cut and paste

I’ve had a few weird jobs in my life. One of the first “real” jobs was as a calligrapher for my high school. I remember filling out 13 forms to get $12 (back when minimum wage was much less than it is now). Another was when my dad gave me a pile of quarters and sent me to a copy machine at a local college library to photocopy certain pages of a book he was working on (he was an editor) so that they could be literally cut and pasted to create a new edition.

Don’t know why that afternoon has stuck with me all those years. The bright light flashing under my hands every time I set down the clunky copy machine cover. The scent of ink on hot paper. Guess it was the first time I was involved in production of a “real” book, setting aside my fumbling attempts at childhood stories.

But I’m finishing up writing a book right now, and I’ve let myself free write quite a bit. As I mentioned before, I was in the mode of shoveling sand. Now I’m in the mode of building a sandcastle.

What that means in practical terms is I have a lot of words, some of which I like a lot, some of which need to be there, but they’re in a confusing and illogical order in the manuscript. And when I was rereading it and trying to determine the order of events—even though I have an outline and generally know what I want to happen—I was getting very confused. I could tell I was heading toward discouragement, and I wanted to head that off.

Rather than throw up my hands, I remembered my earlier childhood job and printed out the last 100 pages of my book. Then I sat down on my floor last night with a pair of scissors and tape, cutting out phrases and sections I like or need and putting them in the right order.

I’m laughing at myself for doing this, because in a digital age, who needs to do this? I mean, I’ve cut and pasted this blog article digitally. Who needs to go old school?

Me, I guess.

While books are now digital, they also need space to grow. I think this is why I love using index cards so much—I can see the concepts on them. I know people who write books on their phone, and while I can do that in a pinch, it just feels too cramped for this expansive story I’m writing. So, I set aside my prejudices against doing things old-school style and set up shop.

I’m so glad I did. That simple act of SEEING my book unfold on the floor clarified so many things. It was immediately apparent where sections were butting in where they didn’t belong and where I was missing parts that I still have to write. Perhaps this means I’m a visual or spatial learner. Perhaps this means I couldn’t keep it all inside my head, and I had to get it out. (Incidentally, that’s not a bad definition of what it means to write.)

At any rate, if you’re stuck creating a book, I’d encourage you to get out a marker, paper, scissors, paste, glue sticks, posterboard, whatever, and map it all out. Let yourself see the book before you create it.