3 girls, 6 months, 757 hours, 178 pages, 14 chapters, 18,043 words, 119,337 characters, 235 emails, 2 breakups, 2 failed statesmen, 2 moves, 14 flights to Holland and back, 1 cowardly escape to Australia, countless arguments, sleepless nights, liters of alcohol, chocolate, nerves, tears, but above all an endless amount of joy and love, not only for writing and paper, but also for each other.
This was exactly what was needed to put together our first book "For the love of writing, or the basics of lettering and modern calligraphy. "People often ask us how we managed to do it, as if they don't believe us. We don't believe it either, so we don't blame them. Luckily, we have a few boxes full of scripture love in the way at home, reminding us that they are real whenever we stumble upon them.
We thought about the book several times ourselves, but you know it - there is never enough time or courage. Therefore, when we received an email from Tereza Eliášová from the CooBoo editorial office , we took it as a sign. We won't lie that we didn't hesitate for a moment. They hesitated. And how. We knew that it would not be easy and that we already have a lot of work to combine our stationery store with work and possibly a personal life (haha!). But at the same time it was clear to us that such an offer was not rejected. So, as always, we jumped into it without knowing how such a book is written, illustrated, typed or prepared for printing (we salute our technical editor Viola Urbanová! :)).
For the first few months, we had no idea where to start, and we got a little lost . Fortunately, we finally managed to deliver everything within the deadlines, plus or minus a few hours. A week before handing over, we also managed a flight demonstration and a chatty night over a few bottles of wine. In the final , I'm very proud of us for making it. I still believe that it is easier to write a book alone than in a team of three people. On the other hand, I know that the book wouldn't be so perfect if we all didn't put a piece of ourselves into it. And I would definitely never want to take on such a challenge without my girls. ♥
We are understandably very happy with the book and we believe that it will please all enthusiasts of writing and creation. In it you will find a pinch of theory, which is necessary to be able to master the beautiful. It guides you from the first strokes on paper to digital writing. And above all (we hope) it will overwhelm you with a lot of inspiration and practical exercises, which we have supplemented with a short exercise book.
Every story should be enriched with some story "from the filming", so I have one for you too. It was December 2018. Anička was in Holland and I was with Kačka in the middle of the pre-Christmas rush, which included a sales market every weekend for five weeks. It was the same period when the book started to be talked about. We were already grinding from the last one and after the fourth weekend we completely lost the ability to recognize the faces of our family members let alone our beloved customers who came to see us.
One of them was a nice lady in a winter hat who came to us to ask if we had read her e-mail. At that moment, we both got scared and started wondering which of the dozens of emails to deal with it could be. I blurted out: "Of course you do.", because of course I'm on top of things and I've read them all. I just couldn't figure out which of them we were talking about, and we had to drop the goddamn one. So we were really embarrassed at the very beginning of the collaboration, because after one meeting we couldn't identify the person with whom we had worked the best in the last year - our editor-in-chief. We hereby apologize once again and thank you very much for the pleasant few months and the sea of patience we received from Tereza and her team.
In addition to the publishing house CooBoo, we would like to thank the guys from the Mocup.space studio for renting the studio, in which it was a pleasure to photograph all the materials for the book. Petře Tomicová for beautiful photos of our little things. Jules for renting the space for our endless meetings. To all our families and friends who survived the fact that we pretty much neglected them in the last few months. Last but not least, to all those who support us and all our customers who give us the energy to continue what we do.
If you also want to improve your handwriting, you can get our book at our e-shop or in all major bookstores! Beautiful writing! 🙂
For printintin with love,
Martin
