Monday, April 21, 2008

Messy Business

(Please click on the photo for a larger version)

Yesterday, I set up a Google Alert to notify me about postings on SoFoBoMo. Those e-mails have offered a welcome relief from what has been a hellish day so far—brought to us by the nut job of a guy who was negotiating to buy The Husband’s business. (Fortunately, there is another deal in the works with what appears to be a sane person.) So, this first guy backed out of the deal, whining about how he didn’t like the terms of the deal he had agreed to, and now he is tossing around warnings about imminent phone calls from his lawyer and screaming about how we tried to “railroad” him and we are "ungrateful". Honest to goodness, it’s black helicopter time for this guy. Still, his phone calls, e-mails, and irrational demands have put a major kink in our day by creating a great deal of work that hadn't been scheduled into the plan.

Other than that, the day has centered around the personal confusion brought on by working on my photo book. Of course, as soon as I started dropping photos and text into my layout, I began to see the flaws in the design. Suddenly, the layout I had been so content with looked far too staid for my content. Furthermore, I had to face the fact that if I stuck with the design I had, either I would have to omit a number of photos that I really want in this very personal book, or I would have to spend a fortune printing the book. Decision time.

After going back and forth on the layout until I was dizzy, I found a fresh approach. The new layout is more complex than the original one—that means more layout work, more processing, and many more decisions per page, not to mention more photographs to suit it. How could that be?! Still it seems to the right direction. At least, for now.

As if that weren’t enough, all the photos have, overnight, turned to dreck. I can’t remember why I ever wanted to put any of them in a book. Okay, that’s too crazy even for me. I must have seen something that appealed to me.

For over two weeks, I was having way too much fun to give the deadline a thought. As of today, I am officially starting to get nervous. How did it get to be the 21st?

2 comments:

  1. Ah yes, now it comes down to the nitty gritty! :-) Actually, it was a lot easier for me to do that book in one day than it is for me to do a book in month! Now, I have time to think, which is not good. ;-)

    I've had much time to second guess myself, format, reformat, layout, re-layout, etc. It's all very tiring. Add to that the rigors of everyday life and a due date that is approaching rather rapidly and you have a recipe for a bit of stress ... Breathe, Paul. Breathe ... ahhhhhhhhh. Remember the Tao. Go with the flow of life. :-)

    We're gonna make it, Anita! We're gonna make it somehow!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Breathe. I think I forgot about that a couple of times today. Wow. This process is tiring. Thank goodness, there is the exhiliration that goes with it as well. It almost balances out.

    ReplyDelete

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Anita