Words on a page

Strangest writing assignment

Graham Yost, writer of the movie Speed and creator of the TV series Boomtown, once told an interviewer that one of the strangest writing assignments he had was to pen copy for a medical catheter.

I think I've got one up on Yost. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had Web writing assignment that required me to author short articles based on keywords. Most of the keywords -- like "loans," "divorce," and "corporations" -- have been pretty innocuous. But towards the end of that gig, I was writing about two subjects I'd never thought I'd be writing about. Those subjects? Warts and herpes.

Ah, the things we scribes do ...