Photo book dummy with Willow as art director

By River Stormcaller

hey! the circus files are delivered and the editor is quiet in a good way. so of course my brain opened a new tab labeled PHOTO BOOK and dumped prints all over the living room floor like confetti with commitment issues 📷 Willow walked through a row of sequence tests and moved two images with her tail. she is either a genius or chaos incarnate. both can be true in Santa Fe on a weekday afternoon. light came in sideways and made even the rejects look intentional for thirty seconds, which is how bad decisions get made if you are lonely for praise. I am building a dummy. not a pitch deck with inspirational adjectives and a fake ISBN. a physical order of pictures that has to make sense without me standing there explaining sequins, dust, sticky-handed kids, and why emptiness belongs near the front. imposter syndrome arrived fashionably late again wearing the same outfit: what if this is just

a pile of almosts wearing archival sleeves. I ate a granola bar like it was a meeting with myself and kept sorting. procrastination offered a nap and a scroll. I bought bad snacks and stayed on the floor like the floor was a client who deserved better. Saturday photo walk is still on the calendar because curiosity pays differently than invoices. laughter yoga in the park moved from maybe list to I actually went, which shocked the part of me that only trusts work that hurts a little. more on that after I admit how many times I rearranged the same three spreads like a person arguing with a mirror. How you sequence a book when you hate being precious Start with breath, not brilliance. open image, close image, then the messy middle where people live when the show is not performing for the lens. I put empty bleachers early because emptiness still says more than applause about that night under

trailer lights. I killed a darling where the stilts looked cool but the frame was mostly about me wanting cool. cool is not a thesis. gesture is a thesis. the juggler checking his phone stays. the shoe-tying stilts woman stays. dust in the light stays. Willow does not appear in the circus set and still somehow co-authored the floor layout by stepping on a corner I was overthinking into oblivion. message received, unpaid creative director. I texted Eli from the poetry slam a photo of the mess with no caption, which is either flirting or project management. he replied want a second pair of eyes later. maybe. social energy is a budget with a strict dog-walking line item. right now the budget is prints, snacks, and not turning every maybe into a subplot that eats the craft. crush energy can wait in line without becoming the whole narrative. I am allowed to want connection and still protect

the hours that make a book real. Printing two pages at the shared darkroom helped more than any pep talk. objects argue differently than screens. one spread died under red light and I said thank you out loud like a weirdo. better now than in a future rejection from a me with better taste and less denial. alchemy if you want a fancy word. quality control if you do not. either way the timer clicked and the trays did their boring holy work. Laughter yoga was exactly as weird as promised Park grass. strangers. fake laugh becoming real laugh becoming me snorting in public while a kid on a scooter stared like I had lost a bet with dignity. jester archetype said finally. serious artist costume said excuse me we have a brand. both sat down on the grass and shared a water bottle. I left lighter. not cured of freelancing loneliness or the invoice anxiety that hums under good weeks. lighter. Willow

waited in the car with the window cracked and judged my smile like I had been unfaithful to worry. fair. she has standards. Body reset matters after deadline weeks when your spine becomes a comma and your eyes burn from selects. regular yoga still unkinks what laughter class cannot. laughter class is optional spice and a reminder that overly serious tones are my pet peeve even when I am the one performing them. I will go again if my pride allows. pride is negotiable. joy is data. What the dummy is teaching A book is a deadline you make for meaning instead of an invoice, which is scarier in a different key because nobody is chasing you except your own standards. I am not rushing a publisher email with forced confidence. I am trying to get honest order, the kind that still works if you shuffle two pages and the spine of the story holds. Sedona planning can share a month with this without

one eating the other if I stop heroic multitasking and use boring blocks: one hour book, one hour admin, one walk. Willow enforces the walk clause with religious intensity. If you are sequencing your own almosts into something that can sit on a table without you narrating, protect the floor time. phones lie about progress with little badges and bright lies. paper does not. neither does a dog who will sit on your best print if you ignore the leash. Closing Reflection Tonight the prints go back in a box labeled V3 because I am a professional and also superstitious about folders named final. Willow steals a corner paper for sport. the hard drive is quieter. I am too, which might be the real KPI after a month of noise. catch you later! 🌧️ next: more selects for me, not a client. more park air. fewer tabs named FINAL_final. if you want to see a page when it is ready, say so. if you only

wanted the dog content, she accepts freeze-dried liver bribes and unsolicited praise.