My Baptism into Fonts (groan) #amwriting

Coco Chanel

So I have sent my lovely book off to be typeset and laid out by a pro, and have spent many weeks looking at the inside of books, none of which so far have had any kind of 'standard' layout as far as I can see - they do vary enormously.

But - getting the font right and the chapter headings of your book looking decent is essential. The font says so much about whether your book is literary or commercial, modern or old-fashioned. The chapter headings give a flavour of the type of book the reader can expect.

Illustrated Chapter Heading

If you are briefing a designer who is on the other side of the ocean and therefore not able to see your pointing finger, remember that a brief to produce something 'simple and classic' can be interpreted in several ways. Like telling Coco Chanel to wear something 'simple and classic' or telling the Queen to wear something 'simple and classic' - the results can be very different depending on who is interpreting them.

Drop capitals

Also bear in mind that designers like design - i.e. they might want to squeeze as many fancy ideas for fonts as possible - curlicued chapter-headings, drop-capitals, twiddly numbers, and the end result can be distracting rather than enhancing for the reader.

There are obviously different interpretations and so if you are leaving this to someone else, your brief must be clear and if possible you should give examples of interiors you have liked. I looked through hundreds of paperbacks of a similar feel and genre in my local charity shop. (It's ok, I did buy a few afterwards.)

From this I saw that too much illustration and design, and the book ends up looking like a children's or young adult novel. Too little and it looks like it has not been designed at all.

If you don't know what you want until you see it (that was me, I'm afraid) then this site has a selection of 50 templates ready for use along with the instructions about how to format your document in Word. Well worth a look even if you are asking a designer to format your book.

Glove stretchers - a helping hand

In my mother's era (which my daughter assures me was The Dark Ages), everyone wore gloves and carried a handbag that matched their shoes. I don't think I have any accessories that match, they are all a random collection of scarves and gloves, usually designed to keep out the cold, and mostly lacking in any recogniseable style.

The most popular colour for gloves in the early twentieth century was white, which supposedly went with anything, but must have been a nightmare to keep clean. To keep them from dust, they lived in special glove boxes. Often the glove boxes had a space in the lid for glove-stretchers.

So what is a glove stretcher?

The most hardwearing were kid and leather gloves, but these turned stiff and wrinkled after washing, so glove-stretchers were needed to bring them back to shape. This is what they looked like, a sort of clothes-peg affair that you could push into the fingers.

This picture of some Victorian gloves with their stretcher came from www.denhams.com, the auctioneers, and weirdly enough was right next to a 'lady's Pith Helmet.' (estimate £20) I have visions of an intrepid lady explorer wearing these gloves - but obviously it must have been somewhere where they didn't have OMO (see previous post) because they look quite grubby. Maybe she wrestled an alligator into a swamp or something.

I always fancied a pair of long evening gloves, but these needed to be powdered so they would be easier to get on and off.  For this you would use a glove powdering flask - a wooden container shaped like a pepperpot to hold talcum powder. I have often seen these at antique fairs without their lids, and thought they were some sort of odd little vase, but now I know what they are really for.

This picture below of these patterns for gloves to sew is from www.myhappy sewingplace.com, so if you are hot with fabric, super-crafty or want vintage patterns why not pop over there and check out this great site.

In my last post I talked about going OMO (ok indie, if you must *sighs*), and paying for the copy-editing I needed. I'm not wealthy enough to stretch to that again for the proofreading, so I have asked for a helping hand (get it?!) from an army of writer friends to proofread my book and catch all the typos and glitches. Because I am hyper about spelling and apostrophes in the wrong places, and I am seriously fanatical about typos, I have gathered a small army to nit pick over the text. All those keen writerly eyes must be able to spot the things I missed. (Anyone spot anything in here?) So I am hoping that in the proofreading stage at least, many eagle eyes are as good as one professional.

Oh, and by the way, don't be expecting me to be saying 'buy my book' any time soon, these things take time, and I want to enjoy it rather than rush it. And from what I hear from indie authors, saying 'buy my book' is a fatal error, instead you should be engaging people. Well, OK, I said my post on gloves would be riveting, and it clearly isn't that, but it could be construed as mildly engaging.

'Construed,' now there's a good word.

My next post will be on 1950's Libraries - when librarians really did wear spectacles and ask you to keep quiet because 'other people are reading'.