You don’t always have to get that shot

On a recent episode of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, New Yorker writer Nick Paumgarten described what it was like to be on a high-profile reporting assignment like the Super Bowl, the Masters, or the World Economic Forum at Davos.

He said on the first day he will feel like “I’m getting so much good stuff here–oh my God, there’s just so much good stuff!” Then on the second day, panic sets in and he thinks: “I have nothing. I’m missing it. I’m screwed.”

These are kind of assignments where you think “you need to get it while you’re there,” Paumgarten said. “It’s almost like photography, you have to get the shots.”

But he said he’s learned “you don’t always have to get that shot.”

“You can write about things that you’re not present at,” he said. “In some ways, it can be a benefit to the story that you’re telling.”

“I’ve learned after so many panicky writing sessions to relax a bit about what I got and what I didn’t get,” he said. “What I got is what I got and I tell the story as best I can and there’s usually more than enough.”

“You can’t be everywhere all at once.”