Not all writers take the time to write a headline, probably because they know their editor will just change whatever they came up with. I used to be an editor, and I know that I always appreciated the gesture—even if I did change whatever they came up with it.

This experience is probably why I include a headline at least 99% of the time (the 1% is due to brain-fry, which sometimes occurs while trying to meet a deadline). And it’s always a delightful surprise to discover, when that printed magazine comes in the mail, that my headline worked!

Case in point: The May/June issue of American Spirit, the magazine for the Daughters of the American Revolution. I interviewed a triathlete and ultramarathoner and the Cake song, “The Distance” effortlessly popped into my head. And so, “She’s Going the Distance” also popped into my head.

Now, despite being a freelance writer and someone who knows a thing or two about words, I am missing that part in my brain that allows me to understand what a song is about without parsing it out like I had to do in an Intro to Poetry class in college (I chose Neil Diamond’s “I Am I Said” for that exercise). So, apologies if the Cake song is really gross and inappropriate, but isn’t “She’s Going the Distance” a great headline for this article?

Photo credit: blyjak