Tag Archives: making a book

Fear and the Building of a Book

I know how to draw in pencil, and I know how to draw cabins. In spite of having put together The Cabins of Mineral King, I have a little bit of fear. It doesn’t paralyze me. Instead, it keeps me on my toes.

The fear is that the book might look like “loving hands at home”. In order to avoid this dreaded description, I plan to hire a book designer as a consultant. Hopefully, he will prevent me from making any lame-o mistakes.

Okay, Mrs. Book Builder, gaze upon the lovely blue shutter and think calming peaceful thoughts.

Cedar Lane

Cedar Lane will be Chapter 3 in The Cabins of Wilsonia. It is one that I added new drawings to and redesigned. This caused a general scooting around of every successive page. Every time I look through the photos of Cedar, I vacillate between adding more and leaving it as is. Remembering how much trouble it is to scoot successive drawings and redesign every successive page is enough to make me say to myself, “Self, STOP IT”.

Two Hundred Sixty Five Pencil Drawings of Cabins

Made it! 265 pencil drawings for the upcoming book, The Cabins of Wilsonia, finished. (Unless my drawing student make me change something, because they are “mean” like that.)

The last cabin on my list, on Willow Lane.

This doesn’t mean that there won’t be more. The drawings might not be enough, or horror of horrors, there might be too many. There are a couple more that I would like to draw, but don’t think I can fit them in.

I’d also like to put little ones here and there to enhance plain pages like the Table of Contents or Acknowledgements.

That may look good, or it may not. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

First Blogiversary

On December 19, 2012, I started this blog, The Cabins of Wilsonia. (Still bowled over by the brilliant creativity of that name!)

The website has 5 pages – the blog itself, about this blog, a contact page, frequently asked questions and questions to ponder.

Since that date there have been 84 posts and 112 comments. You’ve seen 60 drawings, 55 of which will appear in the book. (That’s quite a preview of the 270 that the book will contain, dontcha think??) The header drawing on the website has been changed 3 times.

There are now 18 drawings remaining. I am considering this a success, because I am in charge of my book and get to decide the definition of its success. (Sounds like there should be a “so there!” and a raspberry at the end of that last sentence.)

In the upcoming year, my first goal is to finish the remaining drawings.

Thank you for following along, reading, commenting, emailing me, sharing with your cabin friends, family and other interested parties.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep you posted!

The first header that appeared on this website.

Alta Lane in Wilsonia

This will be the first “chapter” in the book. Feels funny to refer to them as “chapters” because it is a picture book more than a word book. (Remember graduating to “chapter books” as a new reader?? It was a big deal!)

This pencil drawing was the header on the blog for awhile. Have you noticed that the blog is on its third header? This one shows the back side of a cabin on Alta Lane.

Here are my thoughts on Alta so far, just as random as you please:

1. I live on Alta Acres Drive in Three Rivers and can see Alta Peak from my house. Seems sort of far-ish from Alta Lane in Wilsonia.

2. It is Alta Lane, not Alta Street! That’s good – “Lane” sounds more rural than Street, and Wilsonia is definitely rural rather than urban or suburban.

3. What if the 2 pictures I chopped with my paper cutter need to be rescanned? I’ll have to redraw them!

4. There is another cabin on Alta I’d love to include but I don’t know where to put it. If I add a page to Alta, every page after Alta will have to be rearranged, and that is the bulk of the book. Hmmm, maybe put it on the Acknowledgements page or on the back of the dust jacket. Will there be a dust jacket?

Building a book takes so much thinking, deciding, planning and adjusting. . . I sort of remember this from The Cabins of Mineral King, but that was a partnership so the load was shared. On the other hand, getting to make all the decisions myself isn’t all bad!

The Streets of Wilsonia, Learned

After months and months of puzzlement, I’ve decided to consult the map and make a list. Brilliant idea, don’t you think? I’ve intended to do this all along, but now that there are only 20 drawings left to do, it seems like I can take a small break from my pencils and do something different.

But here’s the conundrum: when I am finished with my drawings, I’ll probably wish I was drawing instead of consulting the map, the thesaurus, emailing, working on the written parts, rescanning drawings and spending hours trying to figure out how to make Adobe InDesign behave.

Alta Lane
Brewer Lane
Cedar Lane
Chinquapin Lane
Fern Lane
Fir Lane
Goddard Lane
Grant Lane
Hazel Lane (Anyone met her yet??)
Hillcrest Road
Kaweah Lane
Laurel Lane (Is this Hazel’s sister or her aunt?)
Le Conte Way
Lilac Lane (Must be Laurel’s sister)
Lily Lane (Oh! There are three sisters??)
Lupine ??
Manzanita Lane
Mason Road
Meadow Lane
Palisade Way
Park Road
Pine Lane
President’s Lane (Just one president – his name was Woodrow Wilson, and don’t tell Glenn Beck about this, ‘kay?)
Sierra Lane (a younger niece, because everyone knows that “Sierra” is the new “Ashley”)
Tehipite Way
Tyndall Lane (Finally! a guy in the Lane family!)
Whitney Lane (another modern Lane cousin)
Willow Lane (whose mom was a hippie – was going to name her “Sunshine” or Rainbow” but got sober and switched to “Willow”.)

Now How Many Are Left?

As I work on The Cabins of Wilsonia, I continue to revise and redesign.

Although I find this light enchanting, this photo will not become a drawing.

Sometimes I think a page looks finished, and then I’ll decide it needs something else. Sometimes I look at a page with drawings to be done and realize it is just crammed too full so something has to go away. Sometimes I look at a completed drawing and think “I can do better”. Sometimes I look at a photo I was intending to draw and I think, “Ick, not doing that!”.

With all that revising, adding and deleting, the math gets a little squishy. Currently I’m not sure how many drawings the book will contain, but now I know this:

At last count, there are THIRTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-TWO drawings left to do.

If This Was A Job, Would I Get Fired?

At the beginning of 2013 I thought there were 230 drawings necessary for the upcoming book, The Cabins of Wilsonia. (Sorry to sound so repetitious – it is supposed to help Google locate this blog for people seeking info on Wilsonia, cabins and the upcoming book.)

85 of those 230 were finished, so it seemed possible to complete the remaining 145 within the next 12 months.

Then I redesigned and recounted.

This drawing is a result of redesigning. I thought the page was complete, and then I saw this very interesting view of a gable. It has some weird things on the front – horizontal bars with weird loopy metal deals hanging off the bars. Unidentified items present challenges – put them on and risk getting them wrong because I don’t know what they are or leave them off and have the cabin look wrong to the cabin owner? In this case I chose the first option.

The book currently requires about 270 drawings, and as of November 1, I had 45 left to complete. This is twice the number I expected to have by that date. I’m not going to make my deadline of December 31. If this was a job, would I quit? If this was a job, would I get fired?? If this was a job, would I be able to ask for more time or more help or to hire an assistant?

At least the number is down to 2 digits. Maybe I can have them finished by the end of January 2014.

More Photos That Won’t Be Drawn. . .

. . . at least they won’t be drawings in the upcoming book, The Cabins of Wilsonia but they might be drawn or painted for other purposes. Making decisions is a continual part of building a book. Sometimes I think I need a supervisor who will tell me what to do so I can question her decisions instead of always talking to myself.

I didn’t get much knitting done because when I go to Wilsonia, I am working, rather than being on vacation. However, when I am in Mineral King, I knit a great deal! Well, I don’t actually knit great deals. I actually knit sweaters, socks, and scarves. Actually. (There – have I ruined the word “actually” for you?)

Even though I continue to photograph this scene over and over because of the color of the umbrella against the wood color, a version of this will appear in the book, The Cabins of Wilsonia. (please forgive the repetition of the title – it is to assist the ubiquitous Mr. Google in finding this blog for new readers.)

A version of this might also appear in the book. All the greenery is a real booger to draw. However, I am a master at drawing boogery things.

Stop laughing.

Okay, go ahead and laugh. I want this blog to be fun!

Cabin Life in Wilsonia, Part Two

As I explore Wilsonia, meet people, and bother them about their lives at their cabins, I realize I am experiencing my own version of cabin life. Here is the continuation from Monday’s post.

10. Meeting the delightful owners of Leaky Hollow and learning of their lives, both cabin and “real”. What gifted and creative people, and such an interesting cabin!

11. Meeting Carol in person! She called me out of the blue last year, and it was a privilege to meet her and hear about all the cabins in her family.

12. Talking to someone (who did not introduce himself) about the roads of Wilsonia. He was in disbelief when I told him that many of the cabins share the same address numbers, differentiated only by the road names. He said it wasn’t possible. Clearly, we have different maps!

13. Listening to a presentation by Eric Blehm, author of The Last Season, a book about the search for a missing backcountry ranger. I had no idea that a similar search was taking place in Mineral King at the very time of his presentation. It didn’t turn out well either.

14. Visiting with Joanne, who finally has a cabin after years of only having a lot. What a wonderful lady!

15. Having breakfast with my hosts – cornmeal pancakes!

16. Working out details with the cantankerous, clever, unique and hilarious Dennis, whose wife is a saint, about how to draw his cabin. I am still amazed to have discovered them, because I bunked with their daughter at summer camp in the 5th grade.

17. Meeting Norm, who was very polite in spite of the fact that I failed to recognize him later when he was wearing a hat!

18. Working out details of how to draw another cabin with the very interesting Corky and Larry. Truly nice people with a life of variety. We enjoyed our conversation very much, because it is always refreshing to meet people with shared values.

19. Meeting Mary Anne and re-meeting Mary Ann, who was very kind and understanding about how I am designing the book. Wilsonia is full of very classy people.

To be continued. . .