Funny that.

Every time deadline comes around for the magazine, I start freaking out because, yet again, I have procrastinated.

It's a big task to come up with ten things to review, that I find funky and unique.

Not to mention, either getting high resolution images from the vendor, or having to take the product photo myself.

You see, in the beginning, my 'column' was just random stuff I would come across that I thought most people might miss.

[Kinda like this lil' blog here].

At first, it was all text.

Which was fine, but I never received any feedback from readers, or from other members on staff.

Then the editor and art director decided to change things up a bit, and the format slightly changed, but now I had to get images.

Problem with that was that 500 words, and half a page everything wouldn't fit.

So I got bumped up to a full page [retail $2500 for any one who wants to advertise - ha - shameless plug].

Going to a full page, meant also being bumped up to 1000 words.

[!]

This on top of the other articles I might be given.

So the format change happened, and the staff commented on how they really liked it.

Still no response from readers though.

So it's been about three issues with the new format, each of which, was spent working at the last minute to find, review, and get images for products.

Each time, I seriously debated about just handing the feature over to someone else since it does get so stressful at deadline.

But that changes when an issue comes out, and everyone raves about it.

Needless to say, I am on deadline this week and have bupkis for content.

To top that off, over the weekend, I had a meet and greet with a new vendor, about featuring items from their store.

Luckily, they have some groovy things, but my journalistic-self has some issue with shilling for businesses.

I'll shill as long as I like the product/business.

I am trying to come to terms with that, since it is, after all, a magazine, and not like a hardcore-serious newspaper, or anything.

It is also this week, that I have found out that they want to bump me to two pages for the next issue.

[Which is another problem, the way our deadlines are set up, I am confused what month it is.

We're on deadline for October, and in my day to day life, I keep thinking it's September].

One good thing though, is they have finally hired a marketing director, and she has already been successful in getting product from various peeps.

I originally was left to fend for myself when it came to contacting marketing types and PR firms to get info.

[For wanting to get their word out about stuff, they are really lax about getting back to you.]

So it looks like I won't have to find stuff anymore, rather just sift through the stuff we get and see what I like.

I should talk with Jeff at Pop-O-Matic, since it seems that he does what I am doing, but as his actual job.

It's just funny that every time I think about quitting, something comes along to change that.