That was a key thing that Durlach stressed. "Find a quest," he said, "and you've got it made." He was right. We did have it made. We had a sensational angle that involved a tremendous improvement with two inspiring figures. What was originally a story about a regular community garden turned into a story about two women who fought for their right to create a safe place in their community for kids.
This story was missing one thing: a narrator. The sound bytes that Lyles gave us were great and added color to our story, but just based on what she talked about, she was not going to give us the nut graf. That is where the Groundwork Milwaukee staff came in. They gave us that succinct summary that we needed for our audio slideshow. Their one flaw was that they never said "Cluster II Grow and Play Lot". They always said the garden or the lot. While that was beneficial, it still did not get that introductory quote that would have made this ten times easier to produce.
Durlach's first lesson was when you leave a story, you can't go back. While we understood the literal meaning of that, we did not grasp that figurative context of that. You cannot go back in time and capture that moment. You get one chance. (I'm running the risk of quoting Eminem's Lose Yourself here.) You get one opportunity. Will you capture it or let it slip? And Brynne and I missed that opportunity. We let it slip away. It's safe to say we've learned our lesson.