Twenty plus, non-congruent  hours later I have a wholly unique single run edition of my Tales that Tarry chapbook. This extremely limited edition if you can even call it that, being there is only one, is because of the choices I made to run with. In the beginning of this class, when we were exploring book forms I fell in love with many of them and had a hard time cutting them from my final design making it a headache that I will remember when making choices while designing and crafting books in the future. I think it was because these techniques like the die cut and tactile elements brought back the fond memories I had of the few books I had as a youngen that made me want to revive them in my adult exploration of this craft.

                 That first choice, the die cut was one that should only be made if you have access to a machine that can do it for you, ESPECIALLY, if you want the die cut to go through the entirety of your book, from cover to cover. The tactile additions I made were not that hard beyond deciding which to use but was luckily somewhat limited in potential options being from only 3 sheets of stickers from our local dollar store. The choice I made to go with the japanese stab binding was because of my title. I felt like threads being incorporated both on the spine to hold it together and on the Indesign cover fit the concept of things that tarry, though by the end of my mad rush to get it done as my frustration built, I contemplated changing the title to “Tales that Tatter,” which would still work with thread. The hard part was to stab through a thick cover and the 42 pages inside. Two broken needles and a lot of swearing at the cat to leave my threads alone, I was able to get a short 5 stitch on both sides that held the book well enough to my liking.

                  The incorporation of the bottle to fit into the book with small objects that fit the stories as much as possible, was because who doesn’t like miniature things?! Since I had thread holding my spine that I would not like to be left to unravel, I used the bottle to tie it to and leaving the other end to be a bookmark which I feel worked out well. Though the crafting of the book itself was a process…the Indesign work of the text inside also took more time than I thought it would.

                 Indesign is a beast that you can’t help but look at because of all its possibilities but are wary of because of all the trouble it finds to give you. I wanted my text all on one side in order to make the book thick enough to hold the bottle and also to keep all the titles to one side with just an illustration before each story began. I wanted the text to wrap around the bottle place holder that was going to be cut out for the real bottle and wanted some other font than the one it arbitrarily starts the text out as. After I discovered the master page and how to finally set up the page numbers these other things I wanted fell into place.

                    I know I will never look at another book on the shelf the same again after this class and may well consider buying one for all of its properties as a physical book over the overview of the stories on the cover from now on.  As a writer, I never knew how much of a book's design was not up to the author but now that I have seen what goes into the decision making and production, it's nice to know that if any of my work is published in the future I will know none of the them were made willy nilly.

What I have learned about editing is that grammar and style came in really handy when editing Ghosts and Monsters, Tales that Tarry, and The World. It made the editing process go alot smoother where as before it would have been a lot of guess work. I did not do a lot of illustrating except my slight variation of the 2 drawings used for the Linos but in the future I would like to explore Illustrator more after seeing what others were able to come up with when using it in this class. For design the sky's the limit if you have the time to reach for it. Little things can become really big things in terms of headaches when not 100% comfortable with all the programs used in the process. Trimming books is a fun process, that is if you have a sharp blade, if not it can also be a huge frustration. As the saying goes; measure twice, cut once, which was the golden rule in this instance for sure.

As to the creative process and design thinking with any book making, chose elements you want to incorporate into it with care and deep consideration to how it may affect the process as a whole. You have to weigh the pros and cons to each decision to be prepared for what may happen if the worse occurs.  You should always prototype because it helps give a fresh look at a book as a whole which may help you see errors that may not be caught by just seeing it on a screen or in pieces. You can see how each part works with others in that way.

Collaborating can be tricky in a school setting, like the one we had, because everyone’s schedule is different and life happens which means you can’t always count on someone being there in the event of emergencies. Because of this you have to pace yourselves to allot for such occasions in order to prevent frustration not only in the process but also with your partners. Even if you over schedule the group, it's better to get it all done early then to not get it done in time. You also have to be willing to listen because the ideas another has may simplify a process or develop the product to greater heights than one could do alone. To persist in book making you have to have patience and lots of it. Not only will people let you down on occasions, ideas not always work out, but also all the material components of book making from programs to machinery may not always cooperate all the time.

What I will take away from this class is a better understanding of what goes into book making, the human role for each step and rhetorical awareness that were made when looking at a book or lack thereof. I will also be able to develop further in the programs I was introduced to in this class with curiosity after seeing their potentials. I will also be able to weed out bad ideas better now that I have experienced many of them first hand when making books.