96

I now have, as of 3:15 this afternoon, clipped into a blue binder, the 96 page first draft of a manuscript which still--most unfortunately--goes by the working name of Dewey.

Dewey is, by no means, a suitable title for the story. It’s merely the name of a minor, if pivotal, character, and for some reason is how I’ve been filing the work on my Mac all this time. Dewey.cwk in Appleworks, and Dewey.doc in Word.

On a bright note, I can now switch working formats--from trudging through the story on the iBook to trudging through the story in hard copy, scribbling what notes and changes I can fit in the margins. It’s good for people with short attention spans to switch. Helps keep us stoked.

Trudging may be a poor choice of words there. I certainly hope the reading of it would not be as slow a process as the writing, but sometimes it’s hard to get a sense of that at any given point along the creation of a 24,000 word piece. Imagine if I were Leo Tolstoy. No. Let’s not imagine that after all.

Of course, I may have nothing more than another unmarketable white elephant on my hands, but as I’ve mentioned before--these efforts are an offering to the universe. The universe does not, as far as I know, have an editorial staff, and I’m sure will absorb my offering with the appropriate graciousness. Whether or not any editors, or sub-editors, will feel similarly is still an unknown longshot.

And I’ve still got much tweaking to do.

But now, on the eve of the release of Harry Potter 7, I’ve plunked the period at the end of page 96, and I can immerse myself in Harry’s world for a few days without feeling negligent.