The authors of Sixteen After Ten were taken on a bus journey around Dublin on a windy winter morning. As usual, no one was missing, and the atmosphere was that of a school trip. Here they are, waiting for the bus to arrive, struggling to wake up!

The Long Room

The other day Ruth and I went to the Long Room (where the launch for Sixteen After Ten will be) for a walk through with Trinity's Communications Director. Charlie came as our official blogger, but you're not supposed to take pictures in there. He was able to get one illicit shot before he was captured and dragged off by the Gardai. Thanks Charlie!

The Waiting Game

Earlier this week, the final text went to the typesetter for, well, typesetting. This is a good, big thing, meaning that for once, it's thankfully not in our control and we can just wait until they do their job. We'll get proofs back, and after making sure those are correct, the big run (1,000 copies) will start getting printed and bound. Unveiling of the cover is just around the corner, so stay tuned.

I've been instructed specifically not to mention this, but I of course can't contain myself. There will be a mystery guest of honor at the launch, which for some reason must not be revealed at this point, but people in the know will be quite impressed by the stature of this person, who hopefully will be able to add a few words during the launching gala. Excitement can commence.

Superday

Yesterday (Thursday, 28 Feb 2008) can go down in the books as one of the great teamwork efforts of the modern era. The whole gang met up in the Oscar Wilde Centre for a serious, honest-to-goodness, last-ditch session of Final editing. The stories are done like T-bone steaks, the final ordering of pieces is decided, and within a couple days the work will be off to the designer/layout/printing stages of the operation (out of our hands!). We all put in some serious labour (as you can see evidenced by me in the last picture...a 9-letter word for young lad...STRIPLING) and we had a hell of a time just hanging out and finding camaraderie in G.H.W. (good, hard work). Yay us.

A horse designed by committee

Big 'decision' day here at the Oscar Wilde Centre. Making choices on book design, which editors' changes to take into account, who to argue with, etc. A good day, but a trying day. We are a pretty amenable group, usually coming to some sort of an agreement on all the decisions, and this theme held true this afternoon. We basically have our cover design chosen, and we are entering the absolute, positive, 110% final round of editing changes (remember how I said we were done before? WRONG!) Hopefully by the end of next week, we'll be sending the final copies to the design/printer to put the finished product together.

Here's what we look like when we're making decisions at night, having civilized debate on whether the sub-sub-title of the book should be italicized, SMALL CAPS, or erased altogether.

Our Official Home..

The real deal website (none of this running commentary nonsense) is up and (somewhat) operational. Check back to it for official details and prestigious presentation. Check back here for, well, running commentary nonsense.


http://www.tcd.ie/OWC/sixteenafterten



ready yourselves...

Shameless

So we've gotten together a (mostly) finished proof/reader copy of the book. Thanks to me, it was highly imperfect in regards to spacing, pagination, line length, and the like, but what's done is done right? Emily had a few copies bound and send out to potential folks who could offer some kind words for use on the cover of our book, or puffs as they're known in the industry (new knowledge to me, but what of this process isn't?).

There's something of this whole process that smacks of humiliation, but I don't imagine that's unique to this book, but more a simple and true part of putting out a stack of paper which basically just contains your opinions of the world and asking people to care what you've said and how you've said it. At a certain point, you've got to accept the inherent humility, as we are now, and ask people to graciously give their names and praise to our good cause of art.

So we're in a bit of stasis right now waiting for response from the 'names' who'll possibly be heaping praise upon us, but after the good word arrives, the steps towards completion (layout, design, printing) should really be off and running. Sit tight, everyone.