Do you consider yourself a neat and tidy person?

I grew up watching The Odd Couple on TV, with Felix the uptight neatnik and Oscar the grouchy slob. I like this photo because they’re both smiling. Sometimes they got along.

Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, 1970s television’s Odd Couple

Like most people, I suppose, I identified somewhere in the middle—not too neat, not too messy; just right. I think the show’s writers wanted us to like Oscar the best though. I certainly did. I grew up always liking Jack Klugman and not liking Tony Randall, didn’t matter what other productions they were in. And I seem to have become more Oscarish in my habits.

Take my book notes for example.

Messy notes for book neatly contained in a folder

But this isn’t so bad, right? I’ve posted photos in the past of notes for the children’s books I’ve written and there were always several spiral notebooks and stacks of repurposed scratch paper (or would that be purposed scratch paper, since that’s what scratch paper’s purpose is?). The above photo only shows part of my notes though, indeed, only part of my work. Here’s another clump:

Notes from the developed outline of the pin loom weaving pattern book (necessarily blurred)

Even my scratch paper is messy (can’t bear to not write on the back of the scratch paper when half of it is open for use). I didn’t take a portrait shot of the artist at work because I don’t like being photographed in my pajamas work uniform, surrounded by apparent chaos: sliding stacks of pin looms with in-progress weavings on them, piles of yarn trailing cumulative yards of loose ends, and let’s face it, dog hair everywhere (though that doesn’t show so much in the photos; do black Labs shed more than white, or is Casey’s hair just more visible than Polly’s?).

Well, enough about messiness vs. tidiness, you want to know about the Pin Loom Weaving Pattern book. This is rather exciting news. I was contacted by a publisher after she saw my last blog post. (Remember how I said, “If it’s up to me it isn’t to be”? Outside intervention was required.) She asked if I was still interested in writing a pin loom book. After exchanging a couple of messages, she asked me to write up a book proposal.

I got busy (hence the folder and piles of notes).

The more I worked and re-experienced the mental exhaustion of recording what I thought were organized thoughts (actually the thoughts were pretty organized; my handwriting is out of practice), the more determined I became to see this project through. However, it occurred to me to wonder (because I am a dreamer) what would ultimately come of this book. After the ha, ha fame and glory, what would happen if the book went out of print, or—more terrifying—what if it never made it into print? All my patterns would be out of my control.

So, here’s the deal. Since I’ve already started working on it—and sent the proposal off this morning—I’m going to keep working on it. I’m going to learn how to use Word-even-though-it’s-not-as-good-a-program-as-WordPerfect. And if the publisher won’t let me keep the rights to my patterns, I’ll publish the book myself.

Thanks to all my friends (and my publishing contact) who have encouraged me to grab this bull by the horns and hang on!

How does Windsweptmind Publishing sound to you?

6 Thoughts on “Adventures in Pin Loom Book Writing—the love of friends

  1. Judie Eatough on 22 February 2017 at 2:41 PM said:

    You will do a good job, you have done lots of experimentation and understand the process so well. I like Windsweptmind Publishing as a name. There are lots of good choices in a university town for publishing.

    • Thanks Judie! I like the name of my publishing press too. 🙂 I’m thinking that I might try writing a children’s book (why not try?) and that may have to be how I publish it.

  2. Ha, WordPerfect! I thought it was better too!

  3. Awesome!!!!

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