On doing the main thing

Transcribing means taking handwritten pages and typing them up; revising to cadences; to expand, to finalize.

I am still here, Substacking with you, reading yours, but not as much writing mine (i.e. lately you may have noticed several photo posts instead of a poem or a prose piece) but that’s because I have good news: I am focusing on book manuscript deadlines as the main thing (yes, yes, I hear the Roxy Music song too).

I am 28,041 words into finalizing one manuscript and over 30,000 words into finalizing another manuscript. There are three other manuscripts that are in pieces also waiting to be transcribed into their final versions.

Each manuscript’s goal is to find its sweet spot somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 words.

The deadline for the first finalized manuscript is December 25th.

After that deadline, I’m set up to give the other manuscripts 100 day deadlines to be transcribed, which means by the time my daughter graduates from college, all five manuscripts will be finalized for publication (to earn a livelihood, for money, this isn’t the time to be shy).

So here’s “the main thing” daily routine:

Every morning, before going anywhere near my phone or the laptop, I make coffee, take care of the dog, and get to transcribing the handwritten originals into the typed-up manuscript for at least one hour, but mostly two hours, which equals two cups of coffee, and about 2000 words give or take.

The non-negotiable rule:

No transcribing? Then no coffee.

I transcribe on a word processor that has a timer and a word counter but does not provide access to checking email, social media, or any (internet) distractions.

Say I’ve been transcribing for two hours while my dog sits in the sun in his chair kitty-corner to mine. Say it’s time to stop because I have to go to the doctor or because I need to eat something or because my dog won’t stop staring at me because he wants his b-a-l-l.

Then I will send the day’s 2000 words (give or take) from the word processor to a very specific Google Drive to become a temporary Google Doc wherein I edit, format, and then copy & paste the morning’s work into the main working manuscript that is also in that very specific Google Drive as a Google Doc. I do these copyediting steps using the laptop.

Most importantly, and with that bubbly feeling of excitement that accomplishing your writing goals feels like, I print out the new pages that are finished then delete the temporary Google Doc using my laptop. I delete the file too, of the morning’s work, from the word processor. In this way, fragments and pieces completely disappear into one complete ever-growing book manuscript.

With some kind of celebratory fanfare (it changes each day but usually involves picking up my dog and carrying him over my shoulder like a baby), I add the freshly printed new pages to the hard copy stack and back up the main working manuscript to my laptop hard drive.

When I walk out of my home studio, I leave the work stations set up exactly the same for the next day, or for another one hour or two hour or even three hour session that evening. Nothing needs to be found or moved around physically to continue working on the main thing. Unless it’s a new day, when I can go make my morning quid pro quo endgame coffee.