St. Basil's Cathedral Image from Wikicommons by David Cranshaw under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike3.0 License
I sold my seventh book. I negotiated and signed the contract. I have begun the tedious process of creating the projects. Everyone has a different approach to this. Mine begins with an idea. Then I write my introduction, which fleshes out my idea. Then I create the outline. I determine the focus of each chapter. I don't work from chapter to chapter because I like to bounce around to the design that captures my fancy at any given moment.
My daughter started watching Cake Boss on Netflix. What a brilliant show, what an amazing artist! What I love is the moment in each show where Buddy's brain kicks into overdrive and he comes up with the concept. The thing I love is the graphic visual representation they create of what he's thinking. That is exactly how I design. I am inspired by something...an image, a motif, a pattern and then my brain begins to form an idea. So let's say it's a turret from an iconic building in Russia. I begin to think about how I can take some beads and wire and make a turret?
Then I make the design. It's never as easy as just thinking about it and making it...because there are basic laws of physics that I am defying with every twist of the wire. Just like the Cake Boss has to deal with fondant and icing and cake that may not cooperate, there may be a carnage of epic proportions around my desk...bits of wire, broken beads, funked up findings all sprinkled liberally with juicy expletives, but eventually with persistence, my vision becomes reality. Then my husband looks under my desk and shakes his head.
How in the heck do you do that in one day?!
It's Hurricane Madge!
Now if only I had a team of minions to do my bidding. Hey make this wire curl on the jig for me! You, hammer out this sheet metal! Over there, stop slacking and get this wire wrapping started!
Sigh.
I'm a team of one. One stubborn, impatient and determined woman who when inspired with an idea will insist on seeing it to completion. Therefore, in reality, my determination trumps my impatience every time.
If you want to write a craft book, you'll need to find out how to take your ideas and make them real. You'll need to fine tune your design and writing patterns and make them work to your advantage. You'll have deadlines, sometimes insanely short ones, and you will have to meet them. Deadlines are not arbitrary. Deadlines revolve around the entire team who is, in fact, waiting patiently to take your finished pieces and your concept and make a book. So...in reality...there are minions. They aren't your minions though because they're working for the publisher.
Damn.
I need to work on that.
I will be insanely busy for the next two months. This is the shortest deadline I have ever had. I am doing my best to take it one design at a time, but in light of the other things on my plate, it's a daunting task to say the least.
E...gads.
Enough blather, I have a book to make!
Love
Madge
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