Formatting the Table of Contents for ‘We Meet in Dreams”

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figaro
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Formatting the Table of Contents for ‘We Meet in Dreams”

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Formatting the Table of Contents for ‘We Meet in Dreams”: A Mystic’s Journal Entries: April 22 - May 9, 2010

Thursday, April 22

This past week Diana and I have been pondering the Table of Contents - well she has been pondering and I have been sending corrections. This fourth book, We Meet in Dreams, was just beastly to organize. Easy to write, and that went very quickly - but how to put the book together, the overall form, was from the beginning the big question and challenge.

Then I handed the final written heap to Diana, for her to somehow put into a Table of Contents. So we both have been struggling to define sections and subsections and sub-sub sections, chapters ... On top of that Diana had to make it all look beautiful. Some task.

Tonight Diana sent me all six pages of the Table of Contents (affectionately now dubbed the TOC in our e-mails to each other) for further correction. She wrote:

“ I've spent the evening checking, double-checking and triple-checking (and correcting) the formatting of the TOCs, which as you can see is fairly complex... lots of specific spacing and several type styles to represent the different categories of the book: sections, sub-sections, chapters, etc.

So it seems pretty close. I myself haven't yet printed these up, which will tell me a lot after I see them. Tomorrow I'll do that. Ignore all other pages of the TOC received before this one. These are ALL six pages (attached).”

And I must say that on first glance I am very pleased. Possibly there are still mistakes, Diana is not working from the manuscript - I have not sent it to her yet - so it has been especially confusing to format the TOC without her being able to refer to the text. I have sent her numerous corrections and suggestions: at times she thought chapters were sections, other times she thought one story was two stories, etc. None the less, here it is, in finished form, fairly corrected - and very creatively done. Unlike the other two books, she has reversed the Table of Contents, lined it up center instead of left edge. In all, masterfully formatted and a most refreshing look.

Next we plan to return to the Visits With Angels volume, and finish formatting the manuscript, get it ready for printing. Truthfully neither one of us is looking forward to that work; after leaving it again for so long undoubtedly neither of us will remember where we are in the manuscript - or where we were going.

Monday, April 26

Several E-mails from Diana: formatted chapters, the Introduction and Preface. She apologized for her recent footnote confusion and asked for clarification. Her exact words were:

“Honestly -I'm afraid I've massacred the footnote placement. I see that I have TWO footnotes #5, for instance.” I was tempted to write back, “I have been tempted to massacre a few footnotes myself”, but refrained. Instead I wrote her back and said I fully understood her confusion, I experience enough of it myself. Footnotes seem a special nightmare, no matter what volume we are doing. (Sometimes it does seem as though footnotes live in a lower realm and that is why they are at the bottom of pages.) In any case my printer isn’t working so clarification will have to wait until M. prints those pages up at work and brings them home.

Diana seems intent on plunging ahead with We Meet In Dreams at the moment, instead of returning to Visits With Angels. She asked that I send her the manuscript of the Dreams volume, section by section - and so I will. I hesitate to interfere when Diana is set in a direction; sometimes we just have to follow the wind - or risk coming to a standstill.


Saturday, May 1

Just a beautiful spring - flowers everywhere. Trees unfurled seemingly overnight. The waterfalls down the street powerful and singing from all the recent rain. I am spending all the time outside I possibly can right now, before the heat, before the yellow jackets emerge.

Our printer was not fixable; ordered a new one and it should arrive within a week. Then I will have to call Gabe to hook it up etc. Meanwhile work on the books has crunched to a halt. Today I reviewed some of Diana’s most recent e-mails. Her e-mail subject lines were most interesting and more or less tell the entire story:

“Quotes or no Quotes, That Is the Question; A Solution to the Quotes Dilemma; Table of Contents I and II; Please Send Dedication Page; Glitch Font on Dedication Page; Table of Contents; Sub-Chapter Titles?; Mystery Solved re Sub-Chapter Titles; TOC Hierarchy; more TOC Hierarchy; still more TOC Hierarchy; Confusion Still Reigns; TOC pages 1-4; TOC all of it; re: Corrections TOC; TOC Version II; Section I Chapters Formatted; Footnote Confusion; The Sad Tale of Footnote Confusion; TOC Final Version.”

Unknown to Diana there are new corrections to the final version of the Table of Contents ...

Sunday, May 9

After some very hot days and some very comfortable days - this morning it snowed. Flats of colorful impatiens and lobelias for in town - and one of chives and swiss chard for the Windgarth gardens - are all waiting patiently out of necessity in our kitchen. A kitchen garden, and the cats are immensely pleased. Wrote Diana last night and we agreed that we will return to the Angels volume and work to the end before taking up the Dreams volume again. Her teaching at the Art Institute has cleared up and so soon we can begin again - although neither one of us can remember where we are in the Angels volume ... I decided to put off sending her corrections to the Dreams book Table of Contents as not to distract her.
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