Thursday August 29 2013

Thursday August 29 2013

Didn’t get around to talking about my day yesterday, but next Wednesday will be the same, so I’ll do it then.

Thursdays are production/printing days for The Shoreline.  There was a time when I would have to pack all the page layouts into a box and drive them to the printers a little more than three hours away.  Could have saved half that time by taking the ferry, but because I have more time than money, the choice was simple. 

Anyway, that’s all moot now thanks to the internet.  These days all that fussing and driving is replaced with a click of a mouse and a few answering a few email questions.  Despite that, Thursdays seem to fill up with last minute ad submissions and changes and my compulsion to make the paper as perfect as possible.  Fortunately, there is still a printer’s deadline so that eventually—that being around 2 o’clock on Thursdays—I have to let the latest edition go.   Used to be that I’d show up at the printers  shop after my three hour drive with a set of finished galleys in my hands and a completely rewritten front page story in my head.  This would be followed by frantic begging (on my part) and furious head shaking (on the part of the printer).  Eventually, I learned that the best strategy was to find a typewriter, in the really old days, and type out what was in my head as quickly as possible then rush to the production room hoping to make it to the typesetter before the plates were burned.

But like I said, that’s all moot now.

The rewriting, however, is still a factor.  So today, for instance, after I’d sent of the files, it occurred to me that the story I’d written about flagging lumber markets needed a tweak. 

Have to stop.  Someone’s yelling my name from the wharf.