Going old school in the blogosphere

As with many of my fellow bloggers, I suspect we spend more time in the blogosphere than is socially acceptable. You know, it’s not just our own stuff, but we’re out there blowing away an afternoon reading other blogs too.

I’m checking out my favorite pet bloggers to keep up with their goings on (see my blogroll on the right hand panel), before moving on to brain candy like the trivia sites. I simply adore useless trivial nonsense sites, which help feed my fantasy of winning Who Wants to be a Millionaire?.   And I know I could win; my poor over-forty noggin is just packed with the stuff that keeps me from having a fully intelligent conversation.  Did you know that Play-Doh was first developed as a wallpaper remover? Do you care? Right, and that’s why I don’t get invited to parties.

And with that, don’t even go out to a site like tywkiwdbi.  It will fill your brain. I warned you.

I’m just a humble thing, a niche blogger with a few dedicated readers (Hi Mom!), but while we’re fantasizing I’ll share with you the genius of the The Bloggess.  When I grow up, I want to be just like her.  Well, maybe a little less profane. I just don’t have the guts to use words like $hit in my online ramblings. See, I can’t do it. But darn it, I think that’s why I enjoy her stories like I do.

Yep, the great and powerful blogosphere is a great way to avoid that nasty housework. But being an old school kind of girl, I have a tactile need to hold my creation in my hands. I made this stuff my own self, after all.

So what to do, but have these words of mine printed into a book.

That’s right, says Micron, I’m kind of a  big deal  around here. Check out the expression on Yaxley’s face.

I turned to an online publishing company called Blurb. These guys provided software so I could upload all my blog content, text and photos, in a single step. What a time saver!  Then they had the gall to allow me to customize and resize all my photos. Full page, two-page spreads, and such.  Aargh, what a time eater!  Took me days of messing around with everything until I felt it good enough to print.

After waiting ever so patiently for the thing to show up on my doorstep (what’s taking so long? Didja have to chop down a tree to make the paper or something?), I rip open the shipping box to bask in the glow of being a (self) published authoress.  Ah, this is nice, I think. It’s so beautiful. 

I’m leafing through page by page (should I be wearing white cotton archival gloves?), trying to keep the pesky perfectionist node of my brain from mentally changing anything in the format.  Then I find it.  A typo.

$hit.

I don’t think glasses would make me look smarter

Well, that does it. Gotta reprint the thing, darn it. I fix the typo and upload the tome again. While I was at it, a little redesign of the cover as well, giving it a typewriter distressed look.

And I’m pretty happy with the results, I think.  For you curious readers, clicking Book Preview in the image below will take you to, well,  a preview. This shows about 40 or so pages of the book. Somehow, I actually filled this tome with 156 pages of text, photos and inflated ego.

If you do check it out, would you drop me a comment and let me know what you think?  Good, bad or ugly?  What would you change if this were your magnum opus?  

Raising a Supe…

Another year in the…

By Donna Black-Sword

Book Preview