Category Archives: Progress Report

The Next Challenge

The cover design has given me fits.

It took awhile to decide on the picture for the front of the book. Nope, not telling!

Then, I had to design the cover in my head. That wasn’t too hard – title, drawing, my name.

Then, this is where it gets hairy. Adobe InDesign is not an easy thing to use, and the world of covers is not a place where I have a map.

The printing company sent a diagram for the cover design with confusing dimensions and terms like “cloth size” and “board size” and all sorts of fractions that didn’t translate into clean decimals.

Then I saw that it was for a vertical book. Oops. My book is horizontal.

I requested and received a new diagram, which was just lines and measurements. Still no clarification on “cloth size” versus “board size”, and don’t even get me started on the whole issue of the spine dimensions!

It took the better part of an afternoon with InDesign, Googling for instructions, sending out an SOS to Carol in Seattle who was on a ferry returning from the San Juan Islands, which is where I want to live when I grow up, more googling, experimenting, and gritting my teeth with the effort of not screaming or slamming the laptop shut and picking up some nice soothing knitting.

I thought I got it. I sent it off. Then, the design department at the printing company sent me an email with a real template to use with InDesign so I redid it.

The person in the design department is named Jana. Why does that matter? Because I may be temporarily insane from the frustration of InDesign, which means everything takes on a new significance.

Perhaps it is time for a break. How about a nice cuppa?

So worked up here I forgot to mention the title of the book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, in case Google is listening.

IT’S BEEN SENT!

What has been sent? The Cabins of Wilsonia has been sent to the printer! A big fat check has been sent too. (They don’t work for free, unlike some artist I could name here. . .)

The cover is designed in my head, but no matter how skilled the printing company is, it cannot see into my head. Dexter, Michigan is kind of far from Three Rivers, California, not that physical presence would make my head more transparent.

So, cover design is next. If it ain’t one thing, it’s anuthuh.

I also need to design a post card to mail out so that everyone has a chance to buy the book at the pre-sale price. That way I will be able to pay the ransom to get the books, The Cabins of Wilsonia shipped to me.

Mid to late September, expect your copy of The Cabins of Wilsonia, if you pre-ordered one.

~~If not, you may order one here and now:~~

Special pre-order price has expired.

No More Proofreading!

“No More Proofreading!” is the same sort of command as “No more caffeine for you, Young Man!”

My husband Michael, AKA Trail Guy, has developed quite a fine eye for design and for typos. It may be his innate perfectionism, but I believe that almost 29 years of living with a Typo Psycho has had its influence on him.

He read through the whole book The Cabins of Wilsonia and found a messed up sentence, an ever so slightly sloped drawing and 4 chapter headings that needed tighter spacing.

There couldn’t possibly be anything else to correct!

So, once again, I converted the entire InDesign file to a PDF and am now awaiting a return phone call from the printer, Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan to verify my paper choices.

Then, I’ll send the book off and there will be NO MORE PROOFREADING!

The Cabins of Wilsonia will be printed as is.

I mean it!

Just a LIttle Bit More

I spent a weekend in Wilsonia, pre-selling the book, selling the original drawings, showing the place to my husband, getting reacquainted with cabin folks, and explaining the project and answering questions. (Usually I’m the one asking the questions, so this was a fun switcharoo.)

Chuck and Penny were the successful bidders on this original pencil drawing (with color in the foxgloves) at the annual Wilsonia silent auction.

One of the main questions was, “When will the book be ready?”

It will be ready mid to late September. The printer/binder has said to expect it to take 6 weeks, so I figure it will be 8.

Meanwhile, I wanted to proof yet again.

This is what I found to fix:

1. A fern needed to be moved. Really! It is important to have your ferns properly placed.

2. There were 2 places with an extra space between words.

3. Two sentences got readjusted to look more balanced.

4. I added the word “Inc.” to the printer’s name on the copyright page.

Honestly, I want this book to be PERFECT. It might not be possible, but I will give it my best shot. Next, my husband will proof it for me. After 29 years of marriage, he has caught the Typo-Psycho disease from me.

Meanwhile, the pre-sale price of $70, including sales tax and shipping is good through the months of July and August. If you click the button below, it will take you to Paypal where you can choose your quantity. If you don’t use Paypal, you can click on the Contact button above and I’ll send you my mailing address so you can buy your book with a check.

Pre-order Your Book

The Cabins of Wilsonia book is now available for a special time-limited pre-publication price.

I sold them in Wilsonia over the 4th of July weekend, and now you can order yours here.

The easiest way I know to do this is to use a Paypal Add to Cart button. It will let you choose your quantity on the Paypal page. If you don’t use Paypal, you may use the contact tab at the top of this page and send me an email. I’ll reply to let you know where you can mail a check and how much it will be. Checks still work.

After the books arrive, I will ship them to you.

If you buy the book now, it will come to $70 with tax and shipping. If you wait, it will be $86 including tax and shipping. When? More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Are you ready? I sure am!

How Many Ways Are There To Proofread?

There are more ways to proofread a book than most of us can imagine. I want The Cabins of Wilsonia to be the most error free book around. I know it isn’t possible for it to be perfect, but I am giving it every possible check that I can think of.

Pencil drawing of outhouse on Cedar Lane without any retouching in Red/Green/Blue, AKA RGB

Two different friends read through the book for typographical errors. There were a few words that were omitted, a misplaced quotation mark or two, some comma problems, and a weird typeface problem.

This has no retouching but is converted to grayscale.

Good to go, yes?

No.

After the conversion problem, I decided to keep proofreading. Look at all the checks I thought of to do:

1. Quotation marks – all consistently with the period first and then the quotes? Nope, caught a few of those.

2. Peoples’ names – 3 different peoples’ names had a dash preceding the name. Why? Who knows? Now no name has a dash.

3. Has every single drawing been converted to Grayscale? Nope, one was still RGB, which stands for Red Green Blue.

4. Were the edges of every single drawing as clean as they could be? They were after I redid 12 of them!

5. Are all the files in the TIF format rather than JPEG? Of course! I’m not THAT careless!

Pencil drawing of outhouse, converted to grayscale, and all the imperfections have been removed.

Before I send the book to the printer, I will consider all the other ways to proofread. Who knew there are this many options?

The Rest of the Computer Challenge Story

I think I may have been lying on the floor by the end of yesterday’s posting.

Here is what happened next:

Mr. Funny Name sent me more instructions for Photoshop Elements, including a little image of a tool that he thought might return things to normal.

His little image was too small to see so I clicked on it to enlarge it. When it got big enough to see, I saw it had a microscopic switch for “Default Colors”. I clicked on that in my Photoshop Elements and voila! Back to normal!

So, Mr. Funny Name didn’t provide the answer, but he inadvertently gave me a tool to discover the answer. JustAnswerDotCom says they don’t charge if you aren’t satisfied, but they only say that at the beginning. Afterward, there is no obvious way to not pay. They didn’t provide an answer but accidentally showed me the way to figure it out myself. I paid.

Not a fan of Adobe products, nope not me. . . not at all. They do the job, but figuring out how to make them do the job is tricky business. This is the third Great-Big-Obstacle-To-Which-No-One-and-No-Website-Gives-An-Answer that I’ve encountered with learning to use this program, which is supposed to be the simple version.

If I weren’t so exhausted from the battle, I might be laughing.

The good news is this: all the weirdo-wackadoodle drawings have been repaired and The Cabins of Wilsonia is closer to being ready to go to the printer and I am ready to go to the cabin. (That would be in Mineral King, Land of No Electricity or Computers or Adobe anything, so there.)

Another Computer Challenge

I converted the whole book, all 176 pages of The Cabins of Wilsonia to a PDF following the printer’s instructions. This is what they require for printing, and they recommend that the client (me) look at this PDF before sending it to them. I did, and about 20 of the drawings looked like sludge. WHAT???

Does this look like a pencil drawing to you?? It looks like a film negative (remember those?) to me.

I made a list of the wrecked drawings and began reworking them in Photoshop Elements. Got about 1/2 done, and my eraser tool went wacko. I don’t know what I clicked on accidentally. The so called “Help” wasn’t helpful.

I called my friend in Seattle who has been my main helper but apparently her smart phone had gotten separated from her, a previously unknown condition; she DIDN’T ANSWER!!

I searched all over the internet, found a place called JustAnswer.com and used my Paypal account to spend $36 to get an answer; this was pure desperation!

I could have gone out to the studio to work on another project, but instead thought about curling up in the fetal position under my dining table, holding my cat and putting my thumb in my mouth. Meanwhile, I reconverted repaired drawings to PDF and saw that what I fixed prior to the eraser tool’s betrayal turned out well. This was encouraging enough that I was able to stay upright and keep working. Breathe, breathe, it is o k a y.

The only urgency was my self-imposed COME ON ALREADY!! attitude as I waited for Mr. Funny Name, the “expert”. I don’t need the books until November. October or September are fine too, but there is no urgency. (This was my self-talk to keep from losing it.)

So what happened? Guess you’ll have to tune in tomorrow. . .

Final Decisions

Did you know that the more decisions one has to make during the course of a day, the more depleted one’s mental strength and willpower become?

This could be why I feel tired. (Or is it the mural I just finished? Maybe it is that old treatment plant for the neighborhood water system that I helped demolish. . . )

Here is the next slate of decisions before The Cabins of Wilsonia goes to press:

1. Re-evaluate the cover and end-sheet colors when the paper sample arrives.

2. Decide when enough proofreading is enough.

4. Figure out how to convert the whole shebang to a PDF. (Will the computer challenges ever end??)

5. Figure out the price of the book.

6. Figure out the right discount to offer as a pre-sales incentive. You all have to have a reason to hand me your hard-earned dollars before a product is available!

Will I see you in Wilsonia over the Fourth of July weekend?

Not Yet Printed and Already Out-Dated?

There is one last drawing that needed scanning. I drew the cabin several years before I decided to make the book The Cabins of Wilsonia. The photo taken with my old digital camera just isn’t good enough for the book!

I called the customers/friends/cabin owners (all those roles and titles have blurred) to ask if I can borrow back the drawing. The wife and I discussed a trip to Clovis or a trip to Wilsonia. The drive to Wilsonia is prettier, and it is actually closer, so that’s how we did this.

It meant leaving Three Rivers at 9:30 and just blasting up and back quickly (Driving 245 down fast was FUN!!) because I needed to get to Exeter to work on the mural on Rocky Hill Antiques. After retrieving the drawing, I did a short drive around Wilsonia.

Look! The road signs used to look like this:

Now they look like this. AND I saw 2 roads that are NOT in the book – Kearsarge and Muir. it’s okay – there are no cabins on them. Probably used to be. . . sigh.

And this charming, mysterious, always boarded up, and never occupied cabin now looks like this:

Well! Who knew that the book would be outdated before it even goes to press??