No. 3 Loves You!

Every time we put out an issue, I think it's my favorite one yet. I think: how will we ever top this? I wallow in its excellence for about a minute before I get anxious about doing it all over again.

Predictably, the next couple of months pass. We read submissions, make selections, and take or find photos. We also do the other jobs, the ones we get paid to do. We work on our own writing. Once in a while we sleep.

Then, suddenly, the quarter has passed and the next issue is upon us, and I freak out. Will we get it done on time? Will our authors be pleased? How can it possibly be as good as the last one, and the one before it? WHAT DID WE GET OURSELVES INTO?

And each time, as in most of life, everything works out. Some weird, unprecedented tech glitch pops up, and I think it's going to take forever to fix, and it doesn't, and the nerdy production stuff is actually easier than it was the time before, and we find an image that's just perfect for each story, and then that e-mail shows up in your inbox letting you know that we've gone and done it again. We start to get congratulatory e-mails from readers, messages that delight us no end, praising all the stories, and generally making us feel great about the work we're doing. And if we're really lucky, we even hear from the writers we've published.

So pretty soon, the anxiety is going to set in. But for now, everybody roll around in No. 3 with me like little kids in a leaf pile.