A guidebook chapter in six weeks
Week by week: how a new chapter goes from a blank brief to forty checked listings.
By Clara Weiss
A new chapter takes six weeks from brief to delivery. Two are reporting, two are writing, one is checking and one is for everything that goes wrong.
Weeks one and two
Walking, eating, and filling a notebook with addresses. I visit every listing at least once and the best ones twice, at different times of day.
Weeks three and four
Writing in the evenings, and calling back in the mornings for the details I did not write down.
Weeks five and six
Checking every address, phone number and price against the notebook, then delivering the chapter with a list of everything I could not confirm.
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