I finished my book of poetry! Allow me to share a little
about the experience. As it turns out, it was a longer process than expected
and once again, I HATE formatting! Back in December, I posted the following
about the book:
One of the books I’m currently
editing for publication is a collection of poems I’ve written within the last
several years. Originally, I had thought to round out the collection with a set
of poems from my college days with the intention of assembling approximately
one hundred poems. The mysterious disappearance of the blue folder containing
all of my older works has completely destroyed that entire plan. My son Scott
informs me that most of the books of poetry he owns contain far less than a
hundred poems, with the exception being several volumes of collected works, so
maybe I’m overthinking.
In my mind, I’m still imagining a
skinny paperback volume of at least a hundred pages, so maybe I can get by with
eighty or so poems, some of which will
need more than a single page. If I believe the critics, nobody buys poetry
anyway, so I really shouldn’t be stressed about it. I may also be forced to
rethink my title. In searching online, I found many books with the title Random
Thoughts, and most of them were books of poetry. I guess there are a lot of
poets who consider their works to be random in nature. Who would have thought?
In terms of style, most of my poems
are basically free verse, although there are some rhyming poems that are more
traditional. The topics are truly
random. There are a number of people poems, inspired by family or friends.
There are some poems about social issues and a lot of poems about situational
things, just everyday life stuff. Overall, I think anyone who takes the time to
read them will discover a few random thoughts that remind them of themselves.
And usually that’s a good thing.
So, I never found the old poems in the blue folder. I ended
up with 83 original poems and I did eventually change the title. The skinny paperback is 112 pages and
hopefully, I can sell a few copies to family and friends. Whatever happens, I’m
proud of the work and I think the volume contains some fine poems.
The book also features two extremely well-written introductions.
I asked my son and daughter to write them and each contributed a beautiful
piece of writing. Of course, as their father, I am obviously prejudiced, but hey,
if you don’t believe me, read them yourself!
While waiting for my kids to finish the intros, I double
checked all the formatting and thought
I had the manuscript completely ready to go. I copied and pasted those in, moved
one poem to a different location, and then began to find errors one after
another for the next two weeks! I swear my computer has a demon. How else do I
explain the way my titles refuse to behave?
One of my titles is unexplainably lower than the rest. I
double (and triple) checked the spacing, the font, the font size, the header,
footer, page breaks, and everything else I could find to check. No luck. Every
detail is exactly the same as the poem on the opposite page, but the title sits
slightly lower. Why? I have no idea. Two drafts later, the titles of three
other poems have decided to revolt as well.
Hours of research (reading the MS Word help pages and
forums) later, I am tired frustrated and still don’t have a clue as to why my
titles won’t line up properly. I make one change, resave, grab my ruler and
pray. Somehow the titles miraculously match and I save one last time. Don’t ask
me how I fixed it. I honestly couldn’t tell you.
And now for the real fun. Have you ever tried to format an
ebook?
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