Half Starts and Trail Offs

An update from UpDown Press and Bindery…

Apr 15

MeredithBookmaking, Poetry, Writing books are beautiful, countdown to graduation, i heart paper but it dries out my skin, my fingers are so sore I can hardly feel them anymore, sleep is for weenies 2 Comments

I’m smack dab in the middle of putting together my MFA thesis. It’s a manuscript of my poetry. But here at UB, we take it a step further. I didn’t just write the manuscript. Nope, I’m turning it into a book. That means designing, printing, and hand binding it. I have to have an edition of 12 done by May 5, but my personal goal is 20-30 by then. So if I seem a  little short, a little tired (ok, who am I kidding, exhausted), or to have disappeared from the face of the earth, don’t worry, it will all be over soon.

Despite the late nights and occasional frustration with a misprinted page or a miscut page, things are going pretty smoothly. Ave has been a huge help with cutting the pages and explaining how the printer works. I have the guts for 15 books printed and folded. And Ave, as I mentioned, has been busy, so there are many more sheets of paper ready to go through the printer.

Right now, I’m in the midst of sewing up a couple books, trying to perfect my technique a bit more (I ran into a smidge of trouble with my spine allowance when I made my mock up). And tonight I made myself a low-tech book press that should help keep things nice and flat and even during the sewing/gluing/casing-in process.

But as well as things are going and though I’m not at full-on meltdown stage yet, I can tell I’m stressed–my skin is a disaster, I can’t remember what I looked like without these enormous dark circles under my eyes, three cups of coffee and a Coke don’t have enough caffeine to keep me going, and I’m grinding my teeth worse than I have since my senior year of college. I can’t wait for that weekend in late May when, for the first time in three years, I get to relax without worrying about school.

But despite my body’s not so subtle hints that it would like a break, I still feel pretty great. It’s been thoroughly awesome to see my book (not to mention all my classmates’ books) come together, and when I have time to stop and breathe, I’m so glad to have had the opportunity to attend this program.

I suppose the reason I’m even posting this, which I’m sure is rather dull to most of you, is that I want my friends and family to know that things are going okay and I will eventually resurface. I’m going to keep my poetry blogs going, and I’ll even try to post some pictures of the bookmaking process, assuming I can ever remember to take any. In the meantime, if you can figure out where the time keeps going, please let me know.