The Visible Woman...October 30, 2003

I interviewed someone today and then wrote a story. I thought it was easy and that the piece sounded pretty good. FFP found my repeating of the same word and sentence form irritating but I didn't like some of his changes.

Writing is a talent and so is editing. Both FFP and I are not too bad at either one. Sometimes, however, there are just disagreements. Things I won't change. When I edit for him, I don't suggest things that I know he won't change and I know what those things are. I write so little and submit almost none for his edits so he dosen't know these things about me. I take the criticisms of the edits, however, and try to recraft around them in my own way. It will be interesting to see how the subject of the interview wants to edit the piece.

The Internet sure makes the fact-checking easy, I'll tell you. What year was the Jarrell tornado? Was the big Waco tornado in 1953? How many people were killed?

Well, it's a small piece of writing and it will be edited by the subject who may object to the informal approach we use or my grammar or find misstatements of fact. Six children...no it was sick children!

The truth is being a journalist is a heavy burden especially the profile type of piece. FFP has done around a hundred of these without anyone getting upset with him. In fact, people are usually amazingly happy about them. So I guess I better listen to him.

pool at Westwood CC "Saint, n. a dead sinner, revised and edited" Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary	the interview I interviewed someone today and then wrote a story. I thought it was easy and that the piece sounded pretty good. FFP found my repeating of the same word and sentence form irritating but I didn't like some of his changes. Writing is a talent and so is editing. Both FFP and I are not too bad at either one. Sometimes, however, there are just disagreements. Things I won't change. When I edit for him, I don't suggest things that I know he won't change and I know what those things are. I write so little and submit almost none for his edits so he dosen't know these things about me. I take the criticisms of the edits, however, and try to recraft around them in my own way. It will be interesting to see how the subject of the interview wants to edit the piece. The Internet sure makes the fact-checking easy, I'll tell you. What year was the Jarrell tornado? Was the big Waco tornado in 1953? How many people were killed? Well, it's a small piece of writing and it will be edited by the subject who may object to the informal approach we use or my grammar or find misstatements of fact. Six children...no it was sick children! The truth is being a journalist is a heavy burden especially the profile type of piece. FFP has done around a hundred of these without anyone getting upset with him. In fact, people are usually amazingly happy about them. So I guess I better listen to him.
JUST TYPING She did. She said. She went. She avered. She must not begin. Each sentence. It happened to her. "Quote," she said. The trip she undertook. The declaration came from her. Awkwardly, she said.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* nothing *lunch* boiled egg, couple ounces of cheddar cheese, four small slices of hard salami (about 140 calories) *snacks* a Jack Daniels and water (because writing and computers and overflow anxiety from FFP make me tense) some cheese and a few scraps of tortilla chips (technically not today as I wandered into the kitchen at one or two in the AM and had a snack and water while reading the Austin Business Journal. dinner [Chez Zee] glass of Shiraz salmon on a bed of creamed spinach some rice, not much squash, broccoli, carrots, onions Today I didn't - eat any snacks - eat bread with the meal - finish the rice - have any chips - have a second glass of wine
		Time flies.... I went to the club and did some time on the treadmill and then got ready for my interview for the column and then did a whole workout. It was getting close to noon when I got home. I did a few things outside as long as I was dirty and sweaty (note to self: put on jeans and long sleeves...those mosquitoes hurt). I didn't do that much...clean the filter in one pond, add water to them, water a few things, get hoses out of the way of the remodel. Then I ate a little and showered and did some stuff for Forrest and wrote my column and edited the picture for it. It was dinner time and FFP and our bookkeeper and I went out. Then I tried to deal with FFP's edits of my column and worked on my journal and voila it was 10PM.

		Reading. Read some papers. The problem with getting the papers read in this house is that we get The New York Times (daily), The Austin-American Statesman (daily...where the name of the pub is longer than some of the articles), The Wall Street Journal (business days), The West Austin News (weekly), The Westlake Picanyune (weekly), The Austin Chronicle (weekly), The Austin Business Journal (weekly). Magazines I would like to read but don't ever get to include The New Yorker (weekly!). So there are stacks. I was reading the NYT Arts Section from Sunday in the bathroom (Sunday, the 12th, that is). Heck, there are sometimes years old copies of The New Yorker in my reading piles. Finished I.F. Stone's A Nonconformist History of our Times: The War Years 1939-1945 at the gym. The last couple of articles predict the current disaster in the Middle East. Picked up Paris in Mind ed. by Jennifer Lee. Reading an A.J. Liebling piece I am struck by how brilliantly he writes about being, basically, a dilettante. This is true even when he writes about war.
		This article I did is good for my writing chops, I think.
		Exercise thirty minutes - treadmill thirty minutes recumbent bike my chest and triceps workout abs and stretches fifteen minutes on recumbent bike
	.	115/60 81 (taen when computers and writing were stressing me out...kind of high pulse, huh?) digestion good
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "We go to the sixth floor of the store and wander a bit until we find a little bar with Moët and Chandon. We have one glass, then two, toasting our friendship."