Wednesday, December 05, 2012


The weather turned colder again and with it, a downturn in my mood. I also feel off and feverish and could possibly be getting sick (given that I haven't even had so much as a cold in about a year-very rare). There are weird tensions at work and ickiness (not necessarily mine, but a general unease making things less fun.) I've been holding to the rails and beginning to work on the reserve textbook list for spring and getting ready for the yearly December deluge of returned items. As for press-doings, I think I'm about ready for the book fair this weekend, but for the open studio next Friday, not so much. I've learned I'll never be really ready for such things, so I just need to relax. I'm also trying to clean up a manuscript I promised a prospective editor, but it's slow going amid the general chaos.

There are 5 books set to release in the next couple weeks (books by Alison Armstrong-Webber, Jen Tynes, Caroline Klocksiem, Mary Stone Dockery, and S. Whitney Holmes, and possibly a couple more if things fall together as I like. If so, I will pretty much be caught up, a mystical idea not unlike a unicorn, so I'm not quite ready to believe it's going to happen. We are, however, quite close to releasing the 200th official dgp title, which will necessitate some sort of celebration book giveaway on the FB page, so keep an eye out there for that. I do admit, I was surprised we'd issued so many titles in just 8 years (and we seem to be moving even faster lately since I've upgraded our production means (the double sided printer and the format flexibilities, the new guillotine trimmer.)I've streamlined the workflow for each chap as well and the system seems to be working well. Today, I was able to assemble and trim about 50 chaps in just under an hour, now only if I had more hours(admittedly I'd probably been moving even faster if I hadn't been scrolling through facebook and a couple articles simultaneously.)

Meanwhile I'm feeling very Joni Mitchell about Christmas this year, wishing for rivers and awayness sometimes..