Editing the sport section went well today. That makes me nervous.

This week, it was my turn to put together the sport section for tomorrow's paper. I got started leisurely but not lazily - I got there 20 minutes or so later than I had said I would, but not something ridiculous like two hours; I read some blogs in the beginning while proofreading the articles, but worked steadily after that.

And just a little more than three hours later, I was done. It was relatively easy to begin with, with only two articles (not counting the scoreboard and the schedule) instead of the usual three or four articles and a brief or two. Two articles and six pictures, which I used all but one of, and only needed to resize one. Even so, it sort of offends my pessimism (which is erratic, it seems, but still exists) that the section apparently came out well and not only that but turned out to be easy. I would expect to have a hard time finding a file or to realize that I have 10 column-inches to make up, but it only turned out to be about three, and I can get that just by fiddling around with space between elements and changing the letting and stuff.

Also, it leaves me wondering what I missed. Some evenings when I can finish the section I have an idea of what wasn't that great, so I'm not surprised to hear about certain problems the following morning. "Yeah, I know that headline wasn't great, but I couldn't think of anything else that fit." "Huh, the text is pretty close to the picture, I moved that story around so many times I didn't notice that the last time." Now, though... nothing. If I didn't make mistakes like that, I'm left wondering if I did something really dumb like misspelling the name of the school in the lead headline or something.