Captioning Along

Well, I've at least gotten started with the captions on the pictures that I chose for my book. I completed Day 0's captions, eliminating 2 photos during review, and Day 1's, with 1 photo eliminated during review. Usually, I remove pictures from my original Picks during my review with Ambrose, but this time I realized as I was writing captions that a few of the pictures were redundant. And one I just decided I didn't want to include; no reason to add another selfie when there are pictures of me taken by others that work better. 

I'm not finding it overly difficult to write captions or choose my shots. My main blocker at this point is just getting started. Although I did manage to pick up a little cold, so that's not exactly helping with my motivation. I know that I'll get on a roll with this at some point, I just need to keep putting myself in the position to get on that roll. 

And once the captions are done, it's smooth sailing. Just slap it all together and get it uploaded, essentially. Well, there are three or four separate versions that need to be slapped together and uploaded to at least two different sites. But the principle holds, because slapping together is not the hard part. Nor uploading, at least as long as they haven't changed anything. 

Oh! But I do still need to select my cover photos. One for front and one for back... I'll need to be keeping an eye out as I work through the photos to see which ones stand out as exemplary of the amazing trip. Probably something near Chamberlain and something from Big Creek, but I'll have to wait and see which ones call to me. 

Why Is Work Hard?

I've made some progress. I picked out the pictures and reviewed them with Ambrose. That, in itself, was fun. We relived the trip together. But I haven't yet gotten to starting the captions. I hope to do that tonight. I plan to do that tonight. 

But plans don't always go the way you want them to. Still, with the hockey season on hiatus for now, I should be able to find some time, somewhere. 

I'm getting a booster shot today, so I'm going to leave a bit of leeway for working on the captions tonight. But I will be getting those started before Christmas, and I want to get the book ready as soon as possible. There have been some other things going on, but I think I'm going to be able to devote more energy to this project now. 

Stalled

I haven't gotten much done on my book in the last week. I did finish my initial selection of pictures, but I haven't yet reviewed them with my first reader (Ambrose). So I need to get that done, and then I can start working on the hard part: captions. 

I don't know why I consider that such a hard part. I suppose it's less hard than it is time consuming. But once I get all the pictures ready for placement, everything will go very fast. I know that from experience. What lies ahead of me is a lot of nitpicky work, but it's relatively simple work. 

It just requires me to actually sit down and do it. 

This book definitely isn't being published before the end of the year, but I want to get it mostly completed over my winter break. I do enjoy having an extended time off between Christmas and New Years, even if we are required to use vacation time for some of the days. It should give me plenty of time to get this done. I just need to make sure that I actually do it. 

Butt in chair! I just might have to block out time on my calendar to make sure I get a little done every day. Hopefully, once I get a little done, I'll be inclined to keep going and power through to finishing. 

Though I won't be finished once I finish, since I have another book to write and publish. But that one will be a lot shorter, so I believe I can get it all done well before next backpacking season. 

Moving Along

Well, Ambrose finished reading my draft in record time. I was kind of hoping he'd take longer, but it's good. His finishing pushes me to keep on with what I need to do. I'm in the midst of one of the hardest parts - picking the pictures! 

I take way more pictures than I could possibly use in any of my books when I hike. Heck, I even take tons of photos when I'm not planning on writing a book. The pictures help me remember the trip, and I do write-ups of nearly all my trips anyway. 

For this book, the challenge of choosing photos is compounded by the fact that I also have Bill's photos to look through as well as Ambrose's. They don't take nearly as many photos as I do out there, but they have one advantage that I definitely want to take advantage of - their photos are much more likely to have me in the frame ;) 

Well, Bill's more than Ambrose, just because Ambrose took so few pictures. Although I did bug him on the last night to take pictures of me pitching the tent. I know I'll use one or two of those, since that's an activity that I haven't gotten to record like that in past in my books. 

I probably won't be getting the book out until after the new year, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. I'll be closer to December than I was with last year's, that's for sure. And the second book for this past season will definitely be later. I'm aiming for no later than March for that one, which should be doable since it will be a short one. 

Book Progress

I finished writing out my initial draft before I went out of town on 11/19. And then I kind of took the week of Thanksgiving off. Perhaps not the best choice, but I don't regret having a relaxing holiday. I did get around to doing part of my work on Sunday. That's when I finally read Ambrose's and Bill's accounts of the trip. Both of them finished their write-ups well before I did, but I refused to read them until I had finished my draft. I didn't want my brain to be thinking of the words and memories of others while I was writing my own story.

There was very little in their accounts that I hadn't covered from my own perspective, which was pretty neat. I do reference the many photos I took while writing to help me remember, but I can't take a photo of everything. 

I'm still working on the next step in the process, which is new this year. Usually, I have a hard time rereading my work, so I might skim it or just spellcheck it before handing it off. But I wanted to give it a read through first this time so that I could cull out typos and add any depth from my reading of the guys' accounts. But I find that I'm actually enjoying the reread and typo/sense check that I'm doing now. Once I finish that, I'll be handing it off to Ambrose for the first read. 

While he works on that, I'll start selecting the photos that will be used in the book. I have an idea of some of them, since they figure prominently in the writing, but culling photos is always tricky. I want to include all the coolest photos, but sometimes the ones I most want are blurred or otherwise unusable. That is, after all, why I take so darn many. 

Ambrose took less than 100 photos. I took nearly 1000. Bill was closer to Ambrose's number than mine. 

In prior years when I've done multiple books, I've tried to do the production part (pictures, caption, formatting, publishing) at the same time. This year I'm going to try it differently. I've barely started writing the second book, which will be on the small ICT section I did in August. I might work on the writing while I'm waiting on Ambrose and doing production tasks, but I might wait later than that. That book will likely be published in 2022, but I have hopes that I can managed a 2021 date for the Frank Church Finale book. 

But if I want that, then I'm going to need to put my nose to the grindstone and get it done!