Quite the intermediate station
How “Mendel’s Greenhouses” grew — part#5 (end)
Part #1 Head-to-tail and with a blank cheque
Part#2 A nice little project ‘on the side’
Part #3 Visible — with or without a shell
Part#4 Double lenses, double pens
So our two main characters told the story together, just like we were making the book together. And it worked out beautifully.
After the Sweden residency Jurgen and I developed, even more than we did before, a constant and open line of communication. Images and texts had gone back and forth in high frequencies before that, for the Saplings, for instance. Now there was a lot of extra material in the category ‘for Mendel’. At times we would be brainstorming digitally, sending the other everything we had been thinking of, thoughts, concepts or photographs of objects that had caught our attention.
Naturally, this wasn’t all we were working on. STREAM, the Saplings, the annyal Antwerp book fair, other projects both about and not about books, teaching, editorial work, family life… It was all there, too, weaving itself in the mix. But that was perfectly fine. The line was open and it stayed open, we simply didn’t put the proverbial receiver on the hook anymore.
At times, when the writing was going well and Jurgen was drawing at the same time, this digital freeway almost made it feel like we were back in Sweden together, even if half of Flanders geographically seperated us: sharing our end of the process with the other, in real time, feeling that what you had created was resonating and being understood without needing a lot of explanation. Feeling the words and the images do their connecting magic. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing I love more.
We had decided to entrust Mendel’s Greenhouses to Van Halewyck Publishing, as we felt that their vision of this book matched ours both on story and style. We had had two constructive meetings with the publisher before going to Sweden, and in the months that followed, we really felt we had landed at a table where the silver spoons were plenty. Not only did all contractual and financial agreements work out swiftly and correctly, on an artistic level as well mutual trust was key.
My completed text hit the mark, I didn’t need to go into any adapting, and hardly any editing. Jurgen’s proposal for the interior design was also greeted with enthusiasm. We had the freedom to pull out all the stops: unusual size, hardcover, full color print from the first page to the last, altogether nearly 150 pages. A fully illustrated children’s novel…
Anyone working in the publishing business, knows how exhausting corrections and last-minute changes can be. Developing the look and lay-out took a long time, especially since Jurgen had decided to work with an exuberant amount of visual detail. On every single page there is something to see that links back to the text or enhances it. But on the whole, the entire editing and production process went fluently and constructively, with minimal corrections.
And that’s the time when writers start dreaming about the book launch… In fact we had been doing that for quite some time. Check out the wine-stained mindmap in some of the previous blogs, and you’ll spot the word ‘Meise’ there already. And there are quite a number of intricate details linking back to the Botanical Gardens of Meise in Mendel. Naturally, their greenhouses aren’t the only ones we based our book on, and the scope of the complex of domes Reya inhabits is many times larger than that of any botanical garden. But from very early on, we cherished the quiet hope that the official book launch might be situated there.
We shared our minds with the people at the publishing house, and they went after it. More silver spoons, delivered on a platter: our idea was realised in no time. Suddenly we didn’t have one but two organisations believing in our book and working with us to make this what will be a more than memorable launching event.
For practical reasons this festive occasion will take place only on October 20th. So we are counting down longingly. But the first copies of the book have been going over book shop counter since the beginning of September. It is really here.
Unwrapping the post order package with my author’s copies felt unreal, as if it wasn’t quite true yet. And three years of working closely together with a designer of images had left their traces. My first glances inside were mainly fearful-critical: was the printing quality sufficient? Were the colors up to par? On paper, everything looks just a tad different from its on-screen version. But I soon saw: the result was more than fine. And with every passing day, I am growing more pleased.
While I am writing this, the book is lying on my desk. I can touch it, leaf through it, smell it (I have never done that with any of my other books, but I do with this one). Every time, I get happy. This book is all it should be and had the potential to become. And more.
Mendel’ Greenhouses is the result of much more than a collaboration. It isn’t a final destination, either, rather an intermediate station on a road that is long, entirely unexpected and improbably beautiful. But what an intermediate station this is! I don’t mind pausing here for a while to take in the panorama.
In that mental image, Jurgen, dearest compagnon de route, is of course standing next to me. We don’t need to tell each other anything, enjoying the view is enough. For the things we share, run so much deeper. And there truly is so much the two of us have to be grateful for.
In September 2019, ‘De serres van Mendel’, a children’s novel (10+) in words and images, a joint project of writer Kirstin Vanlierde and illustrator Jurgen Walschot, will appear with Van Halewyck publishing house (Belgium). For the time running up to the publication, a blog will appear every month on how this book came to be.
