I’ve been experimenting with stories in the editorial, experiences of my own that are amusing and have some kind of interesting lesson embedded. Stories can be interesting, uplifting, even tiresome, not sure at all where the boundary is yet, or if it can even be defined that way. The good part about stories (and life experiences in general) is that they resonate with people – as social creatures we like to know that we’re not so different than the other guy.
Moving back to the used car editorial, it was often a surreal experience. I still remember driving a ‘74 or so Cadillac that had a feature that would auto dim the headlights – pretty advanced stuff for 1974, but I guess it it didn’t work that well then, or now, I don’t see many cars with it. Once I saw another driver pull the car up for viewing and forget to put the car in park, when the auctioneer waved to rev the engine, he nearly got run over! Fired the guy on the spot, which seemed harsh. Always wondered if the auctioneer learned not to stand in front of the car during that phase!
A follow up lesson learned – think I blew the title on this one. The ‘lesson’ here was about repetition and trying a lot of different techniques until you see that they aren’t really all that different. I tend to write by pulling a topic from my list, creating a title from that, and then writing the rest. Mostly that works ok for me, but I need to go back and do the same thing I recommend for presentations – make sure the content matches the title. I think a better title would have generated more reading/discussion.
