Finished proofing Perennial (and apologies to my Paradise Lost lunchmates for my pulling it out and working on the proofing during lunch, but I am feeling time pressure for all kinds of things). I just have a few edits to send to the layout person. Then there’s all the illustrations to do. I’m going to try to add botanical colored pencil illustrations to the start and end of each chapter.
I am entirely full of imposter syndrome about this. I can’t draw! Except sometimes I like what I draw. But maybe everyone else thinks they’re hopelessly amateurish, and they are just too nice to say so. Maybe I should hire a real artist instead of even trying to draw something.
But for this book, which is such a ridiculously personal book (it’s the breast cancer romance intercut with the poems I wrote during treatment), I think I’m pretty convinced that even if my drawings are terrible, there’s something worthwhile about having me be the person who does them. I’m having an oddly emotional reaction to the whole thing.
I suppose that’s part of what’s good about doing small press, that it gives you the freedom to make choices that may not be the conventional commercially safest choice.
