Re: What do you creative folks think of contributing to a book?

January 17, 2011

>

> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be cool

> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the story

> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just poems

and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories, fictionalized

accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book has room to hold

and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that fits into one of

your categories we can send it along.

Kay

January 17, 2011

>

> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be cool

> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the story

> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just poems

and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories, fictionalized

accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book has room to hold

and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that fits into one of

your categories we can send it along.

Kay

January 17, 2011

>

> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be cool

> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the story

> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just poems

and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories, fictionalized

accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book has room to hold

and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that fits into one of

your categories we can send it along.

Kay

January 17, 2011

Kay,

I think we're thinking along the non-fiction route for this book, and we'd

be open to poems, song lyrics, essays, memoir short writings, art (keeping

in mind that black/white would probably be how it'll be reproduced) etc.

Pretty much anything goes. We're still in the conceptual stage for the

formatting and planning, so I'm really glad everyone is asking questions and

throwing ideas out there!

As for the length, I don't have a specific max page limit. maybe 20pgs

double spaced? I don't know, so feedback from anyone would be nice

Holly

>

>>

>> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be

cool

>> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the

story

>> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

>

> Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just

poems and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories,

fictionalized accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book

has room to hold and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that

fits into one of your categories we can send it along.

> Kay

>

January 17, 2011

Kay,

I think we're thinking along the non-fiction route for this book, and we'd

be open to poems, song lyrics, essays, memoir short writings, art (keeping

in mind that black/white would probably be how it'll be reproduced) etc.

Pretty much anything goes. We're still in the conceptual stage for the

formatting and planning, so I'm really glad everyone is asking questions and

throwing ideas out there!

As for the length, I don't have a specific max page limit. maybe 20pgs

double spaced? I don't know, so feedback from anyone would be nice

Holly

>

>>

>> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be

cool

>> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the

story

>> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

>

> Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just

poems and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories,

fictionalized accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book

has room to hold and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that

fits into one of your categories we can send it along.

> Kay

>

January 17, 2011

Twenty pages sounds very short to me to be the kind of non-fiction book a

commercial publisher would be interested in picking up for publication. There

are children's books that are that short or shorter, though.

Are you thinking more in terms of self-publishing, perhaps?

For comparison, I'm holding a book right now that is a paperback, " Lost in the

Mirror, an Inside Look at BPD " by Moskvitz, MD, and its not very thick,

just over a half-inch thick at 206 pages, 6 inches by 9 inches, and retailed at

$14.95 back when I bought it about 8 years ago. (The cover is CMYK or full

color, glossy stock, and the interior is standard black-only text with no

illustrations.)

Just more factors to take into consideration, i.e. self-publishing vs commercial

publishing.

-Annie

> >>

> >> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be

> cool

> >> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the

> story

> >> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

> >

> > Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just

> poems and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories,

> fictionalized accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book

> has room to hold and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that

> fits into one of your categories we can send it along.

> > Kay

> >

>

January 17, 2011

Twenty pages sounds very short to me to be the kind of non-fiction book a

commercial publisher would be interested in picking up for publication. There

are children's books that are that short or shorter, though.

Are you thinking more in terms of self-publishing, perhaps?

For comparison, I'm holding a book right now that is a paperback, " Lost in the

Mirror, an Inside Look at BPD " by Moskvitz, MD, and its not very thick,

just over a half-inch thick at 206 pages, 6 inches by 9 inches, and retailed at

$14.95 back when I bought it about 8 years ago. (The cover is CMYK or full

color, glossy stock, and the interior is standard black-only text with no

illustrations.)

Just more factors to take into consideration, i.e. self-publishing vs commercial

publishing.

-Annie

> >>

> >> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be

> cool

> >> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the

> story

> >> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

> >

> > Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just

> poems and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories,

> fictionalized accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book

> has room to hold and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that

> fits into one of your categories we can send it along.

> > Kay

> >

>

January 17, 2011

Twenty pages sounds very short to me to be the kind of non-fiction book a

commercial publisher would be interested in picking up for publication. There

are children's books that are that short or shorter, though.

Are you thinking more in terms of self-publishing, perhaps?

For comparison, I'm holding a book right now that is a paperback, " Lost in the

Mirror, an Inside Look at BPD " by Moskvitz, MD, and its not very thick,

just over a half-inch thick at 206 pages, 6 inches by 9 inches, and retailed at

$14.95 back when I bought it about 8 years ago. (The cover is CMYK or full

color, glossy stock, and the interior is standard black-only text with no

illustrations.)

Just more factors to take into consideration, i.e. self-publishing vs commercial

publishing.

-Annie

> >>

> >> Every time someone posts a wonderful poem, I think, " Gee, it would be

> cool

> >> if we collaborated and made a book of our writings & art to tell the

> story

> >> of BPD from an adult survivor's standpoint " .

> >

> > Mia, I would be interested depending upon what you want. Do you want just

> poems and songs and drawings, or do you want essays, true stories,

> fictionalized accounts. I'm guessing you need to come up with what the book

> has room to hold and how you'll arrange it and then if we have anything that

> fits into one of your categories we can send it along.

> > Kay

> >

>

January 17, 2011

I think this is a fabulous idea. More needs to be done to get people to

understand the effects on a child, and on the rest of that child's life, to grow

up an invisible victim of a BP parent.

If I can help any, let me know.

--.

January 17, 2011

I think this is a fabulous idea. More needs to be done to get people to

understand the effects on a child, and on the rest of that child's life, to grow

up an invisible victim of a BP parent.

If I can help any, let me know.

--.

January 17, 2011

I think this is a fabulous idea. More needs to be done to get people to

understand the effects on a child, and on the rest of that child's life, to grow

up an invisible victim of a BP parent.

If I can help any, let me know.

--.

January 17, 2011

Well Mia,

I m currently working on a book about the FOG, so my creative juices are

flowing into that as far as telling the story, from the child who

endured it, from the Fogged Adult still beaten down by it, , and from

who I am now, the Recovering adult. That being said, my current

project will not be likely to have poetry, so I d be happy to contribute

poetry or perhaps drawings.

Another thought, we might set up a blog site as an online way to

accumulate and share artistic " outrcries from KO s. " Using that as a

way to compile sufficient material to put into publishable form.

I know there are several on here who are involved in one way or another

with the writing or publishing business. So I m sure we have the

resources to move the project forward.

Doug

January 17, 2011

Well Mia,

I m currently working on a book about the FOG, so my creative juices are

flowing into that as far as telling the story, from the child who

endured it, from the Fogged Adult still beaten down by it, , and from

who I am now, the Recovering adult. That being said, my current

project will not be likely to have poetry, so I d be happy to contribute

poetry or perhaps drawings.

Another thought, we might set up a blog site as an online way to

accumulate and share artistic " outrcries from KO s. " Using that as a

way to compile sufficient material to put into publishable form.

I know there are several on here who are involved in one way or another

with the writing or publishing business. So I m sure we have the

resources to move the project forward.

Doug

January 17, 2011

Guys,

Lots of comments and questions about size, format, artwork, ect. It s

great everyone is thinking about the project, but just my 2 cents worth:

Since this is not a project being submitted as a proposal to a

publisher, and since there may be a number of contributors, it might be

best to gather material first. Then work with a good copy editor, and

trust their judgement, however brutal, as to what to include and in what

format.

As someone pointed out, few ppl know about BPD, and even fewer about us.

If we are serious about wanting to see this project actually published,

it has to be something that some market segment will buy.

Otherwise, we can do it for our own pleasure, and have copies printed,

for ourselves, rather than published. But if publication is the end

goal, we must go with what a publisher will take a chance on.

Just IMHO, food for thought.

Doug

January 17, 2011

Well,Annie,to answer your questions:

" Lesbian Nuns:Breaking Silence " is 383 pages,contains about 52 entries from

about 50 contributors and is entirely prose with a couple of free form stream of

consciousness pieces but mainly autobiographical accounts that fit into each

chapter theme (eg " Deciding to enter the convent " / " Life in the convent "

etc).There are also a couple of interviews.The average entry is five or six

pages long,with about a quarter being only one to three pages and a couple of

entries running eight to ten pages.

" This Bridge Called My Back " is 370 pages.I don't have my copy of that,my

ex has it.My rough estimate is that it contains a quarter poetry interspersed

through out the different chapters and a quarter art work with the rest of the

content being autobiographical accounts and point of view essays.

I'm certainly not trying to push an agenda by bringing up these two

anthologies as examples,just that out of all the " awareness raising " anthologies

I've read,these two were the best and the most thought provoking.

>

> I'm interested to know how many pages are those two anthologies

mentioned, just roughly. And roughly how many pages each type of contribution

is, percentage-wise? Such as: a third of the pages are prose, a third are

poetry and a third are artwork?

> Just curious.

> Thanks!

> -Annie

January 17, 2011

Well,Annie,to answer your questions:

" Lesbian Nuns:Breaking Silence " is 383 pages,contains about 52 entries from

about 50 contributors and is entirely prose with a couple of free form stream of

consciousness pieces but mainly autobiographical accounts that fit into each

chapter theme (eg " Deciding to enter the convent " / " Life in the convent "

etc).There are also a couple of interviews.The average entry is five or six

pages long,with about a quarter being only one to three pages and a couple of

entries running eight to ten pages.

" This Bridge Called My Back " is 370 pages.I don't have my copy of that,my

ex has it.My rough estimate is that it contains a quarter poetry interspersed

through out the different chapters and a quarter art work with the rest of the

content being autobiographical accounts and point of view essays.

I'm certainly not trying to push an agenda by bringing up these two

anthologies as examples,just that out of all the " awareness raising " anthologies

I've read,these two were the best and the most thought provoking.

>

> I'm interested to know how many pages are those two anthologies

mentioned, just roughly. And roughly how many pages each type of contribution

is, percentage-wise? Such as: a third of the pages are prose, a third are

poetry and a third are artwork?

> Just curious.

> Thanks!

> -Annie

January 17, 2011

That all sounds great to me,Holly

I'm in a just throwing out ideas state of mind right now and I will have

to consider whether or not I can seriously devote time to administration tasks

as I am somewhat stretched time wise at the moment.At any rate I think this is

going to be something of a long haul project and one thing we are going to need

to do is continuously generate interest and in order to get enough submissions

we will probably need to put out notices of the project beyond this one WTO

website.

I also find Yahoo mail cumbersome but what I was thinking about using

Yahoo groups is to have that group be a private by invitation only one,that when

people offer submissions via say the Gmail account that they would then be

invited to join the Yahoo (for example) working group.Perhaps in that group the

invitees could choose to voluntarily share their intended contribution/s to both

give others ideas and to promote transparency about the project in general so

that the contributors can decide for themselves whether or not this is a project

they would want to be involved with.The fact that the group is private might be

reassuring.

I also think that once the concept is fleshed out that submissions

could be solicited according to specific chapter content needs as well as

general solicitations.Otherwise,to my view,there is a risk of getting a pile

(hopefully lol!) of submissions that need to be sorted through and assigned to

the relevant chapter---if people are contributing along specific themes it might

be easier to organize and select the submissions rather than only having a

general pile.Offering a selection of specific themes in addition to a call for

general content for contributors to write about might also help to generate

contributions.

I would say that as the submissions come in that if the majority

continue to be poetry that a decision will need to be made about perhaps

confining the anthology to KO poetry and art and directing submissions requests

in that direction.

Having autobiographical content would be awesome but in addition to

people wanting to use pseudonyms I wonder how many people would also be

concerned that any autobiographical accounts would contain too much possibly

identifying detail.In that case we would have to see if we get enough

submissions from people who are willing to take that risk in order for the

purpose of the book to remain coherent and balanced with personal point of

view/personal accounts informing the chapters enough for their presence in the

book to be inherent to the mission or raison d'etre or purpose of the

anthology.Because if there aren't enough of these kinds of autobiographical

submissions the entire format/purpose will need to be re-themed in order to

attract interest from a publisher.Even though a book about the KO experience is

sorely needed,whatever we come up with will need to be stream lined and packaged

in order to convince a publisher to invest in selling it.

Just some ideas...

>

> I agree with --arranging the contributions around themes would help

> keep it organized, and help the readers follow along.

>

> Also, depending on how many submissions we get, we could allow people to

> submit more than one story/poem/etc.

>

> For the logistics of organizing the book, we will indeed need a separate

> group for it. Looking at the tasks--first off we need a specific email

> address that people can submit works to and communicate with.

>

> Second, we need a corresponding group where we can organize accordingly.

>

> Third, we need to draft a licensing/permission form (as mentioned in the

> Poem about Nada thread) in order to make everything legally hunky-dory,

> including whether the submitter wants it published anonymously, by psudonym,

> or using their real name, and whether they would prefer to communicate with

> the editorial team indirectly (through the organizers) or directly

> (providing their contact information.)

>

> Fourth, we should have a few admins chosen to spearhead the

> project--probably me, Mia, and you too , and any others who are

> prepared to handle this sort of project. Only the admins would have access

> to the permission sheet with the pseudonym and the real names--everybody

> else would see pseudonym only.

>

> Fifth, we need to assemble an editorial team, in addition to the admins, who

> are willing to edit and revise the works. These folks will see only the

> names (or absence of names) as specified by the legalistic forms.

>

> Sixth, using the created group, we can have the group help the admins figure

> out the order in which to arrange the stories, poems, and art. Keep in mind

> artwork *may* have to be in black and white, unless we can have a publisher

> include color plates.

>

> Seventh, someone can assemble it into book format and have a final

> readthrough for last minute thoughts, ideas, and suggestions.

>

> Eight--look for a publisher!

>

> I find Yahoo really cumbersome, though--would anybody object if the admin

> email for the book was a Gmail account? The group can still be

> Yahoo-based--but it'd need to be a Gmail account in order to set it up and

> have all notifications sent to it, etc.

>

> For one thing, I can keep track of email through my Droid more easily and

> reply quickly, etc.

>

> I apologize if it seems like I'm taking too much in charge or something---I

> kinda like these sorts of group projects, and I find that in my school

> groups, if someone lays out the plan, it helps keep the project rolling.

>

> So...how does this sound?

>

> Holly

January 17, 2011