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July 15, 2008
Planning Isn't Enough
It helps to pay attention to what you're doing as well.
I'm making a book for Dave. It's pretty cool. It contains all of the cards I sent him over the ten days I was gone. "Wouldn't it be cool," I thought, "to include an introduction and a colophon AND a space for a note on the day I didn't get around to sending a card because I was crazybusy that day." I thought it was such a good idea that I did indeed include room for those very items along the spine when I folded it.
Then I ran errands including, but not limited to, trying to hunt down PVA--PolyVinyl Acrylic, for those who are wondering--making photocopies and shopping for (more) art supplies. Then I went to the gym. Then I had dinner with Dave, worked on the book some more and went back to the gym to do yoga. When I came home, I started labelling the spaces where the various cards will be sewn to the spine.
The book is an accordion book, so the spine is folded like one of those fans we used to make when we were kids. I'm sewing the cards into the spine with a butterfly/pamphlet stitch and labelling the ridge in front of each space with the date I wrote the note. The idea was that there would be a space for the introduction, missing note and colophon as well. But when I was stamping the dates onto the spaces, I didn't leave room for the missing card or for the introduction because I figured the idea to include them was a good one that I had after I'd folded & trimmed the spine. Nope. I had the good idea before then, so there was space. Only not so much once I'd skipped the missing day in the labelling process.
The part that sucks about all this is that I did some blender pen transfers of my handwriting onto the back of the spine. "Dear David," "I miss you." "I love you." (That also happens to be the title of the book.) They would have fit perfectly if I'd included the things I'd meant to include. But now, the way things are, the "I" in "I love you" will be glued to the back cover, so you won't be able to see it. Given that I have already transfered the image & don't have another the same size, that I have also already painted both sides of the spine AND applied a coat of polyurethane to the back, I can almost guarantee you that rather than redoing the spine, I'm going to use the one I have now and just let it be a highly memorable lesson that I can apply the next time I do something like this. I haven't stopped kicking myself since I figured it out.
Note to self: It's not enough to make plans, or even to make plans and make notes about them. You have to read the notes too, just in case.
Posted by sally at July 15, 2008 11:01 PM
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