9 months later…

Sitting by the computer I upload my photos, write in my blog and chat with my friends via e-mail and other communities online. A lot of time is spent writing, but yet I tell people I hardly ever write… Without really noticing what I did I wrote a lot in my blog last year.

Since I write online I never realized just how much text I had accumulated, and when at the end of 2006 I did a backup to save my entries I noticed how long the word document became and how whole it felt. Like… a starting point for a… a project!? An entity really, but not a finished product yet…

And the more I thought about it the more it felt like a manuscript for a book, a diary form book that I would design, edit, print and distribute to friends and family and other creative souls out there! A book to hold in my hand, put in my shelf, keep as a memory of days that passed, days filled with sewing, knitting, making art, spending time with friends…

Can you imagine what a fun project that would be? So I did it.

I made a book – because it was already written!

It looks like this on the screen, and what it looks like in real life I don’t know because I haven’t received my copy yet!!! I just couldn’t shut up about it any longer! I wanted to brag, shout and tell the world! It’s cool, right?

I call it A Creative Year and it has 240 pages and is filled with sentences that I wrote and colour photos that I took with my ♥-Nikon!

Those of you who have read this blog for a while might remember me talking about making a book (!) in the beginning of this year. Making a manuscript for a real book and having it printed is a dream I’ve had since I was a kid. I like the opportunities that print-on-demand is offering me. The most important thing to me is that I get it, the product, the item that I’ve crafted. I long to hold it like a mother longs for her child!

I sure didn’t know how time consuming this project would be when I started. I actually just finished it two weeks ago, and I’m still waiting for “my copy” to see if it’s everything I hope for, but the fact is it took me nine (9!) months to finish the manuscript editing!

It feels kind of fitting that it took nine months before I finished the book and finally uploaded it to lulu.com! I’ve had it “in my system” for so long and now I’m delivering it to the world.

My first born book!

Here is a bit of background for now:
I got the idea after reading Julia Lupton’s post One year on Lulu at one of my favourite sites Design-your-life. I was copying my posts from my blog into a Word document for archiving when it hit me that one year of text is a product that has a start, middle and an end just like a book. I decided to check Lulu out because I know a bit about it from one of the podcasts I listened to last year, I should be writing with Mur who now works at Lulu and is involved with their podcast Lulu Radio which I also enjoy! So I knew about Lulu and print-on-demand and the spark to start this project was at once evident. I started editing!

I sat for hours and hours the first week but didn’t feel I got anywhere. I had a lot of text, with pictures and links in a big messy pile of information that had to be sorted through to make a book. The fact that the book A Creative Year was already written didn’t make this a fast project, not at all. After a while I realized if I wasn’t going to burn out in the editing process I had to slow down and do a little each week. So I’ve kept on, bit by bit.

I removed the links, spell checked and changed a lot of sentences to better English. I added information and rewrote a couple of posts to make them better – so even if you read my blog last year you can get a lot out of this book I hope. Plus, you get to keep my texts, bring it outside in the sun or to the beach, ear mark my blog pages and let it decorate your bookshelf! You can bring it with you outside, to a coffee house or when you snuggle up in bed! That’s what I’ll do!

Isn’t it awesome my friends?

I wish I could give a couple of books away, but I can hardly afford my own copy right now. So, if you like my blog and have found inspiration here – please support me by buying my book! Or link to it, tell your friends, add it to your wish list for Christmas or buy it for someone who is not online or don’t read blogs…

Let me know if you have any questions, I have to go watch Heroes on TV now and knit a bit before bed time!

Book name: A Creative Year with iHanna: buy it here!!! Hugs for everyone!