Adventures in Noobland

[Robin Layne]

I thought I saw someone ask in this group to mention what ways they had foibled, but now I can't find it. First foible I can mention. But actual zining foibles... Maybe that's too strong a word, too specific. Adventures are better. So I just changed the title from Noob Foibles to Adventures in Noobland.
I started as part of a local writing group, and we put together a zine called Repeat Offenders. Those of us who showed up for the meeting got to paste up two pages apiece of our work. It's a good little zine, if I may say so myself, but I learned later that a zine ought to have a theme. I don't know how hard-and-fast that rule is, but our only theme was that we were all from the same class. I still have some of those zines left.
My first zine, A Character Sandwich, I made for myself was for a college class in writing, editing, and publishing. I decided to use Adobe InDesign because it was the only way I knew to make my work two-sided. My teacher didn't even know that the printer in class wouldn't do two-sided work. So after I'd worked so hard on a program I didn't own and wasn't used to and had to use in class, she had me take my flash drive to Kinko's and have them run off a test copy, and later a copy for her to make copies off of. We had to have a copy for each member of the class and for the teacher, and it was good to get a few extra. I was disappointed with how the pictures came out in these copies of a copy. I decided to do my next run directly at Kinko's.
Kinko's screwed up my order the first time around (I forget now how; it must have been that traumatic). I made them do it over again. They were cheerful about it, but it took a few days for the whole process and I had to do a lot of waiting around. And they trimmed them even though I hadn't asked them to, which cost more. They looked great, though. Cost me over $67 for 35 copies.
I just happened to call the Independent Publishing Resources Center one day to find out about the Portland Zine Symposium. As an afterthought, I asked them about upcoming classes. Found out they had beginners and advanced classes in InDesign. And members could use their InDesign program for free. I was overjoyed. I took the beginning class.
I went to the Zine Symposium last month and had a table for my two zines and my editing business cards. I had a blast, even though only one person actually bought a zine. I had less than a handful left of A Character Sandwich because I traded most of them away. I have a big stack of other people's zines to read.
I'm ready to correct the errors I found in my zine and print some more copies. Problem is, I've lost all my handouts and notes about InDesign! There will be someone who can help me at the IPRC tomorrow when I go in, but I think it's going to be hard! This is a program that takes years for people to master. I hope I find my papers before it's time to load my Word files of my next zine into the InDesign program!

What have your adventures and misadventures been?

[Sophie Bee!]

My friends and I always hang out at a bakery in a little village called St. Petes. We just draw there, write, do anything we want (we occupy 3 of the 5 tables there, though, hahah.) One day we were there and I was giving all my friends the new "Squidsights" I just printed off, and a stranger came up to me, and I was kind of embarassed cause she was like, really cool, and I was SO not as cool as her. She said, "What is that?" I said,"Oh, just some zines I drew and printed." And she freaked out and was like, "OHMYGOD YOURE SO GOOD AT DRAWLING OHGADS." And she bought four copies off me for her and her friends. My friends and I were so psyched.

[Robin Layne]

What's an ohgad? Did you drawl them or draw them? (I think that was a typo, and didn't notice it 'till I read it a second time. Forgive me--I always notice stuff like that.)

Sophie Mann said:

My friends and I always hang out at a bakery in a little village called St. Petes. We just draw there, write, do anything we want (we occupy 3 of the 5 tables there, though, hahah.) One day we were there and I was giving all my friends the new "Squidsights" I just printed off, and a stranger came up to me, and I was kind of embarassed cause she was like, really cool, and I was SO not as cool as her. She said, "What is that?" I said,"Oh, just some zines I drew and printed." And she freaked out and was like, "OHMYGOD YOURE SO GOOD AT DRAWLING OHGADS." And she bought four copies off me for her and her friends. My friends and I were so psyched.

[Elizabeth J. M. W.]

Cut n' Paste! ;)