SchoolMag diary

Transition Times: Marie Lawless reports on the progress of her school magazineThe group tried outVictor Meldrew's immortal phrase to see if Lynne Truss was right aboutexclamation marks

Never mind who wore what at the Oscars: a much more important image-making exercise was taking place at St Vincent's Secondary School in Dundalk last week as we transition-year students decided on the look for our magazine.

Who is our target audience? How will we grab their attention? How do other publications do it? (Good excuse to bring in celebrity magazines.) What about a title? What will go on the cover? Who knows how to use Microsoft Office Publisher?

Luckily, the cavalry arrived in the shape of Pamela O'Leary and Con Holohan from Real Event, the group co-ordinating the SchoolMag competition. At their workshop they gave us good guidelines to keep us going. We also got to invite students from another local secondary school, St Mary's College, along; it was interesting to hear that they were submitting their yearbook, whereas we are aiming to produce a themed arts magazine.

As it suddenly hit us that the time was near for the magazine to be completed, and there was no going back on the decisions we had made at the beginning of the project, the editor assumed a new importance. So this was what power looked like.

The information had been collected. Now was the time to shape, cut and edit.

According to one of our many transition-year "experts", an editor is a person employed by a newspaper to separate the wheat from the chaff . . . and to see that the chaff isn't printed. Guess whose article was cut. My definition of an editor is someone whose motto is: "Go to see what she's doing, then tell her she mustn't."

Anyway, hard decisions have to be made, as our main aim now is to work on the design of the magazine. Are we going to use colour? What can we afford? The layout is really important. We didn't want everything to be compiled into one long, boring piece of writing. The pressure was mounting: it was a bit like having Mount Everest on our shoulders, according to yet another class "expert".

Then, to complicate matters, our transition-year class is off on another week's work experience shortly. Other important things are also happening, with nearly everyone involved with Form and Fusion, Mini Companies, French trips and Young Social Innovators.

When I asked the Jane Austen group how they were progressing, they told me they were working, as she did, on "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory . . . with so fine a brush as produces little effect after so much labour". I suggested they use a computer. I'm really worried about this group.

The creative-writing group had been devouring a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss's book on grammar, and were discussing the way that adding an exclamation mark to a sentence changes its tone. As they tried out Victor Meldrew's immortal phrase "I don't believe it!", to see if Truss was right, they got louder and louder, occasionally breaking into giggles.

I left when I was told that "punctuation cuts a dash; punctuation can't help saying it with knobs on". Hmm. Are these really my classmates?

I then ventured among the Patrick Kavanagh group, where surely there would be some good old-fashioned normality. The mantra of "shape, cut, edit" was in full flight here as illustrations were chosen and headlines discussed. How about "On the Edge: Patrick Kavanagh meets Michael Jackson"? "No, it should be a quote: 'The bright stick trapped'." Why? Well, both these eccentric men (is there any other sort?) were trapped by their upbringing and success.

I discover the drama queens huddled in a corner of the media room, complaining about the fact that, even with the "most organised group", time can fly by unnoticed.

So if I have learnt anything from this quick survey of the groups, it is that "the world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation".

Finally, to everyone trying to put together a magazine in a hurry, make sure you have your articles done and dusted well before the final deadline, so you have time to shape, cut and edit to achieve the look you want. Happy cutting and pasting.