Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names was published in March of 2019. Now in July of 2019, I am finding so many new wildflowers in Mineral King that I am just flummoxed. Flummoxed, I say! (Not sure what this means exactly, but it feels like the right word for my troubled state of mind.)
There are just too many for one post. To be continued tomorrow.
Why does it matter what a flower’s name is? Why do I want to know? Why did it matter enough to me to spend 2 years chasing, photographing, writing, designing, and ultimately publishing Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names?
My first answer to that question is “inquiring minds need to know”.
My second answer (borrowed from a friend who said this to me once), “Well, of course it is important! Look at the first job ever given to the first human being!” (Yes, she spoke with exclamation points.)
My third and fourth answers are taken from a podcast I listened to recently. Someone was being interviewed about learning the names of the trees and frogs that she saw and heard every day. She said this (paraphrased by me): “Learning a name takes you from being an observer to being a participant.”
She also said, “Learning names makes you care more”.
If you bought a book or are thinking about it, what is your why?
The price is $19.78, which includes sales tax. The odd number is because 1978 is the year that Mineral King became part of Sequoia National Park. If you order from my website, I’ll pay the shipping. If you order from Amazon, they will charge an additional $3.99.
Before I head to the studio, have a look outside.
HEY! CENTRAL CALIFORNIA ARTIST! AREN’T YOU GOING TO DO SOME WORK?
The goal is for this book, Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names, to be ready at the end of April for a book signing at the Three Rivers Historical Museum. I’ll keep you posted.
In my normally slow month of December, I finally had the chance to work on my upcoming book Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names.
It seems to be cooking along just fine, and then something goes wackadoodle with InDesign or the template ceases to do its templatish magic or it takes hours and hours to resize all the photos to the same effective PPI (you’d really rather not know) or some of the photos get corrupted and I have to keep moving the flashdrive back and forth between the 2 laptops or I realize the title page simply says “MK Wildflowers” instead of Mineral King Wildflowers . . .
You get the idea.
One morning I worked about 10 minutes on it and suddenly it was lunchtime. Then I put in about another 1/2 hour and it was dark out. Then another 10 minutes and it was 9 p.m. So, you see this is an engrossing and enjoyable project.
The worst part will be writing the blurb on the back. Have you ever tried writing about yourself? Don’t, if you are able to avoid it.
The plan is to have it in hand in April so I can do a book signing in the Mineral King Room at the Three Rivers Historical Museum before the Redbud Festival when people are in a wildflower state of mind. (Have you ever been in a wildflower state of mind? It might just be an idiosyncratic trait of this Central California artist.)
Friday’s post left you with a teaser. . . new book coming!
Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names is in progress. This has been a 2 year process of gathering photos and names. I’ve struggled through many boring white flowers and a zillion yellow ones that all look alike. I’ve gone a little nutso over blue flowers and recognized that red ones aren’t very common.
While hiking, I’ve realized that wildflowers are one of the big magnets for me. Sure, scenery is great, exercise can be fun if with friends or on a trail (I’m looking at you, Off Trail Guy) and who wouldn’t want to be outside in Mineral King? But all my choices for hiking destinations seem to be based on where the flowers are.
With a stack of about 6 wildflower books, I’ve been able to find common names for most of the wildflowers in Mineral King. Why does it take that many? Why isn’t there a wildflower book for Mineral King?
“If it is to be, it’s up to me” – I don’t know who said that, but it seems to apply here.
The book will have photos taken mostly by Off Trail Guy and me; the cover will be a fabulous photo from a fabulous photographer, one of my treasured hiking friends whose phone takes better pictures than my little Elph camera. It also might have something to do with her superior photography skills. . .
There is still a pile of work ahead on the book – more writing, editing, proofing, trying harder to find names for those unknown whites and yellows, and finally, figuring how and where to get it printed. Add into that mix the difficulties of working with Adobe InDesign on an old laptop, and there are probably 2 months between now and actual publication.
Here is a peek at an early draft of a two-page spread:
Obviously there is some editing necessary. Obviously it is not a scientific botanical manual. Obviously.
I hope this is a helpful and fun book for people who hike in Mineral King and love wildflowers, with inquiring minds that just need to know.
Finally, finally, The Visalia Electric Railroad: Stories of the Early Years by Louise A. Jackson is a real book, both soft and hard cover, in our hands as of 1/19/2018.
The softcover book is for sale in several places.
But wait! How much?
The softcover is $21.50 including tax and shipping. Get it on this page, or by contacting me or Louise directly.
Is there a hardcover?
Yes. It is $26.50 including tax and shipping. Get it on this page, or by contacting me or Louise directly.
I already have this book!
Nope. You don’t. You might have the first edition, a saddle-stitched 8-1/2×11″ version, published in. . . I forget.
This is the 2nd edition, new and improved!, with twice as many photos that you can actually see and many never published before, AND the entire book has been edited, polished, rewritten. It is BEE-YOO-TI-FULLL!
But that is just my opinion as the editor, photo editor, book designer/formatter, proofreader, book shepherd and publisher. (Cabinart Books is a division of Cabinart. Doesn’t that sound big and official?)
What is a book shepherd?
One who guides or “shepherds” a book from an author’s idea to final printed version. If you have ever written a book, you might know that feeling of, “Now what am I supposed to do to get this published?” A book shepherd guides the author through the options and steps of ending up with a well-written and well-printed book.
My learning about book shepherding began with self-publishing The Cabins of Wilsonia. I was my own contractor, doing all the research, photography, drawings, book design, book formatting, computer work on the drawings, and finally finding a printer. I hired a self-publishing consultant, an editor for the written parts, and had 4 friends proofread for me. (NO ONE should EVER do a final edit on one’s own writing or EVER pretend to be able to proofread one’s own work – it parallels the saying “He who represents himself in court has a fool for a lawyer”.)
This experience woke up something inside of me that said “BE AN EDITOR – YOU DO IT ALL THE TIME ANYWAY!” (Yes, it shouted at me in bold and all capital letters.) IT is something that manifests as a Typo Psycho, and causes me to twitch whenever I read most self-published books, if I can even get through the first big error of “Forward” instead of “Foreword”. These self-publishers tend to be ignorant of the parts of a book; their books are full of redundancies, run-on sentences, unnecessary and boring topics, poor grammar, typos, and horrible formatting. They bring to mind a description from my friend Jennifer: “Loving hands at home”, not meant as a compliment.
People who have a story to write need help. There is so much more involved than writing! I want to help.
When I first heard “book shepherd”, I realized that I had done this already; even though it was just for myself, it counts. My experience allowed me to share my new-found knowledge with Louise Jackson on her book Trail of Promises. This book turned out so beautifully that Louise asked me to help her with The Visalia Electric Railroad. We are nearing completion and the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train book.)
There were more books I helped on along the way in various capacities, but this post is getting too long already. It probably needs a good editor.
You deserve a nice picture after wading through these thoughts. This is my favorite wildflower, Explorer’s Gentian.
