Sometimes the solution appears almost by itself.
The latest issue of the magazine came together well — until I got to the final article.
With the number of advertising pages sold, I found myself with an empty page-and-a-quarter. Not an easy space to fill.
At supper time, I decided to call it a day and work on the problem in the morning.
It didn’t take that long. As I turned out the lights and got into bed, I considered two options for the unresolved space.
The first would hold minimal reader appeal. The second option, a short technical article, would attract more readers and had sufficient photos to fill the space. But its title, at best, was dull.
I rolled over and tried to sleep – only to be interrupted by the appearance of a subtitle. It was perfect, a play on words that combined a common phrase with one of the article’s key terms.
I grabbed a pen and paper, jotted the title and subtitle, and got back into bed. Sleep came quickly. In the morning, what I’d written still worked.
Had my brain been working on that puzzle for the past two weeks? I’ll never know. But I do know that finding the solution was never a reason to worry.
