Tayari's Blog: Where's Your Manuscript?
Posted by TayariJones on September 15, 2006 06:53 AM
Filed under
The Writing Life
Over in Edland, I saw a post about J.K. Rowling being stopped by airport security. Why? Because she wouldn't put her manuscript for the last Harry Potter novel in her checked luggage. I don't blame her. I know that much her reluctance was due to the fact that her manuscript is really really valuable-- by this I mean valuable in terms of money. (My manuscript is really valuable to me in terms of sanity.) Anyway, this article got me to thinking about what writers do with thier works in progress. Me, I tend to have mine on my person all the time.
I don't always carry around the whole darn thing, but I usually have some portion of it in my purse. The idea is that I may get a spare millisecond and want to work on it. (I hardly ever do, but I like to be prepared.) I never show it to anyone. NEVER.
If I can make a snarky aside on the topic: some male poets I know carry their manuscripts around with them to bars, laundrymats, anyplace they may encounter a woman. The manuscript then becomes an elaborate prop in a pick up scheme. I promise you. I have seen this in action and I have seen it actually work. Excuse me Miss, may I trouble you to have a look at my verses? It's not published yet. I haven't shown it to anyone, but you are so beautiful and so sensitive, I can just tell. I know you're busy with your laundry, but if you could just take a look?
So tell me, dear blog community, where is your manuscript at this very moment? Do you take elaborate precautions in case your house burns down? Do you email it to yourself? Print it out everyday? Tattoo it on your belly? Do tell.
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There are 6 comments on "Where's Your Manuscript?". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.
Comment #1, by persistence ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.tayarijones.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
Ms. Jones, I am probably the worst of your readers when it comes to the dwelling places of my work. I have them on all over the place...on disk (floppy and CD), labeled and unlabeled, several copies typed, handwritten on faded notebook paper, on new hard drives, old hard drives. I admit I'm not very organized when it comes to paperwork. Maybe it's because I haven't made any money yet.
September 15, 2006 07:48 AM
Comment #2, by Ladylee
I keep a copy of my manuscript on my laptop hard drive, and I update a CD-RW periodically, and I email groups of chapters to myself every couple of months. I periodically mail a CD to myself and put it up. I also keep a copy at a private file storage website. I keep a clipped hard copy of whatever portion I am working on in my bookbag... Whatever I'm not using, gets destroyed...
You said..."I never show it to anyone. NEVER."
I have a few people reading and critiquing but that is about it... I wouldn't dare print it out everyday... I have had the isshas that Commenter Persistence has had, with stuff just EVERYWHERE in the past... loose papers and notes drives me batty!! So I try to streamline everything as much as possible.
Now, um... T, you had a copy of SOMETHING on your dining room table, and if I was a little crazy (and if I knew Iwouldn't have caught a beatdown from you!), I would have SNATCHED it... (Just kidding:))!!!
Now as to your snarky comment about using manuscripts to pick up people... I have inadvertently done that myself... A cute brotha asking "Hey baby, what is that you're working on?" opens up all kinds of convo... LOL!!!!
Still forever lobbying for those first 100 pages of your manuscript... 12 cents a page, man... come on now, give it up, give it up!! That 12 bucks will come in handy for those BNH tickets!! LOL!!! ~LL
September 15, 2006 08:21 AM
Comment #3, by Tammee
I have a copy on my laptop, a printed version in my laptop case, a copy on my memory stick and like LadyLee, I send one to myself periodically on email, and one to a freind on email. Now if I can only finish the damn thing :)
September 15, 2006 12:52 PM
Comment #4, by Michael Fischer
I keep my works-in-progress on my hard drive, a primary flash drive, and a back-up flash drive.
Now, Tayari, what struck me most about your post was this:
"I never show it to anyone. NEVER."
GOD D$%* if my family members and friends ask me one more time to "read my stuff" I'm going to go crazy. I have one family member who is always asking, "so when are you going to let me read your stuff?”
Me: “Uh, I don’t know.”
Him: “Well, I’m really good with grammar. Plus, my best friend in college wrote these vampire novels and HE would let me read his drafts.”
Me: [Banging head against wall].
This is going to sound snobby as hell, but serious writers---at least the ones I know--don't distribute copies of their MS's to family members and friends who are not writers themselves. NOTHING good can come out of a family member or friend who is not a writer him or herself reading your MS. Inevitably, these are the responses you’ll get:
1) “That’s so good! I love it!”
2) “Wow, I thought you were better than that!”
3) “You know, this story sounds a bit too similar to family situation X or Y. If you publish this, you’ll be written out of the will and excommunicated from the family. ”
I’m sure the same questions are asked after publication, but by then it’s too late and they can’t do anything about it;)
September 15, 2006 02:37 PM
Comment #5, by Tui
I do that scattered everywhere method...I worry about it now. You've inspired me to do better, but I doubt I will.
September 15, 2006 03:44 PM
Comment #6, by Jessica
After a few rounds of tidy but entirely inadequate digital revision, I'm finally at the drawing-big-x's-through-entire-passages-on-paper phase. I keep the paper in translucent plastic accordion file thingies, found in the dollar bin at Target. There are six chapter-compartments to each thingie; I carry one, sometimes two, back and forth to my dusty loft. Their handsome leather satchel is now the top item on my "things to grab when the Big One strikes" list.
If only I didn't have my last round of notes stored in an unwieldy project management app on my Powerbook, I'd get a lot more actual pen-on-paper-musing work done.
September 16, 2006 08:55 PM