Good evening this evening!
Gosh damn man.. you'd think amongst everything else I find myself managing on my plate of life, one would think I'd just vedge out on video games and nurse a hangover or sumptn?! hahah
Every couple months I will spend the entire day, sometimes entire weekend working on my GratefulMan books and be lost to that world.
Today's post makes for #326?!
The multi year goal I've had (sheesh! multi year!!) has been to take ALLL the blog posts and break them down into each year lived and combine that year within one single book. With 326 and having started since 2017, I've got quite the stack of books! - SEVEN to be exact?!
Considering the state of creativity I found myself in, I almost said F'it and didn' post because I was so busy.. but then as I was working on the details I came across an old post. It was
"Damn! Almost Missed it!"... at the time it was my 25th post - my 25 consecutive post and I damn near forgot to post a weekly picture.
Back then it was crucial to me to always! show up each Friday - despite my business. Over the years I started to slip up and miss one here and there. That's not that bad really, but when you start collecting them and documenting them - man?! In the seven years I've been doing this I have missed 25 blog posts.
If this was a test, I'd have a 93%
Way cool!
BUT!
When you add those up to weeks within a story book, that accounts for 25 weeks I've not shown up. About six months worth of my GratefulMan life... that really makes it sound way worse than getting a 93%.. feels like a 39% hahah!
So I really didn't want to miss another one today haha!
I digress!
What I found myself lost in this evening was designing the table of contents for each book. All the books are broken down into a word file and named after each year.
With each week's post intended as a chapter, you can't miss out on the table of contents! Each chapter is named, post numbered, dated, and categorized based on subject topic. Word does a bang up job with a functional and "auto updating" table of contents... however it's just not very pretty... like at all. and if I know myself the way I do, it's gotta be pretty - regardless! of all the effort. So I am using all three 32" screens to pull this off.. :)
Word's current table of contents:
From here, I print each year and staple them together. This is a deep level of quality control/quality assurance. Although Word populates this as I've instructed it to, I am also the yahoo who's entered the info... that needs to be double checked for sure!
From there as I am populating the newly created table of contents (TOC) I scratch though and note as necessary. I'll be updating the Word file then updating the TOC within photoshop in sequence with each other. This is why the three screens btw...
If your book has a TOC... it definitely has to have an acknowledgements section! Yup! all the names of the people, projects, services I've used throughout this particular year - AND! most importantly, giving credit to those who've shared weekly pictures with me :)
Building off of the great visual brand I've created within the book it's crucial that the TOC have the same vibe as the covers and chapters. Here are a few covers - they've not been rebranded since the updated GratefulMan.com home page.. multi year project remember ;) but will soon!
The goal behind these books is to share them with my family and close friends - much like a photo album. So when a reader comes across a certain post, I guide them to the correct corresponding book and post # so they, me, can get into a deeper level of story connection.
I spent the arduous time to put all of this detail within each blog post.
Even have a logo for each category :)
That also matches the GratefulMan.com website in each similar category. ;)
The intent is not only to be drawn into the stories I write, but the experience of holding the book and thumbing through needs to be felt in the same capacity of thought and branded cohesion. All of these unique details I have spent much of today working on the table of contents for Book 1, The Year of 2017 - Commit. I think it looks sooooo pretty! :)
I'm super excited to wrap up the other TOC's for the rest of the books! Each piece of the details are coming together nicely. I'm really going to work on my discipline and spend more time on wrapping up these remaining details so I can finally hold them in hand. I can already visualize what the books will smell like when they're opened up! sidenote: as I relive a moment in my childhood, I vividly remember my dad saying he wished we kids read more... and here into the future now, I've got seven books with thousands of pages between all of them.. hard to not smile about that. :) Thanks for reading! This was just too damn exciting to not share with my buddy! :) I will definitely keep you posted on the happenings! Have a grateful Sunday evening, friend!
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