Fun assignments make me grumpy. On the surface, it’s all good—anything an editor could possibly characterize as “fun” generally ends up being a quick, simple wrap. Easy money, right? If I get too many of these assignments at once, though, I wind up in a sulky, obstinate huddle on the couch. It’s not that I can’t relax and get my groove on—it’s that I hate not being relevant.
Every now and then when I’m out and about on Google (sleuthing the intertubes to see where my work and links have been landing—surprise!), I run across this paper: “Child Protection in Texas: Caseworkers Attitudes and Perceptions Towards CPS Services.” This thesis paper written by a master’s degree candidate at Texas State University quotes an investigative piece I wrote some years ago for DallasChild magazine, “Overhauling Child Protective Services: Part I: Will New Laws Make a Difference? Who is Really Protecting Our Kids.”
It was a big piece, in many ways. The two-part series took a big chunk of my year to research, write and edit. It took a big toll on the emotional tenor of our household, as abuse, malfeasance and neglect became part of my daily vocabulary. But it reaped big rewards, touching readers and child welfare professionals all over the state, being linked and re-linked on sites all over the world and winning several prestigious awards and honors (the Dallas Bar Association’s Stephen Philbin Award for Excellence in Legal Reporting, a Katie Award for Best Investigative News Story, and a Gold Award for a special series from Parenting Publications of America).
That story wore me out. I came back the next year to write a followup story on foster care (which garnered similar interest and honors), but the work did not blend well with my family-oriented lifestyle. It’s hard to put a game of Monopoly with your own kids first when someone’s on the line who wants to talk about other children who are being beaten, starved, neglected or taken away from their families. That’s when I knew I had to find a different balance for this particular phase of my writing life.
Still, you don’t work on pieces like those without being changed. I can’t say I developed an abiding taste for investigative work—but I did develop a raging addiction to being relevant. Sure, a lot of my work these days is based on video games, and I’m quite capable of coming up with silly frippery when writing about green trends and eco style … But at the end of the day, it’s pieces like these that I most enjoy writing. Enjoy.
