This week challenged me. As much as everything fell in place with my first set of stories, the opposite happened as I worked through the stories for the “Breast Cancer Handbook.” I was excited to have more responsibility and more stories, and I worked hard. But things just didn’t fall in place like they needed to.It differed slightly this time because there were particular people I need to call. With “Enhancing You,” I had a few options. If someone didn’t want to talk to me, I just moved down the list. This time there were profiles of specific people that I had to talk to in coordination with their schedules and mine.
And I had to contact doctors who had media representatives. The media representatives were actually very helpful. I would suggest we talk the next day, and they suggested we talk next week. The doctors I wanted to speak with were mostly gynecologists or oncologists. They don’t work on the smooth schedules I got used to when talking to dentists and plastic surgeons.
Luckily, everyone was so friendly this time and no one said, “I’m not interested.” Yes, that happened when I wrote a laser-surgery story.
I learned a lot about chasing down sources, though. My editor gave me a Web site for one source, but there was no email or contact number. So I tried tracking her down online. That didn’t pan out, and I left a message on some the answering machine of some poor woman who never called me back. I’m guessing it wasn’t her. But I eventually got creative and figured it out. It was challenging, but I learned from it.
Writing these stories has really piqued my interest in Race for The Cure. I volunteered before, but I never joined a team. I run marathons, so I am hoping to join a team this year for the 5K.
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