By The Way...

Friday, February 23, 2007
9:49:00 AM EST
Hearing Hit That -- The Offspring
For all you aspiring pro writers, here's a piece that illustrates how an article idea can come from anywhere: Writer Nick Tosches became obsessed with a picture of autumn leaves and trees that came as a "wallpaper" for his computer and began a quest to find the real-life location of the picture -- a task more difficult than he anticipated because no one seemed to know where the picture had come from. Therein lies an amusing tale.

As I said, aside from the story's own qualities, the fact that this fellow got a whole story out of it -- and sold it to Vanity Fair magazine -- should tell you that anything is fair game for an interesting story... as long as you can find that interesting story, and tell it well.


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This entry has 5 comments: (Add your own)

• #5 Comment from glendar0812 
  2/23/07 2:46 PM | Permalink

  I have the Autumn wallpaper on my computer and I can understand WHY Nick wanted to go there so badly.  It's much more beautiful in Autumn than Winter, but I too would love to jump into that image and relax, have a hot cup of tea and a nice brisk walk holding hands or at the very least a leash, cute pup attached to the other end.  Even the winter photo makes one want to take a nice stroll all bundled up ... ah, that's made this otherwise boring day a tad more interesting.
  
• #4 Comment from anaedream 
  2/23/07 11:31 AM | Permalink

  I went searching for the rolling hills picture that came with Windows XP, however when I kept calling and asking Microsoft, they would forward me to Tinky Winky.
  
  It was very strange.
  
  "Uh oh!"
  
  
• #3 Comment from madcobug 
  2/23/07 10:40 AM | Permalink

  This computer came wirh an autumn picture as a wallpaper. Of course I don't use it as I use my own pictures. Helen
• #2 Comment from rickardfoghorn 
  2/23/07 10:37 AM | Permalink

  Hey thanx for sharing now thats something to think about over this dirty oul weekend...
  Helen
• #1 Comment from dpoem 
  2/23/07 9:59 AM | Permalink

  I once found inspiration for a story from a piece of chewed gum on the sidewalk.  It was kind of wild, and contained some pretty fun flashbacks as to how the piece of gum came to be stuck on the concrete with no potential of going anywhere.  
  
  -Dan
  http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/