Where ideas are born

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

One of the questions I get asked the most is a simple one, yet one that doesn't exactly have a specific answer -- Where do you get your ideas to write about each week?

If only it was as easy as picking them out of the air, I think to myself.

A number of stories done in the Valley Life section result from things going on in the community that the staff knows about. I get ideas from coworkers, but by and large, the best stories you read come not from my ideas but from yours. I'd love to take credit for having this many ideas, but truthfully, my great ideas ran out around 1998, so keep the tips coming please.

I grew up in the Valley and returned after college, now having worked here for more than six years. I've met a lot of people, but you can never know everything that is going on. That's why tips, ideas and suggestions from readers make my job so much fun -- every day is different, and every day, you meet someone new who has a story.

For this weekly column, often I rely on my own mishaps to make people laugh -- going bald, trying to lose 45 pounds in a week for a high school reunion, the perils of being a first-time parent. Those kinds of columns are written about my life, but they could just as easy be about your life, your neighbor's life or your friend's life. I try to pick things that many people can relate to, and poke a little fun at life.

Sometimes, while at events, I see something that I think would make a good column, and those are usually the more serious ones you'll read about on this page. Either way, the column is perhaps the most fun part of my job..

And if I'm sitting at the computer, minutes before deadline and I absolutely, positively have no idea for a column, this is the column that results.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor.