399. "CHESS: Poetry of Human-Environmental Change," Vic's First Book of Poetry Currently in Peer-Review

A tangible product of winter quarter, finally manifested! "CHESS: Poetry of Human-Environmental Change." After being filtered by the mind of Barry Spacks, I feel confident enough to present to the world a suite of poems which essentially serves as an "outline" to a longer piece I must inevitably write.
Above is a widget that serves as a "Mini Storefront" to my Lulu identity on http://lulu.com/questionreality. Below is a little "buy it now" doohickie from Lulu. I guess the essence of this entire blog and this form of self-publishing is the do-it-yourself mentality. You don't need to be endorsed by a mass-production corporation such as Penguin in order to create and distribute great writing... not to say that my writing is great at all... a bit of an overstatement, I should say.

Below is a profile that I placed on Lulu to summarize the book. It's just a sketch. I am assuming that this will be the "first version" of CHESS. The second version will (1) be peer-reviewed... errr... legitimatized by several individuals who already received stamps of approval on their forehead, and (2) also include a few more poems... perhaps... that I wasn't able to include in this round because I am buried in my own mismanaged file systems and pressed for time.

“Stokastika!” Victoria Minnich, a Ph.D. student in environmental science and management/ environmental media at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is a chronic seeker of order from chaos. A bold and daring exploration of scale and metaphor through the unconstrained means of poetry, Victoria asks timely questions, and in the process, surges an influx of grand themes of environmental philosophy and artful scientific dialect into the realm of literature and the humanities. CHESS is a debut collection of poetry.

It is difficult to write my own abstract, because I have to be in a mode of "self-glorification... within relative moderation." I don't want to toot my own horn, but the marketing system requires me to do so.

"CHESS: Poetry of Human-Environmental Change" Hugging / Formatting / Sandwiching a Manuscript to Make a Book. Writing and hugging a manuscript requires a lot of patience and precision, which required a "time out from life," or experiencing the world. I actually hid for a few days in Buellton, California (Pea Soup Heaven!) in order to work on the detailed nuance of editing the poems and formatting the book... which includes a book cover (front, back, spine), title page cover, copyright page, devotions, table of contents, introduction, parceling up poetry into chapters (I have seven chapters, I think!), and some form of conclusion page, adding page numbers, formatting with pdf (that was a battle!), and a few other residual items on the list I don't have on the top of my head...

Above is a collection of images involved in the formation of the logo / symbolic illustration for CHESS, entitled "Oak Tree Mind / Emerging Transcendence." Still not sure which title should be used, but I write down both to capture the attention of the search engines. I showed the illustration to my friend, Shannon, and she really liked it.... It can potentially be used within the literary magazine!

Below is a list of links of major documents available for FREE to paruse through:

CHESS Sample that Lulu requires for authors to make as a "preview" for the book: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/1CHESSsample2smaller.pdf

CHESS Interior Title Page: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/2CHESStitlepage1.pdf

CHESS Copyright Page (without a Library of Congress Number, and Presently without an ISBN Number, will need more feedback before I will invest $100 on a barcode): http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/3CHESScopyrightpage1.pdf

CHESS Table of Contents: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/4CHESStableofcontents.pdf

CHESS Final Page in the Back: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/5CHESSfinalpage1.pdf

"CHESS: Poetry of Human-Environmental Change" the COMPLETE BOOK: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/6CHESSebook2smaller.pdf

CHESS Storefront from Lulu: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/7CHESSpoetrystorefront1smaller.pdf

Question Reality / Stokastika Storefront with CHESS on the Top, from Lulu: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/8QuestionRealityLuluStorefront1small.pdf

This is not an all-inclusive blog. What I would like to summarize in a future blog is (1) What is CHESS all about? Where do all the ideas come from? What is the context? (2) Where am I heading next in the world of poetry? and (3) Some fundamental Life Principles that I learned from Barry Spacks' course... and any other miscellaneous ideas....

251. Guide to "How to Sandwich a Manuscript" or "How to Self-Publish a Book on Lulu.com"

Above is the first three pages on a guide to self-publishing on Lulu that I have worked very hard on the last couple of weeks. The pdf format for the entire guide is below:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/chemlabhowtosandwichmanuscriptlulu.pdf

I included the Summary of the document below (so that it can be searchable on the web).

Chemistry Lab for “Sandwiching” a Manuscript through Lulu (http://www.lulu.com/) (a.k.a. Formatting a Book for Self-publishing), Version 1.0

Summary: This short essay documents Victoria’s sketch nut-and-bolts experience of publishing her manuscript, Question Reality: An Investigation of Self-Humans-Environment through Lulu.com (which can be viewed at http://www.lulu.com/questionreality). Though not all logistical details are included, this essay is a great read in terms of grasping an understanding of the holistic “workflow” process of self-publishing a book, including of preparing your mind for a few, minor logistical snags along the way. This document can best help Lulu affiliates in two possible ways: (1) the need to create a more universal “check box” To Do List workflow sheet for potential Lulu customers, and (2) provide advice and a compilation of primary documents to guide publishers through the “snags” of Lulu self-publishing that are not overtly mentioned or discussed on major Lulu website pages.

In successive blogs, I have included samples from my Question Reality manuscript that illustrate certain stages of the book-publishing process (for example, a sample of a "Copyright Page").

I also included the seven crucial documents below (that are also found on the web) that I refer to in the above protocol because they include information on the areas in the book publishing work-flow process where I experienced difficulties. These documents, as well as the help of the Lulu staff, helped me overcome these snags:

Lulu's Guide "Mandatory Requirements for Distribution:" http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/1.mandatoryREQSfordistribution.pdf

Lulu's Barcode Specifications: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/2.lulubarcodespecs.bmp

Free Barcode Generator for ISBN Barcodes: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/3.freebarcodegeneratorLULUrec.pdf

How to Create a PDF File to Lulu Specifications Using Windows/Acrobat 6-8 (How to Embed Fonts): http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/4.howtoEMBEDFONTSyaquinpress.pdf

How to Create a PDF File to Lulu Specifications Specifically for Windows XP: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/5.howmakePDFwinXPhomeYaquinnaPress.pdf

How to Create a PDF File to Lulu Specifications, Lulu's Brief Guide: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/6.howPDFprintcorrectly.pdf

What is Adobe Acrobat Color Management--How to Print the Document from Color to Black-and-White: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/7.ColorManagement101GammaGray.pdf

Low and behold, technology changes so fast that perhaps even these protocols will become obsolete soon enough (hence, this Book Chemlab is "Version 1.0"). I have a hard time keeping up with changes in technology, let alone keeping up with emails. Communication technology and the internet have added a dimension of clutter in my life that has left me supersaturated. My life rendered close to unmanageable for myself. I was a pretty happy kid before I had the internet. Every idea I encountered had much meaning and I had an opportunity to think about it. Now, I am barely holding to keeping my ideas together. Ideas fly by so fast from all sources and directions that communication has lost meaning--I am just another plasma pinball in America. How can I complain? We are all suffering the same thing.

Then at the same time, technological shifts can be a blessing as well as a curse. Technology is now placed in the hands of the people! Thanks to the internet and Lulu.com, I have the ability to self-publish at a very affordable price! Maybe I should just try to take advantage and build upon the blessinsgs, and try to tune out as much as possible the curses. Though, it's very hard. :-)