"Be ever-so Fangful!!!"

Every now and then I get to participate in something outside the realm of my norm. While traveling this past winter to a trade show with my daughter I swapped emails via my iphone with a woman wanting to place an order on Monahan Papers. She wasn't sure what she wanted she just knew she wanted something. She would ask a question and my daughter Elizabeth would read it and I would dictate my reply. It was fun and I had no idea where it was going. Long story short... I was pumping gas in a small town in West Virgina when she asked if I would provide the elements for a book cover and design it based on a specific time period. Well... sure... thats easy enough for me to do since I have worked on projects like that before. Then came the kicker... It was for a book based on a TV show, based on a series of books. No problem I thought how hard could it be? Then came the name of the show "The Vampire Diaries". Well, that threw me for a loop as I sat there trying to connect my paper company to a TV show based on Vampires. To be honest, I have never watched the show so I didn't see the connection. As she explained it to me she needed it to reference the beginning of a time line which started with the Civil War. OK now that was easy to do. I have collected original documents for years and had just purchased an original that I myself had never seen. A "CERTIFICATE OF NONLIABILITY, TO BE GIVEN BY THE BOARD OF ENROLLMENT". Basically a draft document excusing a soldier from serving for a stated period of time. I had yet to decide which project to use it on and as fate would have it it became the basis for this work. We manipulate the documents making reference to names and dates that a customer needs and print it all here on our own presses. I completed the project and sent it on to the editor and publisher. The book won't be released until this fall but they have shot the cover and are taking pre-orders before it hits the book stores. It was fun to do and it really does go to show that you never know where a road can take you.