I Was On Hiatus—August 25th, 2009

April 5, 2021

I was on hiatus. From blogging, that is. Be nice if I could say I was on a vacation somewhere lush, exotic, and primitive, without any media—except that I could never survive in such a place. Claustrophobia, induced by no information, would surely kill me.

It’s taking a dog’s age to uncorrupt the archive’s database so my past blog entries will again be available. But even without them, it’s now time to blog again about those things I do: freelance and design and make books.

The break was actually fine. I started out angry about it and then it became okay. Guess I did not feel like talking. Uh, writing. I mean, of course, blogging. I pretty quickly—comparatively—got back on Twitter.

But today I return to blogdom.

And before I say anything about book design or the freelance life, I thought I would mention something I’ve been noticing: the tabs of my browser that show what sites I am currently visiting. I first noticed the wide mix the other day, when it looked like this:

    * UK Parliament—Lords who have died since 1 January 2009

    * Win a MacBook Pro care of [some Internet business that wants designers to compete by designing an ad for them]—Okay for the winner, I guess, but (as always) a jerk job for the non-winners. NoSpec!

    * What are the worst conditions your design can handle?—Design billboards? Be prepared for the weather to affect your “babies”. Another reason to love making books, I say.

    * Jobless NYC woman sues college for $70K in tuition—Sounds like a tech school whose training didn’t result in instant high-paying employment. Question is an interesting one: Are such schools soulless exploiters of broken people dying for any edge in getting a good job or is the grad in question a mediocre prospect (at best) looking for a free ride?

    * 25 Classic Fonts That Will Last a Whole Design Career— I mean, I guess. But there’s always something more: another good, old one or something new and striking (currently I’m loving the look of Jos Buivenga’s Calluna. This is the next typeface family I’ll buy,

    * The World in 2030: Four scenarios for long-term planning and strategy—Interesting, but I grow impatient with people making a career out of selling air: the marketers of marketing and the people who will tell stories of what will be. At least when  I supported myself through college as a fortuneteller, I personalized my accounts of what was to come for the individual I was reading.

My workload remained steady throughout this “crisis” of mine. And new projects begin to take shape, suggesting that the rest of the year will be busy.

I hope all freelance publishing professionals share this rosy outlook.

I’m back.

* * *

I could very easily have written a piece like this today, having not had a website and blog for at least a year; until a month or two ago. Except, of course, the tabs on my browser would show different things—but things just as far-flung and different from each other as in my words above. I guess it’s true that things change and yet remain the same, too.

One unexpected thing is that during the year-plus of the pandemic, with having been lost and the economy taking hits, people have continued writing books and self-publishing. They’ve needed book designers, or A book designer. And so I’ve been as busy as ever, at times busier.

But I still hope we can be done with this pandemic. Get your vaccine as soon as you can. I’m needle-phobic and I have. (I actually get my second shot tomorrow.) I’ll again follow my cardiologist’s advice and have a cocktail—I’ll again make it a double scotch on the rocks—to loosen up and perhaps take away some of the sting of the shot. It worked for the first one.

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