I recently wrote about how I produced a magazine from quarantine—more specifically, the third issue of Plates, ‘Water’. This independent biannual food culture magazine turned one earlier this April, at the peak of the nationwide lockdown and smack in the middle of a marketing campaign, in celebration of making it through the first year.
But this post is not about the could-have’s or would-have been’s of April. This post is about the inertia from ‘final-final-super-final-this-one.pdf’ file to hitting print.
When I officially released Plates out into the world (and feared the worst but still hoped for the best — vulnerability, are you listening, Brené Brown?) launched Plates last year.
It was scary.
From banking in the deposit to the printers and watching the denomination of my savings account plummet in seconds to wondering if I was going to be stuck with stacks of Vol.1: Rice to hand out as door gifts to every visitor.
Some of you might not have known this, but the first version of the maiden issue was more or less ready back in June 2018.
But even then, I kept tinkering at it (not the best practice if you follow Seth Godin, who emphasises on shipping the work regardless if it’s ‘perfect’ or not; because perfect does not exist). Updating the information on ‘A Grainy Gamble’, the main feature of the Rice issue, and checking in with social enterprise, Langit, who brought me into the rural rice fields of Long Semadoh in Borneo (a two day door-to-door journey from Kuala Lumpur).
And even with the updates, you guessed it, I continued proofreading, editing and tinkering some more; cue analysis paralysis.
I made DIY copies of the magazine, printing the first copy at a mum-and-pop stationery store to eventually going ultra cheap and making copies at home with the ancient Canon bubble jet printer. Those drafts were either bound together with rusty bulldog clips, or placed in a clear book folder, and fanned them out to my trusted friends for feedback. Speak now or forever hold your peace, I reminded them.
I spent months swatting away the bees, as George Lois likens the life of a creative to “a lifetime of fighting bees (even if sometimes you get stung)”.
Instead of trying to fill a ‘gap’ in the independent food publishing scene that continuously looks to Western narratives for approval while seeking out underreported human interest stories, the project quickly became personal.
Around Christmas-ish of 2018, our cover girl, my grandmother, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That was when I truly felt that I had to send the magazine to print, regardless if it sold or not. I just wanted her to have a copy of the magazine in her hands. I wanted her to see herself and her recipe of the glutinous rice dumpling in tangible print form, which I felt would mean a lot more to her than a PDF on screen.
And for the initial few months when she did see the publication, she had her “celebrity” moment when visitors came by for Chinese New Year and asked for her autograph. I’d show her photos of the magazine in shop windows and on the shelves in Los Angeles and Milan. I wish she could see the other stores that joined the list.
Were there things that I would’ve done differently? “Better”? Most definitely.
But I’m glad I shipped.
I’m glad I ignored the naysayers.
P/S I am still swatting away the bees. I hope you are too.
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