Three Thousand Pages Want to Be Books (Part 1) – Mad Chaos: February 11, 1999

The Editorial Train Departs

The editorial train is departing, driving the emotions and poetical intellect of these last three years of my life. Yes, I do mean to say and inform all that I have once again tried to start off the publishing of my Diary here but as thus far, only for my eyes. Getting my Diary off the working blocks will take some time and money and roughly, if I want these past three years to be made into hard books then I will need around $1000 for the whole process, maybe less.

What I first have to do is get a printer and print out the whole of my Diary to date. Before I do print it out I should have gone through every single page to check the spelling with the spell checker. This will no doubt get rid of almost all the problems and I will spot some grammatical errors but the spelling checker won’t spot sentences I’ve either rushed or had written half asleep. Just reading through my Diary I spot these errors that make me think “What the hell am I trying to say there” and therefor, I re-write it.

Scouting Hardcover Prices

Tomorrow upon waking up earlier than usual I will head down to Campbelltown to hand in my form but I will be doing much more than that. One thing in the works is to go out and find prices of making up a book with a hard cover. My guess is that for around 1000 pages (Where they will be double sided) the cost will come out around $250, covered and all. Tomorrow I might also ring the printing shop up in North Sydney that I had used once beforehand for my CD printing, see what offers they have.

Apart from that I’ve made plans to head to Shawn’s house tomorrow so I can use his printer. The printer will not be used at all for my Diary but rather for all the Sonnets and poems I’ve published in my Diary through time. I’m getting so paranoid about my computer breaking down or there being a flood and me losing all the information over these past three years. When you consider that I’ve written over 3000 pages thus far, you too would be concerned.

Testing Text Sizes

Apart from getting my poem’s printed out I’m going to test some text sizes from this Diary to see how big the text of these pages will come out in print. If they are too big then I will have to make the font smaller but that will come at a cost. Making my font smaller will make useless of my indications about what page I am on. Making the text smaller will also grant me much less pages to print on but that is the price I will have to pay. Maybe I’ll start with a smaller text with the months succeeding that finding.

A Database for My Own Pages

Already I’ve created a new database that keeps track of how much pages I write per month to date, how much the drafting is going to cost me and how much the final books are going to take out of my pocket. Tonight I wanted to lend Tatton’s printer so I could do it in privacy but he informed me that his printer’s ink had run out. That could have just been a ploy so that he doesn’t have to lend me his printer because Shawn offered him his ink cartridge but Tatton insisted they weren’t compatible.

Gridiron at Keith's Place

The both of them were over Keith’s house playing gridiron on Playstation. Later tonight (Which should be around now) they were headed to the movies and Shawn said that they would drop over my house to see what they could do to help me, they still haven’t shown up. Although they might not come over today I will be seeing Shawn tomorrow when I pop over his house.

Pages Per Month Then and Now

Today for at least an hour I spent including the amounts of pages per month through the years of my Diary. Back in the day with the dawning of the computerized Diary I realize now that I only wrote around 40 pages per month. Slowly it built up until it started to boom in 1998.

These days 40 pages a month seems obsolete to my liking and I would think something was amiss if my pages strayed below 250 pages a month. That might sound a bit too much but to me, ten or so pages a day is a breeze in the park these days and even for a boring day, that would justify enough detail to satisfy my needs.

Arrogance Looking Back

Another thing while looking back in retrospect of my Diary is the degree to which I was arrogant all through my life. This especially showed in my times with Lyssa but breezing through my time with Jewell back in 1997 I realized an important detail. Once I remembered that Jewell told me “You’re an all or nothing kind of guy” and I always thought part of that to be true.

Looking back at the time Jewell and I broke up and what happened after that, I was arrogant and too proud of myself to be conventionally hurt. Thus, I didn’t want a friendship from Jewell as I stated and as nothing was running in my favor, I thought Jewell and I not talking ever again was best. Thus, I got my last rites of the relationship and thus we stopped talking, to say the least, cold turkey.

Well, we started talking to each other but the second time that I wasn’t seeing eye to eye with Jewell I gave her the same treatment. September 16th 1998 was the last day I ever spoke to Jewell, once again an arrogance that begged for the “all or nothing” approach. Lucky that wasn’t to be with Lyssa and I because if that had happened, I wouldn’t have any female to talk to right now.

A Missing Music Book

Before I start speaking of my day let me just note that someone stole my Music Directory Book I got from Newtown that day long ago. It should be under one of my chairs but it seems to have gone astray. The only two people I think could have had any interest in that book is either Ralf or Shawn and if I had to put the pin on one of them I would say Shawn would be more prone to steal but Ralf would have more use for it, intriguing…

Sleepy Phone Calls With Lyssa

To begin my day let me just note that I went to sleep around 7:00 a.m. last night so that’s no great victory there. Nevertheless, at 2:30 p.m. I received a call and it was from Lyssa. Still groggy in my sleep I found out that Lyssa got home early from a day at College, she’s there on Thursday and Friday this week only.

Lyssa informed me that she was bored and we talked for about fifteen minutes about Penelope who will be starting at her work on Wednesday. Our conversation lasted until Lyssa let me get back to sleep because she wanted to do some stuff. That didn’t worry me the slightest as I thought I was going to wake up but ended up getting back to sleep.

Reaching 4:30 p.m. once again I jumped out of bed and thinking that I never got to see the sun that often or that I never got to breathe fresh air outdoors I decided to head out to the backyard. Just under half an hour I spent out there bathing in the sun and ignoring the solitude that came from within this room. For once and barely for the only time in the whole day, I felt at one with nature and with his breath did I breathe.

Coming back inside I had myself something to eat and then at around 6:00 p.m. I decided to call Lyssa back. This time Lyssa and I didn’t talk for as long because she informed me that she might be going out to Macarthur Square with Kieran to help pick out a present for DJ’s Valentine’s day. Lyssa informed me how Kieran was over DJ’s house last night and once again he slept over there.

On top of that, last night was when DJ and Kieran finally kissed but he was so scared that it was only a peck when he left in the morning. “You can tell that Kiley’s upset” Lyssa told me, “Everyone keeps saying that DJ’s heaps better than Kiley” and I knew to believe that philosophy. However, our conversation ended soon as Lyssa had to get ready so with that I let her go.

Ralf Gets a Surprise Call

From my conversation with Lyssa I sought to give Ralf a call a fair few hours later than we agreed on but he had other plans anyway. Ralf wasn’t up for Macarthur Square anymore as he a girl that we all knew a long time ago gave him a call out of the blue to see him. She was the one that used to hang out with Linda and Phoenix (The older one that we met at Woodbine Macdonald’s) and he was going over to see her.

I kept informing him that she was only ringing for a booty call despite saying she inviting him over because it’s been a long time but we all know she’s just getting desperate with men. Ralf informed me that he was just friends with her and that was all it was but we both derived as much amusement from the situation as we could.