Your Book

The I-Don't-Have-To Book

When my daughter was in grammar school she would come home with assignments and instructions with accompanying looks of panic on her face. "Dad, the teacher says it has to be done tomorrow."

"Julie" I would assure her. "I think we can work it out but it doesn't 'have to' get done - at all. It'll just make your teacher happy. You don't really have to do anything."

Now, at the ripe old age of 30, and with three messengers bringing "have-to's" home from their schools, my daughter paraphrases my old saying: If you don't have to do anything, then you can do most anything that you set your mind to. Certainly something I have experimented with even if I didn't preach it.

FALL IN!

In my attempts at publishing short stories I found a lot of format restrictions: margin size, line spacing, no handwritten manuscripts, please. With word processors these are called "features" and, while you can adjust some things, a lot is done for you.

All of our lives we have been shown how to format pages, structure books, fill out forms, stand in lines. Dress-right, dress; this side up; no outside food or drink; no drink or food outside; no sniveling; form one line. Stop.

Even in something as private and, one would suppose, not restrictive, as a diary, one finds dates and limited space to write in and relentlessly counting off the time so that when you "finish" a five-year diary you are automatically five years older. You can stack them in a corner and watch your life passing in nice, even chunks.

So here I present guidelines to something over which you have a bit more control. Go to a stationery or book or gift store and search thru the blank books until you find one that feels like it will do for you. Buy it. Take it home.

I feel it's time for a free-form book. It’s time you did it your way. This will be your book, it will have:

No distinguishable back or front
No page numbers (unless you add them)
No special area set aside for any one thing (table of contents, introduction, etc., ad infinitum, et al.)
In short, NO limits on how you fill in your book.

NOTES FOR COMPUTER PEOPLE

a 100% WYSIWYG system
fully upward & downward compatible
look and feel of the real thing
extremely user friendly
no hardware requirements
true hands-on format
real-res: you write it, you read it
infinite control over font, size and color

Caution, block moves and typeovers are not allowed and we can only offer hardcopy clipart. You may want to go back a few years and recall the time when what you wrote was it. And if you are like me, it may take a while to get used to handwriting again: mine is so bad I have to print everything or (gulp!) use my computer.

LABELING YOUR BOOK

If you want to label your book you will. In some way unique and personal.

FUTURE WORK

We are quite excited about getting this major work into your hands. We are currently working on "I Don't-Have-To Book II" and have been discussing the prospects of getting to Hollywood. I can see it now, "I Don't-Have-To: The Movie," with a cast of millions who have written their own parts.

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