I’ve been pretty busy lately—with several projects, school, and recovering. Working on my projects has been frustrating, since concluding any of them is nowhere in sight. I’m going to reorganize each task so every part of the whole feels more like an accomplishment. Otherwise, I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels!

Working on more of the artist’s book, Miami 1975, has been moving along in teeny tiny steps. There are 39 pages total, and some of it still needs planning because I always run into issues. There’s always constant problem-solving. But that’s partially what I like about bookmaking. The layout alone is a trick. I don’t use InDesign for that. I do it by hand with little dummy books. The one I’m working from now is about half-scale, and the fold-out pages are Scotch-taped together. The rest of the pages (three signatures worth) are a cluster of chicken scratches with notes about what kind of paper it will be and what’s going on them, and they are always subject to changes before the paper is cut.

There are two pages that will be covered in textured wallpaper that I chose a long time ago. One has flamingos; the other has sunflowers. I ordered them online and finally opened the packages on Tuesday. Both prints were way too huge! The pages of the book are only 7.5 inches square. So, I have to return them. I scanned and scaled them way down, then reordered them as a custom job.

Waiting for those to ship will take a while. In the meantime, I have plenty to do for all the other pages. A lot of artwork needs to be done, and I swear I’ve been working on it—little by little. There are several text pages. Those are mostly done, but the layout (per sheet) is still being finalized so the page order makes sense.

After my first few books, I created my own handwritten font, which I often use for my artist’s books. That is, when I don’t want to handwrite each page over and over—fifteen pages per book, multiplied by eight books…(120 pages)…No thanks! That would take an enormous amount of time, accompanied by hand cramps. And the text pages are pretty dense.

It took me a little over a year to make All Done But None. All of those pages were handwritten, over and over. I’d say about eighteen of those pages were handwritten, and that was an edition of 20 (360 handwritten pages in all)! That’s not counting all the watercolor and ink pages. I’m baffled I was able to do them in the amount of time I did. I was also making paintings for a solo show that year, but that was back when I had a huge studio at Angels Gate. Back then, my output was extremely prolific. Even then, I knew why I could work like that. It was really because of the space I had. I had several different “stations” set up all over the studio so that I could do it like an “assembly line.”

That’s not the case anymore. My painting area is super tight, and now I prefer to sit at my drafting table to do everything, even painting. But since the drafting table needs to be used for every fucking thing, it’s an utter nightmare to focus on one thing at a time. Knowing the order in which to work on things is also a bad dream, especially since the brain surgery. I get very easily flustered when I don’t know what I can do in any given moment. This is not an excuse, either. For instance, I can’t work on all the artwork for the book at once; the paper needs to be cut beforehand. But I can’t cut the paper until the table is completely cleared off and cleaned, which means I have to put all other projects aside (no drawing, no layout work, no painting).

I also need the table to fold the paper, but I can’t fold anything until the sheets are printed. It all just might be a question of laziness—having to clean up between each task, even if that task won’t be completed in the same sitting. And while I’m complaining, there’s nowhere to put my materials between working sessions. Seriously. I do have a small card table and a couple of food trays, but that would take up most of the room. I can hardly squeeze into my drafting chair at my table because it’s pushed up against my easel! …But I am going to stop thinking about all that right now because it all puts me into a kind of rage. It really does.

Okay, other than that, I’ve been working on the book cover for What Matters? That’s not been going fantastic either. I have a couple of different ones now, but I’m not 100% crazy about either. I like them. Just not crazy about them. Not yet, anyway.

But, like my other kvetching, designing the cover is something you do after the book is finished. Wrong order! Not that I don’t need to do it. It has to be done eventually. Maybe, subconsciously, I know that if I complete the cover, there’s nothing else I can do for that project. It needs editing. Once that part is done, I can work on the many, many tasks it will take to finish it: formatting and layout for the print book, e-book formatting, and creating the audio recording. Then, I’ll have to print some advance copies for a few VIPs so I can put blurbs on the back cover. I had a goal to have it out (on Amazon) by January, and I’m not sure that’s going to happen at the pace everything else is moving at, which is depressing. Depressing and frustrating.

Okay, I’d better end this before I start drilling screws into my temples. I might be going a little insane now.