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Imagine that I came to
you and gave you 12 jigsaw puzzle frames, all the same size.
Imagine then
that I gave you over 100 puzzle pieces and said, “Some of these pieces
must go in certain puzzle frames, and some of them will fit in any
puzzle. Some can be cut and split between two different puzzles. Some
pieces cannot go next to each other, even though they will fit--and
some, if they don’t fit just right, you can trim with the scissors.”
Imagine then
that I said, “Oh, by the way--you don’t have all the pieces yet, you
can’t leave any spaces blank, and you have to have all the puzzles
completed within 24 hours.”
Now you have
some comprehension of what newspaper layout (or “paste-up” as it is
sometimes called) is like.
Each
article, advertisement, classified, event announcement, photo, caption
and headline is a different puzzle piece. Even page numbers are puzzle
pieces, and little tidbits like “continued on page 3” are little tiny
puzzle pieces.
In paste-up,
we basically print every little piece, wax the back side of them, and
then “paste” them onto big sheets of paper that have a blue grid printed
on them. With the wax, they stick, but can still be peeled up and moved,
and shifted, and aligned.
And when we start, we
don’t really know if we need 10 puzzle frames, 12, or maybe even 14.
But, we do know it has to be an even number.
The process
can’t be started too early, and usually begins sometime either over the
weekend, or on Monday. All pages (all puzzles) must be finished and to
the printer by 6 a.m.
on Wednesday morning.
The
beginning of paste-up is easy. Big ads, articles, and photo spreads are
placed, according to priority and size. Then, little pieces are fit in
around the big ones, and so on.
But there
are rules. Ads start at the bottom of the page and articles at the top.
Headlines can’t butt against each other and look the same, or they could
be read as one. Even numbered pages are on the left, odd on the right,
and so on.
It is a
tedious, detailed task that involves hundreds of little pieces of
paper–all which must be considered for content, grammar, timing, sizing
and placement.
And then, as
you near the end, you must begin adjusting the puzzle pieces to fit the
spaces left available--all the while making sure that nothing is left
out, and everything is spelled right.
This is
normally Newton’s
task–one he can complete in just a few hours, with few glitches. For the
unpracticed–it is a daunting, frightening challenge. And it takes us all
night to attempt what he does, without effort, in hours.
Because we
have been standing so long, our feet hurt--as does the small of the
back. Your eyes are tired from looking into the light table and reading,
reading, reading. Words become black images without meaning, and the
blue grid lines on the layout paper blur and weave back and forth.
In the last
hours, when those tiny adjustments have to be made, I’m basically
pulling my hair out. I’m impatient--and it is a process that cannot be
rushed. Besides, at midnight,
I turn into a pumpkin--with nothing but seeds and pulp where my brain
normally sits. As a result, I get a little “snappish”--to say the least.
Last week, I
was diverted by some family business, and could not fully participate in
the layout process. I left poor
Bill
to fend for himself on Tuesday night, where he worked into the wee hours
Wednesday morning. During one of our back and forth phone calls, I asked
him if he was excited about his first “lone layout.”
He replied,
“I’m skeert.”
None of us
have the ability to match the results of
Newton’s
life-long experience in the newspaper business, and with layout, each
mistake is literally printed in the newspaper and mailed nationwide.
Puzzle pieces that were invisible at 1 a.m.
before print are blatant and obvious black and white mistakes on
Wednesday afternoon.
Bill and I
realize that we have possibly confused or disappointed some readers in
the last few weeks, either by varying the layout, missing a submission,
or by leaving the Christmas contest hidden graphic for week one in week
two’s issue. (Big “oops” there.)
We’re still a little
confused ourselves. We were attempting to match the work of a master,
and we have fallen short.
Please accept our humble
apologies, and don’t worry--
Newton
has returned, part time, to save us.
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