The identity issue launched today. Take a look and come back here to give feedback if you like. The color palette of this new issue offers up plenty of red to brighten your February and March (should they need brightening).

Sometimes life just isn’t interesting enough on its own. Sometimes I prefer to offer myself little challenges, like not working on stuff until the last possible minute, just to see how quickly I can throw things together.

I do this with meals all the time. Added bonus points: successfully fending off hungry children asking, “Can I have a snack?” while my stomach grumbles away, blood sugar plummeting, filtering through whatever food supplies are in the home and wondering what to make, minutes ticking away. This used to be much harder when I had toddlers who would express their displeasure (both through hunger and exhaustion) by promptly collapsing into a fit of cries and flailing limbs. Without toddlers or babies in the home, sometimes people can be reasoned with: “No, you may not have a snack. It is almost dinner.” When it’s my husband collapsing into tears, I know I’m in trouble.

With One magazine this kind of thing doesn’t really happen, but in a way, I wish it would. I wish that anyone hoping to read the next issue would appear at my doorstep, or call me on my cell phone, asking the questions, “Is the issue ready yet? When will it be ready?”

This would provide me with some of the necessary motivation to get the thing out there. So much else about it is fuzzy and indeterminate.

That said, I’m daring myself with the identity issue to see how fast I can put the thing together, hopefully without blood-sugar-plummeting problems. Instead, I have internet-access problems. All week, my cable modem and router have been acting up, inconsistent, fizzing out. This has interfered a bit with some of the work I do, but in all I am grateful because it enables me to put the computer aside and take a walk instead… and try to shake my reliance on a computer. The challenges with the technology end up becoming an obstacle to overcome: for instance, if I reset the modem, and it works for 60-second intervals upon each reset, how much of the magazine can I finish over the course of 12 hours? This is also a great way to get exercise, because I find myself running from the modem back to my laptop. Anything for a challenge.

If anyone out there has been pondering contributing to the identity issue, you still have a chance to slide something on in before the doors close. Especially if you have on hand a review of a good place to hang out, a book to read, a movie to watch, music to hear, and so on… the easiest kind of thing to drum up quickly, perhaps?

Email me if you would like to write for this issue or send in some art.