The Beginning

Current title page to my book

Do it yourself. That's a scary thing to hear. Especially when all you've been taught is to follow someone else's directions. But despite all of this, I am excited to embark on this adventure!

I have decided to compile a book full of short stories about special moments in high school. I will have people submit me stories kind of like the popular series Chicken Soup for the Soul. I wanted to take that idea and apply it to the probably the most vulnerable four years of our lives: high school.

We are supposed to spread this project out for 3 months, but when I get excited about a project, I tend to go full force until it's done. I have been trying to tone myself down but I have already gone speeding off.

What I've done so far:
I have created a lulu.com account to self publish my book into an actual hard cover copy and I am quite surprised at how little it's going to cost me, $13.90 for a 6X9 80 page hardcover book. I have created a survey on surveymonkey.com to receive short story submissions. This is the link to that: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JMLBKV2
I have also started formatting my book on Microsoft Word and written my introduction for my book. However, that intro is bound to change through the course of this project. I've even designed a sort of a working cover. I am a monster! I must stop before I finish this project in a month. That is why I have refrained from contacting people to send me stories because I can't do much else unless I have stories to edit.

I had a really hard time naming my title. It's working title was just The Project but it has jumped at least 5 times since then. Some ideas were Woolgathering, From High School with Love, Jumbled, Hodgepodge, Serendipity, The High School Diaries, and Freedom, Books, Flowers, and the Moon. I finally settled on Eat, Learn, and Be Merry. Hopefully that will stick. I think it's cute and simple. It describes what I hope the stories will show. That all we need are to eat, learn, and be merry to be successful in high school.

Formatting my book on Microsoft Word was challenging as well. Getting  my page numbers right were a pain! But with the help of the magnificent Youtube and Google, I have figured it out. I think I am being quite the self-directed learner, no?

Future Plans:
Now that I have the basics planned, I need to get submissions! I will enlist the help of my friends to get the word out and use the social media to get the survey out. I don't want to keep it just locally though, I want to expand to the rest of America. I plan  to reach out to teachers in different states to get them to give my information to their students as well. Hopefully I can get enough submissions to make a substantial book.