Sunday, March 1, 2009

Winter Break Progress

This week off from school has been incredibly productive. I had felt a little disconnected from the book for awhile because I've been so caught up with the yearbook and other school work.

I spent a lot of time compiling and formatting various recipes that had trickled in from mid-January to now. I told Jody that this is about the end of the wire -- I need to start finalizing the book for submission to lulu.com.

As of now, every recipe that I have created has a place in the book. Every contributor has a page. I had initially had it set so that every contributor had two facing pages -- one page would have the contribtor's name, peace commentary, and information about the contributor, and the facing page would have the recipe (formatted into ingredients & method). However, some contributors provided a very simple recipe and little information to include; this made for an incredibly bland and blank couple of pages. So, for those who didn't send in much, I combined. I combined up to two contributors on two facing pages. This was a little tricky, though, because the book is organized alphabetically, not by type of recipe, etc. I had to wait to combine these contributors until after I had received all the recipes from everyone. The pages are really looking amazing. I am so excited to see the book in its entirety. Because I had initially created two facing pages for each contribtor, it took a lot of time to go through and compress many into one page.

I am in editing-mode now. I am going through each page and making sure they are formatted similar enough. I'm checking for spelling mistakes, font sizes (consistency), ingredient-measurement consistency, etc. I still have many "About the Contributor" paragraphs to write. I am hoping to sit down with Jody this week for some help on this. I just plan to write something very short & sweet about each contributor and what they do. It shouldn't be too time consuming.

To Do:
- Finish editing the nitty-gritty
- Write blurb about remaining contributors
- Add page #s to every page
- Create Table of Contents
- Write thank-yous & send (Will not be hard once I have an address/e-mail for every contributor [easily obtained from Jody])

I'm hoping for a snow day tomorrow so I can devote it to this! It sounds like a lot to get done and it my make you question what I've done so far -- but I really have done a huge amount. Every page takes at least 30 minutes to create. It isn't healthy to sit in front ofthe computer for 7 hours straight! I feel comfortable where I am with the book - I really do. Lulu only takes 3-4 days to get the book back to me.

Right now, my focus is completing the book. I want to have it finished by March 15. That is two weeks from today. I think I can do it. I would really resent not having the actual book for my presentation in just over 1 month! I'm not too worried, though.

2 comments:

Jeff Eckerson said...

Emily,

Wow-sound like you are really working hard. I would prefer not to, but if there is an unexpected delay we can move your presentation. I would not want you to work so hard and not have the book.

Keep up the good work! I know this is something of which the school, and more importantly you, can be proud.

Mr. E.

scmorgan said...

Sounds great Emily. Just to let you know, some of my LULU books came that quickly, but sometimes they took as long as a week.
I can't wait to see your work. I'm sure the design is fabulous and will complement your writing and the ideas you've talked about.