How to find stories when you're stuck at home
plus an interview with Lonely Planet Digital Editor Meghan O'Dea
The snow-dusted highway in North Dakota stretched on and on, the pinks and purples of dusk seeming to linger in the clouds for much longer than dusk should last. It was hour eight or nine of driving that day; I was tired and bored but also captivated by the landscape and full of ideas. I leaned over to scribble something; I should really learn to use voice notes, but on road trips, I’ve always just kept an open notebook on the passenger seat. And then I found myself skidding along an icy mound, rocking over the crunchy wake left in the path of a snow plow. With my heart throbbing in my head I regained control and straightened the car, clutching the wheel with clammy hands. I focused a little harder on the road from that point on. It was dark soon after, so I stopped in a small town with a cozy brewery where I drank a beer and journaled about everything I’d seen that day and then slept at a Motel 6.
I don’t go looking to skid on icy highways. But that day has stuck with me, and it’s the kind I crave lately: a day filled with stretches of newness and movement from one place to another, marked by moments of delight or panic or surprise, followed by inspiration and writing.
When I’m reporting on a story that’s grounded in place or community or people, I want to go there, meet them, collect the little details that float around the action and bring readers with me.
Right now, we can’t do that, and it’s really frustrating. Whenever I think about not being able to go anywhere for who knows how long, I get sad and panicky and have to put that out of my mind because we just don’t know how long this will last. But this period of stasis can also be an opportunity to hone some important skills, like research, interviewing, and digging for details in our day-to-day lives that we often overlook.
I don’t want to be one more person telling you how to be productive during a pandemic. But if you’re still looking for stories—and I really hope you are—there are still plenty of places to consider.
I miss the road. I miss travel. But I think now is a great time to dig deeper into current events and history and science and culture and all the background that makes a place worth writing about. It’s time to dig into all of the information available on the internet and daily conversations and the curious detours you shouldn’t let distract you on roads you don’t know. We can still reach so many stories and cover so much ground from home.
20 Ways to Discover Story Ideas From Home
Here are some methods and resources I’ve used for coming up with story ideas lately.
Explore resources for solutions journalism. The Solutions Journalism Network focuses on the kind of journalism that digs further than problems to uncover the answers, and they compiled this list of “innovation hotspots” where many solutions to global issues are happening. And they need coverage!
Get in touch with local activism groups. My last couple of climate-related story ideas have come from meetings with 350PDX. Activism groups are full of passionate, hard working people who most definitely want to talk to you about what they’re working on. Some of them are having Zoom meetings, or you can just send them an email or a give them a call.
Read local news. Ask yourself what incidences and happenings in your hometown might reflect trends or bigger issues going on in the world. Go deeper than the front page.
Read national news. Then look for a local hook on how to reframe what people are already talking about.
Take the publication-first approach to pitching. Sometimes I dive into a publication and come up with a story idea after seeing what they’ve published lately. Where to Pitch and Who Pays Writers are two sites I’ll poke around when trying to expand my publication pool.
Re-read something you published awhile back. How has this topic been impacted by our new reality? What’s happening there today?
Say yes to random digital experiences. I had a tarot card reading yesterday over FaceTime. There’s something there.
Check out this list of publications that are no longer accepting pitches, which now has a list below it of publications that are still accepting pitches (thank goodness) along with some insight on what they’re looking for.
I hate to say it because this could also be a black hole of distraction: but, Twitter. What are people talking about? What can you add to the conversation?
Call a friend. Instead of just catching up, ask them if you can interview them on what this pandemic has been like for them, for their industry, for their family. I bet you’ll dip into some material you wouldn’t have covered otherwise.
Sign up for a professional journalism organization. With most orgs, this will get you on a list to receive press releases on your beat. I’m a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists and regularly receive interesting news related to the environment and climate change.
Craigslist. What are people buying, selling, and looking for in this strange time? Story ideas galore!
Check out the many grants that are being offered right now to support the work of writers and creatives. Many of them are asking for a specific kind of reporting project, so they might inspire you to start researching something that would fit. Here are two: National Geographic’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists and the PEN America Writer’s Emergency Fund.
Listen to this Radiolab episode in which a “story scout” at my favorite podcast shares how he finds the bizarre and unexpected stories that make Radiolab so darn delightful. (One of his recommendations is clicking “Random Article” in the left column on Wikipedia’s homepage.)
Take a long walk or go for a run with NO music. I swear by this. Creative ideas come to me most often when I’m lost in a combination of movement and my own thoughts. If you can avoid bringing your phone, do that. Bring a little notebook instead.
Read trade journals. They’re typically kinda dry for those of us who don’t work in those industries, but they can also include nuggets of insight you can turn into a story for a wider audience.
Read, read, read. Read books and magazines and the dictionary and cereal boxes.
Journal. You already have so many ideas that you can’t always access. I like to start my days by just dumping my thoughts into my journal, and sometimes a great idea comes out.
Attend events that moved online. Presentations, meetups, and any kind of networking events or conferences are great resources for stories. Now that many of them have been forced to transition to an online platform, it’s easier than ever to attend.
Look ahead. What holidays and anniversaries are coming up on the calendar? How will these be different this year? (Pssst… The 50th anniversary of Earth Day is right around the corner!)
Meghan O’Dea, Digital Editor at Lonely Planet, on the Current State of Travel Writing
“Travel teaches us so much about how to handle the unexpected, navigate the unfamiliar, and deal with challenges in real-time with often limited resources. In that regard, travel writers might be better equipped than many to find creative ways to put their talents and experience to use right now.”
What seems like a million years ago, Meghan O’Dea and I worked together at a startup. Meghan is a talented writer and a natural storyteller who would occasionally swivel in her work chair and spin a yarn out of nowhere for our team, replete with vivid details of a past experience, often peppered with knowledge of related pop culture and history. This was a work environment where we both felt a little creatively stifled, so her stories (spoken and written) were always so refreshing and a highlight of my time there. It makes sense that she’s now an editor at Lonely Planet, where she gets to pull from the endless curiosities of the world in writing and editing travel articles.
I wanted to catch up with Meghan because obviously, travel is having a difficult moment. And travel media is being forced to swivel in its chair real hard right now. Here’s her take on what this moment means for the industry and for writers.
When did it first hit you that the entire travel industry was about to come to a screeching halt?
Probably around the time that California went on a stay at home order on March 19th. I had just gotten back from a trip to my hometown for my mother's birthday. I was apprehensive about going, and we talked a lot beforehand about whether it was the right thing to do. But it still felt like we were perhaps being overly cautious. Once California called it and San Francisco told residents to shelter in place, however it was clear we were going to all start pumping the brakes.
What was your initial reaction to how that would impact travel media?
I was worried of course. I just got my dream job in the travel space about six months ago, and suddenly it seemed like everything was on pause in slow-mo, like the opening to Deadpool. We were all waiting to see what would hit and when and how. It was hard to know what to publish and what to hold, because the response has been so varied from place to place. Travel media has been in the unenviable position of trying to play catchup and fortune teller simultaneously in real time.
Can you tell us how Lonely Planet is shifting their editorial approach in light of COVID?
We pivoted really quickly from business-as-usual to COVID-19 related content, which has resonated well with readers. It's been a creative challenge to find ways to "travel from home" and stay on top of pandemic-related news when everything is changing so quickly state to state and country to country. That said, I'm really proud of the content team and the writers we work with. Everyone was able to get out informative content quickly, as well as some pleasant distractions people need when things are stressful and sad and working through so many disappointments.
Should travel writers find a new niche?
I don't think so. I think it may be prudent for all writers across the board to diversify right now, because so many publications have put a pause on commissions or have seen a drop in advertising numbers -- but that multidisciplinary approach was already becoming the norm even before the pandemic. You need to go for whatever opportunities you can find. But there's no reason to leave behind your primary passion or area of expertise, even if that's in an industry that's suddenly hit pause.
Travel teaches us so much about how to handle the unexpected, navigate the unfamiliar, and deal with challenges in real-time with often limited resources. In that regard, travel writers might be better equipped than many to find creative ways to put their talents and experience to use right now. And travel will be back. We don't know when, or what the landscape will look like. But people have been traveling ever since they wandered out of the Great Rift Valley millions of years ago. Travel writing will endure, too.
Where have you found comfort, as a writer and as an editor, in all of this?
As an editor, I take huge comfort in my team at Lonely Planet, who are a kind and hard-working lot and who have really showed up for one another through all of this. As a writer, I have always leaned on the idea of resiliency when times are tough – and this moment is no different.
Anyone who's followed my personal writing for much of the last decade knows I've been through some things, but writing is how I learned to persevere. It's also how I've learned just how not alone I am, even in the most isolating circumstances. Writers have this beautiful ability to name experiences, articulate pain and desire and fear, to formulate some sense of hope out of thin air. It's what we do, and have done for a long time.
I think a lot lately about how even people who aren't trained as writers or even know to necessarily identify themselves as such have turned to the page when living through something extraordinary. Anne Frank and Zlata Filipović found such solace in jotting down their daily thoughts and experiences—and we in turn have continued to find something compelling even in these raw, private texts. Writing is a form of survival in a very real way, and I take comfort in that.
I also keep thinking about the Soviet poet Anna Akhmatova, who continued writing verse even after everyone she loved was sent to the gulag. Friends helped her memorize her poems line by line and then she burned the hard copies so they wouldn't fall into the hands of the secret police. In this way she preserved her writing until it was safe, by relying on a collective consciousness in a time of collective trauma. That's why I think we need our writers now more than ever, too. We can bear witness for one another, and carry each other through this.
What's one tip you can offer on pitching travel publications right now?
Think outside the box. We're all having to figure out how to talk about travel when even going to the grocery store feels like you're getting ready for an epic journey. So creative tweaks that make your story relevant or relate to something timely or immediate will increase your chances for sure, since editors aren't 100% sure what travel content looks like right now, either.
Do you think the travel industry will be forever changed on the other side of this?
It's hard to predict what it will look like when this is over—so many museums, restaurants, and other businesses will be closed permanently or have to reopen in different forms. But I think given how hard social distancing has been for so many, and how jam-packed parks and other outdoor destinations have been even with stay-at-home orders, shows people still have a real desire to be out in the world, experiencing everything it has to offer. It'll be interesting to see if we go straight back to the way things were, or if we have a more cautious, sustainable approach to travel as a result.
aaand One More Question: What was the tastiest meal you enjoyed last week?
I've been trying to make my pandemic cuisines exciting – and hopefully I'm succeeding. I recently baked a sweet potato and topped it with smokey black beans and fire roasted tomatoes with a little feta cheese and yogurt. It was simple, but delicious. I can't stop thinking about it, actually.
One More Question for You…
If you could go back in time and leave a note for yourself one year ago, what would it say? Write a letter to your present self from your former one.