Time for Solo Foto Book Month - 2011

Today, July 1, starts the time frame for Solo Foto Book Month for 2011. During the next 62 days you can pick any contiguous 31 days and shoot enough images to have 35 or so for a book, prepare the images, write the text, design the layout and publish a PDF book. What do you get for this herculian effort? Nada. Just the satisfaction of making a book. Of course, while doing the book you learn a lot.

I've done SoFoBoMo for two years. I've signed up for this year but once again travel plans are falling during the two months, July 1 to August 31, that you have to choose your 31 contiguous days. But what is even worse for me is that I don't really have an idea for the project that I'm excited about that can be finished in a 31 day period.

What to do? What to do?

If you want to know more about SoFoBoMo, here is a link to their website.

100 Days

100 Days until Solo Foto Book Month 2011 (SoFoBoMo 2011). Seems like I just finished SoFoBoMo for 2010. For new readers who haven't struggled with me though making a PDF book in 31 days and you are wondering what SoFoBoMo is all about, click here. If you want to take a look back, I've written a lot blog entries about SoFoBoMo.  Here are the books I have completed for SoFoBoMo:
2009: Eastwood Today
2010: New Orleans, Two Nights and Three Days

Basically SoFoBoMo is making a book with at least 35 images in a 31 day contiguous period. This year the rolling time frame is July 1 to August 31. You do the photography, edit, design and finish your book in 31 days. Any one can commit to making a book. There is no competition, no prizes, no winners except from the standpoint that you feel like a winner when your finish you book.

I signed up to do SoFoBoMo this year about a month ago and then I started wondering what in the heck the book would be about this time. All of a sudden this week two ideas popped into my head. It is really funny how when you need something your brain is open to find the information. One of them really has me excited but I need to do some more research before I know if it will work for SoFoBoMo. But even if it will not fit in the time frame for SoFoBoMo it is a project that I want to do anyway. The second idea is one that I want to start photographing right now. I don't want to wait until July. So who knows what will happen in the next 100 days, some other ideas might show up as well. I'm energized and excited.

If you are a photographer and you could use a challenge or a Whack on the Side of the Head, think about signing up for SoFoBoMo 2011. I'm not going to tell you it is easy but you'll have a great time.

Night in Colonia San Antonio #2. The image above is another I shot from the terrace on the night of the full moon. You know you have the camera and the tripod set up and you have to do something while you are waiting for that moon to break the top of the mountains.

What You See Is What You Get.

Coffee and beignets from Cafe DuMonde would be nice for breakfast this morning but we are not in New Orleans. Maybe I could try to make some beignets one of these days. Since we have been without television since we returned to San Miguel, it would seem that I should have the time but I don't have time to make beignets or even miss the television.

When we first came  back from Texas, I started to process the images from New Orleans and after a day or two of that I decided what the heck, why not do the SoFoBoMo book with them. Then I had my fingers on the keyboard and eyes on Photoshop for the next 10 days making the book.

With the book done I finally had time to really start to explore something else that was new at our house. I brought back a new printer. Ellie and Frank have been telling me for a year......"Get a new printer." They told me how much they had been improved and certainly everytime I went to Texas and saw what Ellie was printing I knew what they said was probably true. But the two of them are wonderful photographers and probably the best printers I know whether it is in the darkroom or digital. How much was their ability and how much was the printer? Finally, I bought the printer.

I don't even know how to describe to you the difference. In five years, the printer technology has improved, the inks have improved, the printing profiles and the papers have improved and work best with the latest inks. When a print rolls out of the new printer and I look at it, I almost get the same feeling of elation that I had when a black and white print started coming up in the developer. With my profiled monitor, finally, what I see on the monitor, I see on the paper. This is so exciting. With my last printer it was close but not exactly a match.

The black and white prints really take my breath away. Yesterday I opened a black and white film scan, added an contrast curve, a color layer to tone the photo to look more like a selenium print, sharpened the file and printed it. It looked good. Then I realized that I had the same image in a silver print on the wall above the computer. I compared the two and went...WOW! I realized that if I had used my printing notes from the silver print and applied a few "burned" places on the digital print, no one would have been able to tell which one was done digitally.

This printer is definitely going to get some action. Now I just need to figure out how to get more paper and inks.

I'll save the missing television story for another day.

The Process

I've made a lot of progress. Here is one of the pages of the Solo Photograph Book Month. I have until July 3 to finish the book.

I have spent some long 12 hour days at the computer processing images and dropping them into pages and then dropping the pages into Cute PDF Professional where I've arranged and rearranged. I still have to write the text and do quite a bit more tweaking. Some photos will not survive the tweaking and I have to be sure that two-page spreads remain together.

This will be an e-book. I'll enter it on the SoFoBoMo website and also put it on Issuu so anyone who is interested can go take a look.

SoFoBoMo isn't a competition. You don't win a prize. Nothing. Why did I do it? That is a little hard to explain.

Just last night when we were having dinner with friends Cynthia and I talked about our work. We are both retired. Neither of us is out beating the bushes to find recognition or reward for what we are doing but we are both working hard. Our reward is the process not the product. It is the process that keeps us excited and intellectually stimulated. Really that is what it has always been about but when I was younger, I thought I needed recognition and reward to validate my efforts. I never liked the beating the bushes part anyway so it is pretty wonderful to have reached this stage in life when I can focus on what I do love....the process.

It Is That Time of Year - SoFoBoMo

Solo Foto Book Month - SoFoBoMo. June 1st was the beginning of the two month period during which you can choose any contiguous 31 day period to photograph and make an on-line book. It is not a competition. It is a challenge for photographers to "just do it." Make a book. Finish a project. 

I did it last year. My book was Eastwood Today. Going into the two month time period I had several ideas and one of them immediately stepped forward and became THE book. Doing SoFoBoMo was hard work. The hardest part was the learning curve for designing the book. So now you would think that I have that part of the learning curve behind me but this year the problem seems to be settling on a project. 

I did a lot of shooting during our short time in New Orleans.  I was there. I was a tourist. I responded to the colors, especially in the Garden District. I could probably find 35 images out of the 350-400 images I shot to put in the book but this idea isn't exciting me. On the other hand, while I have time to do another project, I've have no ideas. At least not this morning.  The clock is ticking. tick . . . tick . . . tick.

SoFoBoMo - 2010

For those who are new to my blog, I'm sure you are wondering what in the world is SoFoBoMo. If you click here you can see all the blog entries I wrote last year about SoFoBoMo. Basically it is Solo Foto Book Month where you sign up to complete a photography book in 31 contiguous days in a specified two month period. That means that you do all the photography, writing, book design and editing so that you end up with a pdf book posted on the net....all within 31 days. The official website for SoFoBoMo 2010 just went up on the web in case you want to take a look or sign up to participate. You can also see the books that were produced last year. The new site is a little sketchy now but it will be a great source of help and encouragement.

My book last year was Eastwood Today which is also posted on Issuu. This year the two month period will be June and July so it is time to get to thinking about a project. I had several ideas in mind last year but almost from the beginning of shooting Eastwood Today just clicked.

And it isn't just about coming up with an idea, the project also involves a lot of technical stuff. Since last year was my first year to figure out a lot of the technical and design ideas, it was tough. I was thinking that maybe this year would be easier but already I can see that some tools have changed and maybe my idea about book design has also changed so it will be a challenge. The good part is that it is okay to work on the technical issues before the 31 day race so that you understand them. I thought I had done that last year but it was still a challenge once I found my subject matter. Still, I'll do what I can to be prepared.

Photographers, do you want to put your Procrastinator in its place? Do you want a challenge? Do you want to be inspired by all the other photographers and books that are produced? Then go to the SoFoBoMo website and sign up.

The Book Is Finished - SoFoBoMo

My SoFoBoMo book didn't turn out the way I expected. First of all I was planning to use the Holga lens on the digital camera. Secondly, it was going to be in color. Thirdly, I was really thinking about photographing in downtown Houston. Instead, the images were made using the digital camera but with a regular lens. Instead, it is in black and white. And finally it is of a neighborhood. That is the funny thing about the creative process. If you just show up with your tools, ready to go, your muse will take you places.

I started on May 13 and finished on June 9, well within the 31 day limit. Between the time I signed up back in March and the finish line, I learned a lot. Back when I signed up I questioned whether I could do it or not but as time went on I was determined to finish something. Back when I signed up I thought I would do a Blurb book at the same time that I was doing the PDF book but I found that was beyond what I could do with all the other things going on in my life. Back when I signed up I thought I needed to lay out all the pieces before I started but I found that as I opened one door and then another good ideas came to me. I wanted to create a perfect book instead I made a book where I keep finding things to improve but I stopped yesterday and said this is good enough for today.

I prefer seeing Eastwood Today on Issuu because some of the pages were designed to be two-page spreads and you don't see them that way on the SoFoBoMo site. Please go take a look at my book.

You can see it on Issuu here.
You can see it along with all the other books that have been completed on the official SoFoBoMo site here.

Sound Bites - SoFoBoMo

I'm starting to put the finishing touches to The Book and as I went through writing down the text pages I still needed, it dawned on me that in a real book there are a lot of white pages and text at the beginning of a book but with an ebook or pdf photography book you start to get tired of clicking through "that stuff" to get to the meat of the book.

When I am holding a new photography book in my hand I find a comfortable place to settle in where I will not be distracted. With the book in my hand there is sensory perception. I like feeling the weight of the book and touching the papers. I am paying attention to the fonts and the way the text is laid out on the page. I look forward to reading the essay and the artist's statement to build the anticipation of the photographs I am about to see. I tend to stare at each image and sometimes touch the page as if I can feel the texture of of an object.

With an ebook . . . my eye jumps through the text of an essay and the artist's statement. And then how long do I look at each image . . . 5 seconds, click, 5 seconds, click . . .

The next ebook . . . I need to think more about text sound bites. They are just right for "5 seconds, click."

Still working - SoFoBoMo

What happened to last week? It flew by. There is lots of unexpected personal stuff going on but I haven't given up on Sofobomo. One way or another I'm going to finish a book even if it isn't the book I originally envisioned.

I've finished the photography except for maybe another shot or two for a bridge from one area of the book to another. All the images have been processed through Photoshop and saved at 300 dpi so I can come back and use them for a hold-in-your-hand book. Now I'm resizing and dropping them into a template because I want a white border. But of course, that takes some time. My goal is to finish that today. But one thing I have found is that my images have quite a bit of detail and I think they loose too much of that detail at 72 dpi. They start to look a little choppy. So I'm using 100 dpi and hoping that the size of the book will be okay for posting to the Sofobomo website.

I started looking at some of the books that have already been finished. Wow! Now I've stopped looking at them until I get mine finished because first of all it takes up the time that I need to finish my own book. Secondly, looking at them keeps giving me new ideas and I hardly have time to complete the book as it is.

The agapanthus image for this entry doesn't mean anything except I shot it while I was shooting for the book. Time to get back to work.

The Project - SoFoBoMo

I've been out photographing for my SoFoBoMo project. It is such a wonderful thing to walk. There is time to see "stuff." One of the things I'm enjoying is how green Houston is and the variety of flowers that are blooming. One of the flowers that I've always loved is the oleander. But I only love the flower, not the bush. The bush grows humongous and can take up one-fourth of a yard. Oleanders also grow in San Miguel but they seem to struggle there. Here, you see rows of them lining the highway. Maybe I love the oleander because when first went to camp in Palacios many years ago, it was planted all over the camp grounds. All of the girls picked some blossoms to put in their hair in the evening. At the time, it seemed to be a very romantic flower. I'm seeing a lot of them as I take pictures for Sofobomo as well as many other flowers that I love from the Texas gulf coast. I'll write more about the vegetation later.

But what you probably want to know is what the heck is my project for SoFoBoMo. It is Eastwood where we have a lot. And yes, the photo from the last entry is from Eastwood. It is a neighborhood just about 10 minutes from downtown Houston and it was platted around 1912. Before too long some of the houses over there will be 100 years old. A 100 year old house in Houston is an OLD house. The clock started ticking on the 13th. That is when I first went over there to photograph. I've covered three streets so far and still have a number more to shoot. I think they will go faster because now I'm looking for things that are different than what I've already shot.

I've requested permission to use a couple of essays about the neighborhood. I hope that I get permission because I think that will enhance the book.

But let me tell you, I'm pretty anxious. The clock is ticking and there is still a lot to do.

Disconnected - SoFoBoMo

Finally I'm connected again. For some reason we couldn't stay connected to the internet since last Tuesday here in Houston. It seemed that everything I wanted to do, I needed to access the internet. In addition I've had problems with the connection of the monitor. I have been stressed to the Max. Add to that, it is time to get on with SoFoBoMo. I've been out to shoot on a couple of ideas that I have and I'm probably going to settle for the one that will easier to get to more often while we are in the middle of our trip back to Texas to see family. However, I think I will also shoot on the second idea which could develop into something interesting over several visits to Texas. I'll announce more about my SoFoBoMo project next week.

Big Sky Country

We crossed the Rio Grande on Monday and now we are in Texas. In Houston. I must keep this short and sweet before I lose the internet connection. Not only having problems with the internet but some problems getting my computer and monitor connected. That one is now fixed but I not sure if this monitor is properly color balanced. I think it is okay. I don't know when the internet situation will be fixed. I can't begin to tell you how anxious I've been not to have all my gear working properly.

I am doing some test shots for the two or three book ideas and hopefully will be ready to start on SoFoBoMo in the next day or so.

Not Yet - SoFoBoMo

Nope, I haven't started yet and the Old Sixth Ward isn't my project for the book. I'm still playing around with ideas on how I can take the book design up a notch. It might be easier if I were using a design program but I'm looking to see what I can do inside of Photoshop.

Yesterday I played with this concept and also using a nine image one page spread which would work if I end up with square images. Adding a color to the background layer could be an endless process. The choices are unlimited and you can see them instantly. I played and played with it. Who would have thought that there are so many colors of gray? Yes, I know this background color isn't gray but I played with a lot of grays. I have a feeling that no matter how much I try out things before I start to put the book together, I'll still be scrambling at the last minute as new ideas grow out of the work.

I can't start yet but today I'm excited about the possibilities.

Practice - SoFoBoMo

The clock is ticking. The 61 days for SoFoBoMo began yesterday. I'm not starting my fuzzy month for about two weeks so I still have a bit of breathing room. While I think I have the individual pieces in place for the technical stuff, I am just as, if not more, apprehensive than ever. All the technical stuff is worthless if I can't put together 35 good images for the PDF book. That is beginning to scare me.

First of all it is hard to make 35 good images in a year let alone in a month. I don't even have a month to make images because of our schedule. The most time I seem to be able to put together in one continuous time period in one place is a little less than two weeks no matter when I start. During the time I have to make images I will not be able to go out everyday. As a little test, I went out yesterday. Made 45 images. Processed them. Printed eight. Three of them might make the cut if I was doing SoFoBoMo now. At this rate, I'll need to shoot at least 12 days. I'm cutting it close.

All of this looking at numbers makes me think of a story in the book Art and Fear. A ceramics teacher divided a new class into two groups. One group would be graded on the quantity of the work they produced. How many pounds of pots they produced. The other group would be graded on the quality. They only needed to produce one perfect pot. When grading time came around, the best pots were made by the quantity group because they churned out lots of work and in the process learned from their work and improved. The group that only had to produce one pot had worried so much about perfection that they ended up with a lot of theory and "dead clay."

I need to shoot, shoot, shoot. This idea is really making me think about my project and being able to have access to it a lot so I can make many, many images. The other thing, between now and when I start the project I need to get my eye and camera connections at peak performance. I'm going to shoot everyday.

Lost in the Details - SoFoBoMo

"Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it." Cardinal J. Newman

Over the weekend I worked on dropping images into Booksmart, not for the SoFoBoMo project, but because I wanted to see how Booksmart works and get some ideas about book design. I guess you could say it was in a way preparation for SoFoBoMo. I found myself caught up in several topics that needed investigation. At least I thought they did because I wanted my book to be perfect.

First of all, I wanted to be sure that my monitor is properly calibrated. I got the Epson 4000 running on all nozzles and then printed an image. The print matched the monitor so I know that as I apply the B3 profile for Blurb, I'm headed in the right direction with my corrections.

Then I started worrying about sharpening the images. What would be the best level for a Blurb book. This led me back to a couple of Scott Kelby's books to do a bit of research. Then I played around with looking at different sharpening techniques on prints.

Next I decided that four of the prints I had already dropped into the book would need to be redone. So by the end of the day, I had added nothing to the book.

"Perfection is the enemy of creation." John Updike

When I start on the SoFoBoMo project, I cannot get lost in these kind of details in order to make a perfect PDF book. There will not be time. First of all I have some pretty tough time constraints due to travel during May and June. I'm going to have to give up perfectionism but according to John Updike that might let me be more creative. Let's hope so.

A Physical Book vs A PDF Book - SoFoBoMo

Gordon McGregor has been writing some blog entries about the differences between physical books and PDF books. In one entry he wrote:

I'm thinking about a different tack. One where the PDF is the actually desirable end goal, not just a compromise required to prove to the rest of the online world that the SoFoBoMo challenge was completed. Not a second class citizen, but a better option altogether.

In another entry, he wrote:

So how could you lay out a digital book in different ways to a physical book? What's different about a digital book than a physical book and how could you take advantage of that to present your images?

I'm sure the difference in our ages has something to do with my view that a physical book is better than a digital book. I grew up with a great reverence for books that I could touch and that I could own. Last year when I read Douglas Holleley's book, Digital Book, Design and Publishing that feeling was reinforced. He asks the question, "What happens when computers change the way they store data and it (PDF book) becomes irretrievable?" It is going to take a lot of diligence to keep "backing up" to new technologies every 10 years of so. Holleley goes on to write, "A book printed on good quality paper may last virtually indefinitely. It is not dependent on any technology. One only has to take it from the shelf, open it, and read." As a serious darkroom worker, making images, or books, that are archival is a part of my DNA.

Another thing that makes me prefer a physical book is that PDF books feel like sound bites to me. I seldom remember images or books that I've looked at on the monitor. Oh if I've see the same image again on the monitor I'll remember that I have seen it before but it doesn't seem to kind of sit on the edge of recall. I seldom linger over an image on the monitor. A string of images making a PDF book, especially in programs like Issuu, seem more like a filmstrip to me.

Gordon McGregor talks about pushing the limits of a PDF book. I don't think that most photographers have even begun to explore how far they can push a physical book much less a PDF book. Most of us think in terms of one photograph to a page, often when we want to stress the "art" of the book a two page spread will be made up of a blank page facing the image page.

If you want to read about outside the box thinking, whether about a PDF or physical book, read Keith A. Smith's book The New Structure of the Visual Book. Smith challenges his reader's concepts about the structure and sequencing of a book.

Smith writes, "Revolutionary ideas must be realized when starting to work in a new medium. The basic problem in making books is approaching it as if it were many single pictures, and it is not. This error comes from working in one medium, and carrying over principles to a new process, rather than discovering what is unique about the new medium." So while I am an old fogey who prefers a physical book, I'm still looking forward to seeing what Gordon, and all the other participants, do with their PDF books.

Testing the Waters - SoFoBoMo

This week I tested the waters and put together a test book in Adobe Photoshop CS3. First I made a template, sized the images and saved them as JPGs, dropped them into the template, saved the individual files as PDFs and then assembled all the PDFs into one document using Cute PDF. After I got all the individual images into the one document it was easy to rearrange the pages but I still haven't figured out how to number the pages inside Cute PDF which is really the place to do it so that if you rearrange the page order it will also re-number.

I was thinking that I would upload the test book to Issuu but I saved all the PDFs in CS3 as high-quality instead of a lower resolution for the web and the 20 page book is about 50MBs. I'm still not sure that I totally understand all the PDF options for saving but I do know now that high-quality is for printing and the lower quality is for the web. Actually I assumed that I would be able to change the resolution in Cute PDF to a lower quality but after the fact, I could not find a way to do that. In Cute PDF's FAQ, there is a link to a ghostscript that I think would do the reduction but it looks too complicated. At least I don't want to tackle it when with the next book, I can change how I save the file.

Also, I don't know that I want this test book going public on Issuu. I kind of like the concept and I might want to actually use it later. This week I just gathered up some of my holga images and dropped them in the template I made. Not all the images were ready for primetime and I didn't give any thought to sequencing. So all you are going to see is the front cover. But let me tell you I learned a lot.

Now my worrying is shifting to what the heck am I going to photograph to get 35 useable images.

Projects - SoFoBoMo

I wish I were one of those people who could sit down and brainstorm, come up with a list of potential projects and then brainstorm another list of images that might fit the project. It is never that easy for me. I don't find projects. They find me.

Sometimes it takes a long time before I realize I have a project. I might be exploring how to use a piece of equipment when the subject matter begins to take shape and then I'll realize that it is a project. Sometimes I'm shooting something that I like, something to which I feel an emotional attachment. After shooting it for a while I realize that it is developing into a project. Or sometimes I keep shooting but never feel that I've been able to convey my feeling about the subject matter until some new idea comes along or a new way to shoot happens. Then I have a project.

Even after I say, "I'm working on a project" I seldom can just run with it. It is a slow process. Shoot, make some prints, study them, think about what they are saying and then shoot some more.....and some more. So........SoFoBoMo is going to be a challenge. Thirty-one days, that is all I've got to pull this together. I feel that I'm having to make some decisions too early. What if I start my project and I don't like it? What if I'm not inspired to come back and work on it the next day and the next? I can't quit. Too many friends have said that they are looking forward to seeing my book. I must come up with something. I'm hoping that just because I show up with the camera day after day that I'll end up with enough images for the book.

I find that SoFoBoMo is rolling around in my head most of the time. Today I tried out some ideas. I also downloaded the trial version of Cute PDF that La Belle Aurore blogged about. I think it will work for gathering multiple PDF pages into one PDF file. Thanks, Belle. Good news it is much cheaper than Adobe Acrobat 9. Now that some other dates have fallen into place, it looks like my 31 days will start on or about May 15 and the photographs will be made in Texas. Things are definitely shaping up.

While my progress might not be in a straight line, I am zigging and zagging forward.

Learning from the Work - SoFoBoMo

While I can't say that I'm settled into all the technical requirements of producing a PDF book or a hold-in-your-hand book, I can say that I've calmed down. I've written down a workflow and tried it out. It seems to work. Still there is much to do on finding a layout and design but I plan to keep that pretty simple. I like simple photography books where the image is the message. So, in the back of my mind stuff has been kind of churning about making the images.

Often when I'm feeling lost I go back to David Bayles and Ted Orland's book, Art & Fear. My copy is dog-eared and splotched with yellow highlighter. Sure enough, I found some guidance--

"...expectations based on the work itself are the most useful tool the artist possesses. What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your materials is in the last use of your materials. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution. The best information about what you love is in your contact with what you love. Put simply, your work is your guide."

I went back over the last two years of images. If I use the work that I have liked as my guide, then the image will be square and will be made with a bad lens......either the holga camera with film, a holga lens mounted on a digital camera or with a lensbaby or maybe all three. Okay, that is settled.

Knowing which lens I will use started me looking for another reference. I can't find it or remember it exactly but it was something about the first sentence that you write in a novel eliminates so many stories that could be written. And each successive sentence after that eliminates more that by the time you have written the first page your novel is set.

I think this is true. Choosing the lens has eliminated a lot of subjects and I'm sure soon my focus (excuse the pun) will narrow down even more as I make other decisions about the project. On one hand, I hate to start feeling locked in but on the other I think knowing where I'm going will open doors.

A Jumbled Brain - SoFoBoMo

This week has left my mind as jumbled as this vine. It is the learning curve that I didn't want to face last year for SoFoBoMo. Just when I think I'm getting it together, I find that there is another higher hill to climb. At this point deciding what I'm going to photograph for the book has been put on the back burner which is kind of crazy since I'm going to be making a photography book. I think once I know how I'll handle the techincal issues then I can switch over to the creative side.

Blurb/Booksmart has templates, a lot of templates but none of them are exactly what I want to use. I've looked at design programs like In Design and Quark. Can't do that. They are expensive especially for the limited use they would get from me. Last year a number of people used a free design program called Scribus. I've downloaded the free software. It looked complicated but I dug around and found a manual. Okay, I can read that should get me started. After a day of trying to set up the 'preferences' and having them disappear into cyberspace, and reading help links and getting nowhere, I thought my head would explode. I will not be using Scribus. I'm just not geeky enough to figure it out.

I've played with designing the pages with Photoshop. I think that holds possibilities. I can then use Blurb/Booksmart for the cover and drop in the pages from Photoshop. But I'm feeling pretty confident that I understand the issues with going that route. And there are issues but I think I can solve them.

Having a hold-in-my-hand book is really my objective but to fully compete in SoFoBoMo I need a PDF book as well. At first I thought what the heck, I'll just do a print book and let the rest go. At least I will have met my personal goal. The more I thought about it, I think that also having a PDF book on the web that you can reference for people to go see makes a lot of sense. Over on the Flickr SoFoBoMo discussion page, Rosie Perea gave me some great suggestions to explore on how to do that.

SoFoBoMo doesn't start until May 1 so I have time to get my brain unjumbled.

By the way, I'll be adding SoFoBoMo to the title of the blog entries that have to do with my journey for my book. I know that everyone will not want to read about this process. If I'm boring you to death with my ups and downs and twists and turns, feel free to skip any entries with SoFoBoMo included in the title.