I'm trying to learn how to make my own books. Does anyone know how or know a good website to learn from?

 

I had a go at it yesterday and my book came out ok. When I was done I realized I had done the cover wrong for the kind of book I was doing lol. My kids are making books for Yule gifts. They are having so much fun with it.  

When I was bit by the writing but I was watching some really depressing shows on PBS. That makes for some not to happy poems. lol. I did try to write one more positive sounding one. So here is a sampling for your reading pleasure or not. 

 

Sick 

I am sick 

I am broken

Drowning in a sea of disgust,

ravaged, raped, dieing polluted.

Torn open, ripped apart,

stabbed, slashed, bleeding.

I am sick.

I am broken.

How many tears to wash me clean? 

 

Great One 

 Beautiful shining one, warm embrace

Welcoming me home.

Plentiful mother, loving bounty

Sustaining me all my days

Ancient wise elder, fruitful knowledge

Guiding me one my path

 

I may be creating my own handmade book of poems. I don't really know who would buy a book of poems. It would be a limited edition since I would be doing everything myself by hand.  Has anyone made their own books? I'm a crafty person and thoughts of making things by hand always thrill me.  

 

 

I used to write a lot of poetry when I was a teen. Then I had kids and stopped doing anything. Last night I had the sudden urge to write some poems. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed doing it. Then with my brain running wild, I thought why not publish a book of poems. I would have to self publish most likely. Just as suddenly reality set in. I know nothing about publishing, or poetry. lol. I have never studied poetry(not that I find that important). I can't tell one kind of poem from another. I don't know what the rules are for writing certain kinds of poems. I just write stuff. Can you write something and call it a poem? What kinds of people ever buy books of poetry? Is there a market for pagan poems? How many poems does a small book of poetry need? The list of my questions goes on and on. I just remembered that the last blow my poetry took was on of the contests. I don't know that anyone has ever won but you have to pay for you poem to be published in the book. I felt it was a total scam. I can understand paying for copies of the book when it is published but not paying to get your work into the book. So what now?

Every year instead of being able to enjoy all the fun stuff going on. I get very annoyed with people and become a scrooge. I try not to. I'm not very successful at it. It starts with Thanksgiving. A holiday I don't celebrate but every one assumes that everybody celebrates it. And then before I have time to recover my calm, they start in with Christmas. By the time Yule gets here I'm so irritated I can hardly enjoy it and I'm the only pagan in my family so I have a hard time with everything. In my house we celebrate Yule. We read pagan/secular children's stories and exchange gifts after dinner. There are a lot more things we could be doing. I'm unsure as to how to work them in and everything. I feel so disconnected from every thing. I also feel that there is too much information about 'pagan' celebrations that contradict each other. After Yule we get to spend Christmas with our christian families. Santa still comes to our house on Christmas. I have been trying unsuccessfully to get this changed. Everything I come up with the kids just don't go for.

 

Question for those of you that have Santa, How do you explain Santa? What was he called before he was called Santa?

About the middle of December I want to start telling people that Jesus was born in the spring and that they are practicing cultural/religous thievery.

HELP!

I'm donating all of my jewelry and all of my commissions I get from TAC to a fundraiser for a local artist Carla Carnegie. So if you would like to help me out a bit you can buy my jewelry at www.jewelryinwire.com or www.jewelryinwire.etsy.com up until Dec. 7th. On the 8th everything that is left will be sold at an auction for her. If you buy before then I will donate the money from the sale to her. If you are a stamper or scrapbooker I will be donating all of my December commissions to her. To buy stamping and scraping stuff go to www.delisa.ismyangel.net, I earn 25% on all sales from there. Carla has cancer and we are raising money to help pay for her treatments and the cost of travel to her treatments. She is a painter and has lost her income since becoming ill. Thanks for your help, positive energy is also very needed!