Milestones

Ten years ago, I wrote a children's book for a class I was taking at Bread Loaf. I had a great time creating the book; the toy characters took on a life of their own. I basically followed them around, capturing their antics with my camera. I heard their conversations clearly and managed to write them down. As part of the MinkieLife project, I am determined to bring my art and writing into the light. To that end, I have an appointment to meet with printers in the big city this week for my paintings, and in the past three days I have managed to get my children's book self-published through Barnes & Noble Press.

In the months following the writing of Mirabelle, Sebastian, & Spike, I sent a copy of the book to a number of publishers in hopes of getting a nibble. No go. The original two copies were handmade, with beautiful paper, and hand binding. Last year, I thought it would make a good project over the winter break to assemble a copy of the book for each of my SIX great-nieces and my one step-granddaughter. First, I created seven hand-bound books that I would paste the book's pictures and text into. Imagine my dismay when I realized each book had half the number of pages necessary to accommodate the content. Oops.

Anyway, while the intention to create the books for all my little girls was a lovely one - it proved overambitious for my capabilities at that point in time. Ah well. Fast forward to the present - I went through the process of getting the text & images from the book into a printable format. One version of Mirabelle, Sebastian, & Spike is going to be a hardcover with a dust jacket. Fancy! The other version will be a paperback. I am not too concerned with the business of the books being self-published. Many wonderful authors self-publish their works.

In any event, I am thrilled that my little book will be available to order through Barnes & Noble.

I think it is also notable that between the writing and the "publishing" there was a good ten-year chunk of time. Four days ago, the idea popped into my head to get the book printed. I envisioned having the books for sale directly from the MinkieLife Shop. Instead, they will be available to order online, which is kind of the same difference. The moral of this story is that just because we love something and want something, doesn't mean its timing is right. Sometimes the loving and wanting take ten years! Sometimes we never get the things we love and thought we wanted. That's ok, too. Life is surprising. HP is unpredictable. I guess the point is to keep going, keep creating, not letting the seeming setbacks dampen joy for too long.