Today is a great day for mail, especially zines! I got this huuuge pack from Emma over at We Make Zines. I am a very happy girl, and will be busy reading these for some time. I'm about to make a cuppa and sit down and read a few. It's dark out and really windy, so this is a lovely thing to do on a blustery November evening. There are even a few by Josie Long, who I really like. I especially like listening to her 6music radio show on a saturday morning. 

After getting all of these zines in the post, I decided they, and my existing collection, needed a new home, rather than my bedside drawer. I covered an old cardboard box in paper and decorated it a bit, and tahdaaa! A box for all my zines. Geek. 

zines zines zines.

today i sent 4 letters/zines and ordered a box of 40ish zines. i'm a very happy girl & may be very busy for the next few weeks.

my nose is cold. cuppa tea and a bath tonight, then snuggle up in bed and possibly watch 'beauty and the beast'.
seeing the lovely eggs in birmingham tomorrow night, eeeeh :D

I'm full of cold and headachey, but happy.
I have sent out a bunch of zines to people, and have had a few give me some feedback. Overall, everyone has been very positive about Elderflower Tea, they liked the content, the layouts, and didn't mind that it was a bit rough. I'm really happy with this, and it has made me feel confident that I can produce another issue soon.

I had another issue of Not Lonely come yesterday, with a letter and stickers from the lovely Hannah. It made me smile so much, and it is refreshing to get fun mail again, instead of bank statements etc. I've been having loads of fun writing letters to people to send out with my zine. I forgot how great penpalling is!

I want to write a couple of zine reviews soon, but I'll do this when I don't feel like my eyes will pop out of my head.

Today I made 20 copies of my first zine. I thought I'd be happy, excited, all good things. I am disheartened. I've made some rookie mistakes, and feel I should now send out a disclaimer alongside my zine.
I'm being hard on myself. I'm my own worst critic. I have this belittling voice inside my head, repeating 'WHY DID YOU THINK YOU COULD MAKE A ZINE? YOU ARE AN IDIOT'.

To list the problems-
After copying, cutting, stapling, I realised some bits have been cut off. It is nothing major, but I'm still pissed at myself. I didn't leave enough margin space.

Typos. I knew there were a few, I did try typing the pages again, over and over, but still kept making mistakes because I'm not that great at using my typewriter yet. I've already made a small apology about this in the intro to the zine, and hope people will overlook it for now.

Page numbers have been cut off, meaning I have to write them back on by hand.

Around 50% of the covers came out darker, on these particular covers the text is barely readable, so I have had to write the title of the zine on these ones.

I think that is probably about it. I feel like overall, it looks a bit messy. Maybe this should be expected from a debut? I feel like I shouldn't send it out, but I did work hard on it, I've fallen at the last hurdle. Maybe a disclaimer with the zine, and the hope I will learn from my mistakes in the issues to follow, will be enough?

 

FINISHED!
Actually really, really DONE!

Next stop - public photocopier tomorrow, then I can finally get it sent out to people. It is no where near perfect, there are typos, many of them. It got to a point where I couldn't keep re-typing everything, I'd never get it finished. There are some pages which are extremely busy, it is all cut+paste, and I hope I have left enough plain border. Either way, when it comes out of that copy machine tomorrow, I will be super happy.

The finish line is almost in sight.
I had a few pages left, and began to worry I had no more ideas. I didn't want the last few pages to seem like they were crammed with thoughtless fillers.

I did a lot of socialising this weekend, and began to think about friendship. This turned into a conversation with my partner, and I decided to write about forming friendships in the last few pages. I have tried to make this topic insightful - sharing my own experiences and anxiety when it comes to speaking to people and making friends. I'm hoping to bang this out on my typewriter tomorrow, and then it is finished. Hopefully I can get to the library on Wednesday to make my copies.

The very final part is my introduction. I'm not sure what to write here. I know I should essentially introduce myself and my zine. . . but where to start? I'm not even sure what category of zine it falls under. I think perhaps Perzine, however it does not contain intimate details of my life - It is more a narrative of my own thoughts, which are often idyllic and vague...

I did a bit of collaging over the weekend. I attended a 48Sheet event, which was a social collaging type shindig, and then an arts party which had a 'Bring dead pop stars back to life' collaging area set up. This consisted of print outs of dead pop stars, and sparkles, sequins, felt pens and glue to decorate them.
Anyways, this encouraged me to do a little collage of the looovely Miranda July in my zine, which goes alongside a little bit of writing I did about her.

003.

Just a quick update.
My ribbon came. I got inky fingers, but got everything working smoothly. Now I'm trying not to bang the keys so hard on my laptop.

There is something romantic about my setting tonight. I'm sitting on my bedroom floor, listening to the delightful sounds of Jonsi & Alex, drinking green tea, banging away on my typewriter. It is dark outside, and I am surrounded by zine making things.

Good vibes.

What are you doing?

UPDATE:
So, it is around 6 hours since I started putting together my text. I've now typed everything I had ready, and have assembled 8 pages! I am really please with it so far, but now a little worried as I have 8 pages to go and very few ideas to fill the rest of the zine.

I'm going to sit in bed and look at a few zines I have, hope for inspiration to hit me, or at least to wake up tomorrow with something more to write about.

Goodnight.

I have Royal Mail blues. I get it a lot.
I was hoping the ribbon for my typewriter would arrive today, So I could finally type out my pieces and start putting things together. I had the day off, what a better way to spend it? Well, no. No ribbon for me today. It's okay really. Maybe tomorrow?

Instead I put together a few pages, decorated them and such, ready for the text to be put on. This was fun, but I don't want to make anything permanent until the text is really to be glued on. Le sigh. I ended up doing some washing, and watching a few episodes of Daria, and drinking a lot of tea.

Oh happy subjects, I had a couple of replies from my pen pal request on We Make Zines. I'm looking forward to putting some fun packages together for these people, and writing silly things.

I have been thinking of how I will get my zine printed. I've managed to keep it on 1 A3 sheet, double sided, 16 pages in total. This should be straight forward to copy, and I've been thinking of using the public photocopier at the local library. I had thought of using Footprint in Leeds, but I don't think I can afford to use professional printers right now, plus I kind of want to physically put the pages together myself, rather than having someone else do it. I've thought of doing a run of 15/20 copies for now, and keeping a master copy on standby in case I need more.

Those are all my thoughts today.

001.

Wow.

This weekend my typewriter came, ready for zine making! I'm just waiting for a new ribbon. It is very beautiful, a 1960's Smith Corona Empire De Luxe. I like the DING! noise it makes. I haven't given it a name yet, and I'm wondering whether to put a sticker or 2 on it. Details.

I also got some writing sets and stickers, for zine/mailing purposes. I got really excited over going to Paper Chase. 

Today I managed to put together the front cover of Elderflower Tea. I had intended to do this after the zine/content itself was complete - but waiting for the ribbon has made me delay putting anything together, and I really wanted to just start SOMETHING, so I did the front cover. I don't want to get ahead of myself yet, but I really love it. I don't think I would have wanted to do it any other way. I have a good feeling when I look at it, and hope that this zine will come to life, unlike my previous 2 failed attempts.

Maybe I shall upload a preview picture later.