Two-Minute Writing

Mute the TV and start scribbling.

For weeks I’d wondered how to fill a key need for my magazine’s next two issues. The official with whom I was working had a history of coming up short on content.

Rather than depend on him to suddenly generate material, I needed to give him specific requests. But my time to draft those assignments kept … Continue reading

A Fresh Start

You can make one any day.

The turn of the calendar offers a good opportunity to begin things anew. But I appreciate that we aren’t restricted in when we can turn over a new leaf.

Sometimes changes are forced upon us. This fall, my page layout program stopped working with my computer’s classic operating system.

I had no choice, so I made … Continue reading

Review it Cold

You’ll see a lot.

I was proud of the layout I’d just completed. Getting the brief text and the multiple photos to fit took several tries, but finally the elements came together.

Satisfied, I sent the pages to my first reader.

A few hours later, he pointed out a typo, which I marked to fix the next morning.

But the next morning, I reviewed the … Continue reading