When I begin a story - before I write it, before I set out to investigate it, before I even open my mouth at the edit meetings - I check out the issue on the internet.
Now, as I try to write (tear my hair out in desperation with a Jupiter-sized block jamming up the fingertips, is more like it) about the issue of Rabo Dam on the Kurkut river in Chhattisgarh, I realise how hard it is to write about that which hasn't been written about before.
The only google reference to a 1000 MW dam on Kurkut river was about a question asked in parliament - something about what's happening to that big project which was to be built by the Jindal group in Raigarh.
I have NOTHING to take off from. I have no 'line' to follow, no media reports to fall back on, by way of helpful corroboration. I have nothing to refute, nothing to pit myself against...
I have a massive case of writer's block.
Which is wierd.
I ALWAYS deliver.
I don't remember the last time I didn't meet a deadline. I don't remember the last time I took more than two hours to churn out a thousand words. I know my editors will not carry anything more than a thousand words and I have enough information and documentation to begin a book, if I feel like it.
Why is it so hard?
2 comments:
mmmm... google... the god of journalists! ;-)
It's an epidemic, i tell you, he said despairingly. Then he alt+tabbed back to the blank Quark Xpress document on his screen, closed that window , looked at his job list, shuddered, and went off to get another cup of tea.
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