so my book has had many trials and tribulations. after making the whole thing on in design, i ended up having to print it page by page rather than in a booklet form, because i don't have the right kind of cord on my external harddrive to take it to a printer's. i think this turned out to be a blessing because it brings me back to the initial low-fi-ness of the low-fi workshop. i wanted to learn the computer layout software and also learn to make a book with my own two hands. now i have learned many valuable lessons about both, and my book is a sort of hybrid little beast. yesterday i spent many hours at kinkos using their paper cutter and copy machine, only to realize, many dollars and hours later, that i had completely screwed up on the mock-up of my book, and had to redo everything i'd done. this was incredibly disheartening. i went home huffy and teary and generally down on myself. i just moved to philadelphia, and am super overwhelmed by being in a new city where i don't know yet how to do anything or get anywhere. so the little blunders of my little book became the manifestation of my big-city woes, and i had a temper tantrum about my own incompetence. then i calmed down. my roommate is a book-binder, and a lovely patient generous person. she sat with me and explained my error to me, walked me through the proper method, and made a new mock-up booklet with me. now i am ready to make the photocopies. then i just need to find cover materials, and stitch up the books this weekend (a process im sure will include its own blunders). i love holding it in my hands, figuring out the proportions, calculating where to slice pages and where to fold them, etc.
so, i have learned that when making a book, first make a little mock-up book and label everything, including the title page, the table of contents, and all the numbered pages. then it will be so much easier to arrange the pages in the right order for photocopies. i also learned that making things with our hands can become small physical manifestations of larger fears or worries that we have. these are little treasures. i'm regaining my perspective.
here's to candles and holiday lights,
monica
2 comments:
Dear Mónica:
Thank you for this honest, generous, informative narrative of the turbulence and joy that can accompany bookmaking!! I've had many similar experiences, and absolutely agree that small craft projects can become magnets and/or microcosmic manifestations that represent larger and deeper issues or questions in our lives. Perhaps that is part of why they are so compelling, both for us as makers and, often, for those who read or encounter them in the world. They hold a lot of information, emotional as well as intellectual or aesthetic.
I often laugh at myself as I'm going crazy with the mock-up of a book, thinking that the traditional name for a mock-up is a "dummy" but more often than not I wind up feeling like the dummy! And then when I do finally have a breakthrough (whether that's about the contents of the book, the shape, design and layout, or the binding -- or whatever) it's as if the sun has come out after months of grey sky -- an amazing feeling! I imagine we'll all have that feeling when we finally can hold each other's books in our very hands.
Mónica's experience underlines the immense importance of making a dummy -- a test run so you can make sure you're getting everything in the right order, with registration (placement on the page) and page order and everything else as you want it to be.
It's very useful, also, once you have all the innards and covers ready to bind, to do a test run on scratch paper (folded or stacked in whatever way your actual book innards will be). And if you make what's called a jig, it becomes much easier to poke the necessary holes in your book in the same place each time. And that way, if you want all your books to look pretty uniform, they more or less will, even while having that handmade look.
Let us know how it goes, Mónica -- and please try to be gentle and open-minded with yourself as you explore your new home.
Fondly,
Jen
Wow, Monica. I had the exact same experience you described when I made my first chapbook, which is the only other one I've attempted until now. I never wrote about that experience but you just did it for me! Thank you. And Jen is absolutely right about the amazing feeling that comes when you finally figure things out and can hold your finished little book in your hands. You sound like you're past the worst of what can (and usually does) go wrong. That mock-up it so damn important. (I know...NOW you tell me!) What indredible fortune to have a roommate that knows bookbinding! Best to you acclimating to your new home. -- Nancy
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