Taking 20-30 pages of relevant, important notes, information and interview material and very carefully sorting and extracting the points and ideas necessary to preserve the full angle and impact of the subject matter, then weaving those carefully selected words and phrases seamlessly into a tight 1200-1500 word feature without compromising the quality of the story itself, on strict deadline from an editor with a last minute assignment, is a little like being a surgeon under a hot light.

Later, emerging from the office after being sequestered for seven or eight hours outlining, drafting and editing said feature from start to finish is a little like now emerging from the operating room after a long day of painstaking surgery. You open the door, peel off the gloves, wipe your brow and turn to the family, err, editor, and say:

“She’s ready to see you, now…”

Posted by tee in freelancing
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Usually books get folded down around midnight, lights turned off and the pale yellow sheet tugged up and around, making sure to leave my feet sticking out in the summer. The dark portal awning out the glass doors just beyond the bed juts out over the terracotta steps and onto the patio, then opens wide onto the sharp black polka-dotted sky, where we can, half-asleep on our pillows, identify stars passing by. The fan in the window buzzes on low, we’re primitive here in the desert.

Posted by tee in favorites, sense of place
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It’s early morning in rural southern Colorado and a huge sun has just risen over the old crater at Blanca Peak, which I can see in the near distance out the window of our primitive bedroom of blankets on my mom’s floor. I’d like to take a photo but the sky’s so awash in light that it’s nearly swallowed the view now and I might as well just take a shot of a bright yellow sheet of paper and post it. Maybe if I wait a few minutes.

Everyone else is asleep but Sarah and me. She’s talking dreamily to herself and any other living creature in earshot from across the room, and I, trying to be quiet because we didn’t get to bed until close to midnight last night, am reading about Yvonne Chouinard’s ‘68 trip to Patagonia. As an aside, I really like the way they package their t-shirts.

I dreamt last night that I went to Alaska and all the trip participants and I each had to sit on a single square sheet of floating foam just big enough for an Indian-style position on the freezing water of the Bering Straight. Hearing what sounded like wild animals off in the distance I paddled over to a nearby island where I found and played with the dingos. The dingos in Alaska.

Later I dreamt that I was biking along a narrow path and came across an old lady who had fallen and dislocated her shoulder. I sat her up and rode home to get Shane, who is certified in wilderness rescue, and then rode back to stay with her while we waited for him to arrive. We waited in an empty locker room. A locker room in the middle of nowhere on a bike trail.

This place feels like home now, whatever that means for someone like me.

Posted by tee in de la vida, sense of place
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I drove up the road in the rain to bring movies back with three minutes to spare, and took my time coming home. Tonight the lightning comes in long, broad strokes — the kind that illuminate patches of sky just long enough to reveal the monstrous, bubbling clouds overhead that would otherwise be hidden by the dark. I rolled the windows down and turned the radio up, and traveled alongside darting jackrabbits and dragonflies, bright white in my headlights. Everything smelled musty and far away.

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I have a binder problem. I sucked it up and cleaned and rearranged my office today and now the only challenge remaining is the tall, swaying stack of binders against the wall that I can’t find a home for. I need the lazy-susan equivalent of a binder rack.

Sarah and I are in my office sneaking cold fries and ranch out of the to-go box from the seafood restaurant they went to for lunch. Every time my mom, who’s here and cooking dinner for us, walks by in the hallway Sarah shoves the box in my lap and grins french fry teeth toward the door.

Posted by tee in de la vida
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