Inside Out: Invasion of the cardboard boxes...

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Tuesday was delivery day: D-Day, as I like to call it, because it was the day that had been in our diaries for a very long time and the day when all our hard work was set to be rewarded, when we would finally find out if Inside Out was indeed as great and as beautiful as we had been telling everyone who happened to cross our paths and whose paths we had actively sought out. Needless to say, we were all a little worried; especially me. I felt like I had a lot to live up to and a lot of expectations to meet.

I woke early, unable to sleep, visions of print nightmares running through my mind: I’d left a page out; I’d sent the wrong version, the one with the typo, the missing credit, the errant page number; I’d failed to explain something integral to an article. Silly things that I knew would not be an issue, because I had done my homework and worked all hours on perfecting those final proofs. I had checked and rechecked, and then checked again - ask any of my interns, they will all vouch for me. But sleep deprivation does strange things to you, as does reaching the finish line of a project after baby sitting it for so very many months. My Inbox, on turning on my computer, was hyperactive and blinking, full of excited emails that didn’t stop coming in. “Has it arrived yet?” “What does it look like?” When will I get my copy?” I had trouble keeping up, but it was fun and only served to fuel my excitement.

I ended up spending most of the morning, and the first half of the afternoon, pacing the house and making copious cups of tea. I found it impossible to sit and concentrate with the butterflies dancing a mad jig in my stomach. And I couldn’t go out, despite wanting to, because I wasn’t sure what time the nice delivery man with my boxes was turning up. It was a ballpark figure, dependent on packing the other end.

The phone rang. I fielded questions out loud and via email. I tried to calm the rest of the team and reassure them that it was almost over and that it would definitely be worth the wait. In the back of my mind that dream residue gently niggled away: but would it? Self-doubt descended, a suffocating black cloud. I did my best to chastise it and put it back in its box. Used to being obedient, it cowed and receded, biding its time for the next vulnerable day.

At last, when I was beginning to question if I had perhaps made a mistake with the date, the doorbell rang and there was my nice gentleman waiting patiently outside.

Unfortunately, my big strong man was working away from the home office; which meant it was up to me and the delivery man to lift eighty boxes, yes eighty, all weighing at least as much as a two-year-old I might add, into the house. I would like to share that I do not go to the gym regularly and that my muscles are far from gloriously defined and buff. I am a weakling when it comes to physical strength, always have been - and that’s not just a convenient excuse, promise!

Excitement and adrenaline kicked in. Inside Out was finally here in the world as a concrete entity that I could pick up, flick through, sniff, touch, caress and hold, a tangible reality that could no longer be doubted or denied.

The boxes passed from arm to arm in a well-organised chain, nice man to’ing and fro’ing from his white van to my front door, me bringing them in, in careful, straining arms, devouring all free space in the front room as they did so. The room darkened as they piled themselves up in front of the window. The television disappeared from sight as they spread themselves across the sitting room floor. I worried for a second that this was totally impractical and was bound to inflame the nerves of big strong man when he returned home from work, tired and desperate to kick back and relax. Then quickly realised that it was more likely to have a positive outcome - prompt him to help me cart them further into the house and attempt to distribute them more evenly across all available rooms, instead of letting them get comfortable and take up permanent residence in full sight and in the way. I can let you know it worked, a useful trick to recall at some future date.

Since then, the boxes have migrated - hunkering down beneath bookcases, reversing politely into corners, crouching humbly under tables, and even spreading, in an orderly fashion, up the narrow stretch of stairs. Where possible, they have even seemingly disappeared. More would have accommodated and followed suit, only I ran out of tablecloths a lot sooner than boxes. My charity shop scavenging for the heirlooms people throw out must immediately be resumed.

Now begins the task of finding homes for all of these delightful copies, and making sure they touch in positive ways on other people’s lives.

On opening the first box and diving into a copy - how amasing to be flicking through the very first one, all by myself, all to myself - all my anxiety and fear crumbled away in an instant. Inside Out looked every bit as special as I had hoped and lived up to its role as respectful vessel for the work it was cradling. After two long years, we had finally transformed that crazy light bulb of an idea into a sensible concrete reality. Perhaps we weren’t quite as misguided as those initial doubters once thought?

To adopt a copy of Inside Out and support a great new publication in its infancy, click here to order a copy. Every issue of Inside Out needs a home. It wouldn’t be fair to leave any behind, neglected and bereft of their siblings, gathering dust at the back of a dark cupboard in a sealed box.

Visit our website: http://www.myinsideout.co.uk for more Inside Out info.

Inside Out is born after 24 months in labour

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Inside Out went to print on Friday 29 August, roughly two years after the initial concept for the magazine was dreamt up; and like all good ideas, despite being a cliche, it was conceived in my local pub over several glasses of wine.

The following six months were spent researching - literature, publishing, business, the gap in the market, mental health, art, design: you name it, I went there, and in depth. I can’t even begin to recount the number of courses I went on and the help and advice I gleaned from my various teachers. Overall, it was a pretty steep learning curve – I had previous experience of publishing, having worked as a deputy editor on several magazines; and a background in design, having started out as a graphic designer: but nothing requiring this much knowledge, spread across so many areas. Most days my head felt fit to explode, and I often asked if maybe I was attempting too much. But a genuine belief in the idea and the joy pursuing it was giving me proved enough to keep me pushing in the right direction, taking each set back, and there were many, as much in my stride as possible.

In addition to the research and learning, there was also a considerable amount of effort put into fundraising and writing and sending out proposals. For those of you with no experience of this - each proposal is about the equivalent of a university dissertation and takes around a month to write. But Inside Out was never going to make it out into the world without financial backing, especially because I quit my job to focus on making it happen full time and sank all accumulated savings into starting it up. So I kept on sending them out, hoping that someone out there would see the potential in the project. A full twelve months after that momentous night in the pub, I finally received a positive reply to one of my many proposals, and it was all go from there. I would like to say a big thank you to Matthew Hodder Charitable Trust, SLaM and UnLtd - my wonderful, generous funders. Without them I would still be thick in proposals with plummeting self-esteem.

Numerous people have since come on board, all helping out on a voluntary basis. I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for the generosity of my passionate and talented team, and can only hope that seeing the magazine in the flesh will be enough of a reward for them. Their believing in Inside Out and in my ability to make it happen, has played a large part in my being able to make it happen. No one wants to fight a battle alone and entirely up hill.

So Friday, as you can imagine, was a pretty momentous day, and to be perfectly honest with you, I was as excited as I was terrified. This was essentially judgement day, the day where it would all go right or all go wrong. Any mistakes made or inadvertently left in, would now be there to stay. Everything that I had learnt was being put to the test.

I turned up at the printers ready to check final proofs and look over the plates and then okay them for the press. The guys at Principal Colour, my printer of choice, were really supportive and helpful. Their passion for Inside Out has made it easier for me to let go of my precious pages and send them on to the next stage. For a time, there was a danger that I would keep clinging on, like a mother attempting to keep her child around her ankles.

It ended up being a long day, much of it spent waiting in the boardroom, flicking through other magazines and running through my ‘To Do List”, all the while wishing I had had the foresight to bring my laptop along so I could be working on pages for issue 2. The pile of work left behind on my desk had no intention of shrinking or even remaining the same size in my absence. And currently it is a very big pile.

After five hours, I felt confident my work there was done and left Inside Out in the capable hands of the team at Principal Colour. Today, the final magazines are being delivered, turning my house into a warehouse of sorts. Again, I find that I am terrified and excited. But good terrified and even better excited.

Click here to order a copy of Issue 1.
Visit our website: http://www.myinsideout.co.uk for more Inside Out info.

Inside Out magazine: Pledge your support for a great project

The Elevator Pitch:

Turn the inside out – onto the page, into the world, and out of your system.

Part literary publication, part therapeutic expression; Inside Out aims to promote the use of creativity for personal development. A new breed of literary arts magazine, it encourages the submission and publication of work with a focus on self-awareness and self-help – because sometimes, simply owning something on the page is all it takes to move past it and move on, for both reader and creator.

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A Brief Explanation:

Inside Out Issue 2 is preparing to meet the world. It bursts forth in December, but that all depends on you. Behind the scenes, we are all working hard putting the finishing touches together. We have contributors, we have submissions, we have our content. We are also putting together and sending off various funding proposals to the usual funding organisations pleading our case. But these things take time and there are no guarantees.

So we decided to adopt an American approach this time around - something we have seen other great magazines do and make work. That approach is to set up a sponsorship page and to ask the wonderful and extremely generous public to support us.

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Some More Details:

We are a not-for-profit organisation - so don't for one minute think that we are going to line our pockets with your hard-earned cash. Quite the opposite. We plan to pour all donations into the production of Inside Out magazine, so that we can get its brave and informative content out into the world. We have promised our contributors a voice, a platform to be heard - perhaps for the first time ever. We need to keep that promise, to give them weight on the outside.

We will also run an outreach programme connecting directly with the public. Here we plan to do the following:

• Hold creative therapy workshops in order to help and teach.
• Host performance poetry events, so that contributors can air their work in a safe and supportive environment and talk to other poets and writers. This will allow contributors to meet other like-minded individuals and hopefully allow them to feel a little less 'alone' with their load.
• Hold art exhibitions, so that contributors can exhibit their work to the public and get a real sense of achievement. This will help them to promote their creative careers and to empower them as artists.
  
• Hold creative writing and poetry readings, so those interested in the magazine can get a more personal flavour of the work and hear it in person.
  

There are many other plans, but we don't want to give all of our secrets away just yet. Let's just say that we aren't short of ideas and that we have lots of potential projects.

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The Big Idea:

To actively campaign to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. To help contributors develop their talents putting them back in the driving seat where they belong.

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Pledge your Support:

To make a donation to Inside Out and pledge your support, click here or visit our site and click on the sponsor tab on the right hand side. All donations will be enormously appreciated and help us to make a continued and lasting difference to the lives that we touch.

Visit our website: http://www.myinsideout.co.uk for more Inside Out info.