Sunflowers

When I moved into a new flat with Edyta (my girlfriend) in September ‘08, I had plenty of free time on my hands. The first few weeks there I assembled furniture, applied to schools, and read. A lot.

I like books. I like traveling. I like pictures (especially big ones). And I like writing. I decided to write a book. The truth is, I don’t remember exactly why I decided to write a book. The only thing I remember about the decision was that I knew exactly what I wanted to write about: a road trip I went on in 2006. The reason for that was likely because most of the pictures around my flat are from that one trip, a trip which profoundly changed the way I see the world.

A chunk of inspiration started flowing once I found out about [Blurb](http://blurb.com/), a service that lets you design and print your own books on-demand. Then you can either order them and sell them yourself, or post them on [Blurb's online bookstore](http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/) for any price above the wholesale cost, receiving any profits from each sale. I found them through the [Flickr blog](http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/10/ “Flickr blog post about Tate Modern & Blurb”), and their service seemed like a perfect fit for my needs:

* Small print runs (as small as one)
* Large format for photos
* High quality paper
* I can design it myself
* I get to keep all the rights to the book

Brainstorming with Edyta, one of the threads that came up frequently was travel journaling. During my undergraduate studies, I always imagined that I would write frequently and profusely, with the idea that I would then have plenty of documentation of what it was like and how I felt at each juncture. My memory is OK, but if I were to ever put down memoirs, I wanted vivid descriptions of my experiences and environments to draw inspiration from.

Unfortunately, there have been quite a few trips during the years since I made that promise to myself, and I haven’t written more than a few short journal pages on any of them. I have a hard time putting into words what is happening around me, and writing takes away from actually doing things and talking. If I could, I would have liked to have transcribed videos of the trips, but instead, the best I’ve got to remember the trips by are the pictures that I and others took.

##### The Concept #####

In the summer of 2006, I drove the perimeter of the United States with 3 friends (and a fourth to join near the end). And given my interest in travel journals, I thought it might be interesting to rewrite my experiences in journal format. Then I could scan each page and place them alongside pictures to form a visual narrative of the trip.

I will post more detailed descriptions of the design portion in their own posts.