Book update: Working on the design

I feel like I am just starting to get to know the book, getting into it at a level where working on it is a sort of listening and it reveals directions that I wouldn’t have hit upon by intellectualizing.

Hard to describe, it is a recognition, a welcoming and affinity.

And it is delicate and needs time to unfold. 

 

As more of the parts become clear, they start influencing the whole picture, which again influences how the parts relate. The whole entity is morphing and bubbling like a magic cauldron from day to day. 

 

 I’ve finally done a mini mini paste up like a story board which I can gleefully change without having heart failure every time the right and left hand pages shift yet again!

 

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My book

Good old paper and scissors work

I’ve been so busy designing my new book, that I’ve not had time to announce it here.  It will be published, all being well, this year.

Friends had been encouraging me to write a book compiling my experience and methods in working creatively with people with dementia. They felt it would be a great aid to caregivers and family members. After several years of false starts, I finally found the right tone and wrote it over an 18 month period from 2008-2009.  I was lucky to also find a publisher very quickly, and one that agreed to let me design and illustrate it myself.

The book is a practical guide to designing activities for people in all stages of dementia, but it is also a creativity manual  for caregivers. It is called ‘Chocolate Rain, 100 ideas for a creative approach to activities in dementia care’.

The deadline is pretty tight as we hope to launch it at a large dementia congress in England in November. Today I got up from  the computer and went upstairs to my studio to cut and paste. I felt like I could get a better idea of the whole if I could see the spreads in front of me. I actually cut the little sketches of each spread out and glued them with non-permanent glue to another sheet. That way I can keep up with the design changes without constantly renumbering.

I may check back here regularly, but the pressure to get everything done is already pretty intense, so I’m not going to add one more ‘to do’ on an already long list.   I had hoped to make a blog page just for the book, it may happen.

Lucie helping