A better choice?
In March, when I signed the contract with Arcadia Publishing to do a third book for them, I thought it would be a fairly straightforward proposition and probably a fun project to boot. I’m beginning to think that my reasoning may have been fuzzy and my decision hasty.
It’s to be a book for their new history series, “Legendary Locals” – in this case, Legendary Locals of the Long Beach Peninsula. As with all their books, it will be mostly photographs – about 130 in all – with very little text, most of which is captions for the aforementioned photographs. These “legendary” folks can be anyone, past or present, who has contributed to life here at the beach. “Piece of cake,” thought I.
Silly me. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of candidates for the legendary category. There are multitudes! But there are also mega-problems in locating and obtaining the photographs. First of all, there simply aren’t any for many of the historic characters who should definitely be included. In some cases, I’ve located the one precious image that still exists but… most of those ancient, non-digital photos are not up to Arcadia’s very specific and stringent specifications. Not usable.
As for the more current candidates for inclusion, the problems are far different but equally frustrating. Everyone I’ve approached so far has been more than willing to give me photos to scan. It’s just that they have to ‘locate’ said photos of their mother or grandfather or erstwhile neighbor. And given the busy lives of most people, that takes time and reminders.
Then, there are the photos of present-day legendary locals. If they have none available, I can take them with my handy-dandy-almost-new Canon camera, but it’s finding a time and a place and… So, time has marched on and I have made very little progress on the photographic front.
As for the writing, the situation isn’t much better. I thought I was on a roll as I wrote the book’s introduction, but when I sent a sample to my editor she said, “too much history.” Who knew that there could be such a problem in a history series? That particular bit of criticism set me back for a while.
My first deadline for cover material is only two months away. As I review my forward progress over the past two months, I feel a bit panicky. Pressure mounts. Summer fun is in the offing. Avoidance behavior looms (not of the fun, of course, but of the writing). I’ve never before suffered from writer’s regret, but I think I’m experiencing the first symptoms.
Arcadia Press certainly seems to have a strict formula for you to adhere to and who would have thought that a historical series could have too much history. That is just plain odd. I hope that your contacts are busy in their attics looking for those pictures since the project seems to be image driven, rather than content.