Tefillah. This comes before, during, and after the mammoth process— at every stage there is so much help we need from Above
A standard magazine closing overtakes a very extended workday — from early in the morning until long after business hours. A Yom Tov closing is a different animal. Our Yom Tov package has so many parts, pieces, and pages that the closing spans a several-week period. The most intense days come at the end, when we send the main magazine to print. More than one staff member has described that period as being in a tunnel, when the outside world almost ceases to exist and all we think, do, and breathe is finalize and send off pages to the printer.
Over the years I’ve learned that to get through this closing, you need a survival kit. Here are the main components:
Tefillah. This comes before, during, and after the mammoth process — at every stage there is so much help we need from Above. Perhaps most daunting of all is the initial stage of creating something from nothing — seeking the perfect idea, source, or inspiration. But the last part of a closing, when deadlines come crashing noisily down on could-haves and should-haves, needs plenty of davening too.
Flexibility. Lists and Excel sheets are vital in this job — there are so many pieces, writers, photo shoots, and layers of editing to track that there’s no way we’d manage without them. But anyone overly tied to their charts will not make it through a closing. When articles fall through or writers don’t deliver or crises happen, you have to be ready to develop Plan B, Plan C, and sometimes also Plan D.
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