t mean be sloppy. It doesn’t mean loosen your standards. It means lighten up on yourself a bit because what you’ve produced is fine, or more than fine. (I still get a bit stuck in perfection mode on occasion, though.)
Michelle, this is such great advice! I can’t tell you how often I agonize for an hour over a single sentence – this is especially true for paid copywriting assigments. My clients would probably be thrilled with my first or second version of any given sentence. The re-writing comes from my own twisted pursuit of writing perfection. In reality, my “good enough” is a thousand times better than what my clients could produce on their own. That’s why they hire me to write their copy! My goal is to take this advice to heart as I get started on my next writing project.
Sometimes it’s best to say “ready, fire, aim…” Just start writing and worry about the editing later. You’re right about good enough being good enough. Perfection is impossible. Every time I look at a piece I’ve written I want to change something.
Once when I was working as an architect (I’m retired now) one of our clients mentioned perfect drawings to the project manager. Rick looked at the client and said “If I ever have a set of perfect documents, I’m not going to issue them. I’ll keep them in my office so I can admire them for the rest of my career.”
Now when I’m writing, I have to make a conscious effort to keep going and let the words spill out because I have a tendency to edit as I go. I’ve been known to spend days on the first paragraph. Not good when you have a deadline.
The funny thing is that when you simply let go and quit worrying you come up with some surprisingly good stuff. Sometimes good enough can lead to much better when you tell your inner critic to shut up and let you write.
Ah yes, the old “inner critic” – I know her well. Great advice. Sometimes I take a yoga approach to writing – if I get stuck on a section or a sentence I try to think of a completely different approach to saying what I want to say, to attack it from another angle, as it were – and it really works. Other times I’ll ask myself – what would happen if I just left this out? Many times the story would be just fine without that particular detail, so I just lop it off.
Michelle