"When a writing collaboration works," attorney Helen Sedwick writes, "partners inspire and complement one other. The creative process is less lonely. But when collaborations fail, the drama may be as ugly as a Hollywood divorce." Sedwick offers a series of tips for keeping collaborations on track, including written agreements on goals, ownership, income, expenses, and credit, as well as more generic guidance such as "nip resentment in the bud" and "keep communicating."
Science writing news
From Maria Popova, excerpts of a series of interviews by Malka Marom in which the singer/songwriter talks about keeping her creative vision on track through her long career: "The critics dismissed a lot of what I thought was my growth and praised a lot of what I thought common about my work. I disagreed with most of them. So I had to rely a lot on my own opinions, not to say that I wasn’t constantly asking them for advice and mulling it around, not dismissing it."
Tabitha M. Powledge reports on the "discovery of not just a new species, but possibly a new phylum. Possibly even an animal remnant, thought to be extinct, from before the Cambrian Explosion that began about 542 million years ago and gave rise to most of today’s animal life." The preserved organisms were found off the southeastern Australia coast in 1986, Powledge writes. Also, why hasn't anybody covered the hospice care oversight bill recently passed by Congress?
Less repetition. Less editing. Less travel. More collaboration. Those are some of Kate Galbraith's proposals for making journalism more efficient: "The universe of possible news is vast and mostly untapped. I’ve argued that most papers in the country could grow to five times their size, given sufficient money and talent. Yet news coverage reflects a herd mentality. Everyone rushes to do their own story on Ray Rice, the latest iPhone, a new fracking study, and so forth."
A science café is any deliberately planned event in a public setting where people gather with a “discussion leader” to learn and talk about science in their lives. This format of science communication began to take off in England and France at the turn of the millennium and now can be found in hundreds of locations around the world. Ivan Amato discusses the birth of the D.C. Science Café.
Six articles by NASW members are among the 26 works selected for inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 by guest editor and NASW member Deborah Blum.
Erin Madigan White reports on what Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee recently told a conference of editors about the Obama administration's efforts to block news coverage: "Day-to-day intimidation of sources is chilling. AP’s transportation reporter’s sources say that if they are caught talking to her, they will be fired … Government press officials say their orders are to squelch anything controversial or that makes the administration look bad."
Amina Gautier writes short stories, but in the "Joy of Revision" she offers some thoughts that may resonate for non-fiction writers as well: "Revising encourages and liberates the writer to 'make mistakes,'" Gautier writes. "It rewards mistakes; each 'mistake' teaches one something about the story one is writing and gets one that much closer to the story one is meant to write. Revision reconciles the competing versions of the story that the writer carries in his head."
Mike Feinsilber wonders why more writers don't use a chronological structure, and he thinks he's found the reason: "Blame the inverted pyramid, the curse of journalism. It’s the chief cause for making news stories complicated, uninviting, and dull. The doctrine of the inverted pyramid holds that a news story should look like a pyramid turned upside down, with the most important element at the top and the less important elements following in descending order of importance."