Thoughts on book-writing logistics and top-of-mind projects
Thoughts on book-writing logistics and top-of-mind projects
and other ANEMONE studio updates, plus links
The top of my Notes app says “look up drones filming tornadoes” — this was a recommendation from Alex while we were being annoyed by people flying a buzzing drone in Volunteer Park. I also wrote down “submission based zine called Raccoon Fantasy??” which has a lot of interest already, so maybe it will happen… (Pls reply to this email if you wish, and describe what raccoon-related things you’d like to submit.)
How to Sew Clothes is at the printers and I think the main thing left to do for the interiors is a spot check of all the color profiles / printer adjustments to the photos. I am VERY glad to be through the computer work on the production side of this project—it took up so much of my brain, for so long. From the end of the year review in 2019 Amy and I knew we had so much to say about sewing that we were going to make a book. I started working on the draft in earnest in December 2020 during the months that Amy was on maternity leave, and then Abrams emailed us to see if we wanted to publish with them and we started talking with them in April 2021.
We turned our outline into a formal book proposal (I was sitting at a table in the old inn at the Sou’wester, in the dappled sun, a truly glorious place to write), then we worked on it more while we spent a few months in contract negotiations.
We wrote and designed new patterns and sewed samples and photographed intensively all of late summer and fall and winter of 2021. I interviewed my friend Sarah about apparel design and sewing, and she read the whole book and made so many comments and suggestions. The first week of January this year we turned in the manuscript (~60k words, 600+ photos and diagrams)—a huge push to get all the files named and organized and everything packaged up.
Adam wrote a bunch of python scripts to help with the image file naming and organization and moving things from Google Docs to Word, and even then it took several weeks to get things ready to submit. Managing 30+ GB of files that need to be named and ordered and provided in hi- and low-res versions, with contact sheets and appropriate, sequentially-named references within the text of the manuscript is no joke. At some point I want to write a long blog post about just the logistics of managing all that, AND doing it so writing technical illustrated books collaboratively is possible. The short version is that Amy and I wrote in google docs, with one doc per chapter, and a big TOC doc that linked to all of them. All the diagrams were inline, and all the photos were embedded from a single google slides file (That way we could see all the images we’d used in the whole book in one place, to view the overall flow, and keep from duplicating things.) Similarly, all the size and fabric requirements charts were embedded from a different spreadsheet.
We also had this totally wild spreadsheet that pulled wordcount and made a visual bookmap showing where each Part and Chapter would fit into the 16-page signatures of the 208-page printed book. How did it flow, how would it change as we got clearer on wordcount for each chapter. We found areas to write more and areas to make more concise or trim.
I am feeling newly alive now that I’ve (mostly) emerged from this huge project. It’s a lot, emotionally and physically and logistically, to stay focused on one big thing for a long time (thousands of hours!) of very concentration-requiring work. It’s not like I wasn’t doing other creative work stuff at all: Adam and I also made Spectrolite and published a couple dozen zines and got set up in the studio, acquired new bindery equipment, and a bunch of other things during this time too, but the book really felt like the priority, the driving force with a series of big deadlines.
As many hours as it takes! (ILSSA)
Now with so! much! time! available, my project backlog is feeling huge and overwhelming. My mind is buzzing with the feeling of wanting to do everything all at once. What do I want to spend my time on, what do I want to finish? Also, I want to climb mountains and ride bikes and swim in lakes and cook and hang out with friends!
Top of mind:
Sew black linen pants (I love my wearable test pair in cream raw silk, just want to make one little adjustment to the crotch curve/upper inseam area to move the seam. But mostly ironing the linen is now holding me back, it’s so hot.)
Ordering stamps for ANEMONE (press mark, return address, something fun, etc)
Sew shorts and a skirt for all this totally climate-crisis hot weather we’re surviving in Seattle summers now, yikes
First tries at making light sculptures (I bought tissue papers at the thrift store, Yasutomo Nori paste at Blick, and am on the lookout for different wire/thin wood strips to use for the internal structure.)
Set up raspberry pi pico and try out sensor kit + coding just for fun
Make Spectrolite thing for Short Run Catalog by Sept 1, design brief from Kelly: “make it colorful!”
A second climate zine (title TBD) with Elizabeth Case — given the existing topography, what does civilization / infrastructure / ecology look like?
Clean up studio and reset physically and digitally (file organize, photo organize)
Figure out a way to visually see all my project ideas and also what is actively being worked on. Pinboard plus digitally on… airtable? I need drawings/imagery to represent the projects.
I also updated my list of 100 ideas for things I’d like to do in 2022 on my personal website, marbled fabric with Crescent, Adam reprinted Lichen the Lichen, and I made a new Studio Process Journal chronicling February through July.
Links
Just a few links this newsletter, because it’s summer. (And I’ve been reading online a lot less now that we’re on month 3 of trying out not having internet at home, just at the studio.) I hope you enjoy:
The Raccoon Whisperer (self-proclaimed!) feeds 40+ raccoons grapes and hot dogs on his snowy porch. I put this on in the background as I organized and updated my 10+ year old Macbook, which feels almost good as new now. (100 GB of cruft deleted lol.)
Alice Wong interviews Ed Yong about An Immense World, one of my favorite books of the year.
Inside the mind boggling world of the antiquities theft task force.
Alicia Kennedy On Beans.
Hit the reply button and write back! Send us your raccoon stories! Tell us what you’re up to! Drop links to new work or zines you’ve made!
-Amelia (+ Adam says hello too!)
🌈