Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Murphy's Laws of Writing

When I was a college student, I had a couple of Murphy's Laws posters that hung on my closet door (I wonder whatever happened to them). I didn't have a Murphy's Laws of Writing poster, but I sure could have used one back then. It would have given me an idea of what to expect today . . .

Murphy's Law of Interview Calls: Your phone will sit quiet all day, until you are ready to do an interview.

Murphy's Law of Phone Tag: A person you tried to reach earlier will call you back -- when you are in the middle of another call.

Murphy's Law of Interview Scheduling: You will be available all week with the exception of one half hour, and that is the same half hour every tries to schedule an interview.

Murphy's Law of Assignments: Your calendar is empty except for one day, when five editors pick the same date for a deadline.

Murphy's Law of Quitting Time: The email or call you had waited for all day will arrive minutes after you shut your office for the evening.

Murphy's Law of Sources: The perfect source will return your message, two hours after you submitted the article.

Murphy's Law of Recording: When your source talks too fast or you know you'll have to doublecheck the tape for the information, you forgot to plug in the mic to the phone.

Any I forgot?

2 comments:

Drewpy Drew said...

Murphy's Law of crashing and burning. Your computer that always runs like a top will crash one second after you type the last word of your piece.

Anonymous said...

That pretty much covers my career!

Julie