I’m bringing my novel Say Uncle back into print!
I’m going to try my hand at digital publishing. Then, maybe I’ll publish it in traditional print form, too. If that goes well, maybe I’ll bring out the sequel that I wrote but which my turncoat publisher refused to release. We’ll see. It’s all very new and exciting and I hope I can count on your support.
It’s also presented me with one of my most interesting exercises ever.
Say Uncle was published back in ancient times – 1994. The process of publishing simply bears no resemblance to those primitive earlier days. I’m not sure I could have been a writer before there were computers. The prospect of retyping an entire manuscript every time I had to edit it, well, I simply could not have faced it.
And I wrote this, my first book, in long hand, as I did everything back in the before times. But I then typed it up on a 300 pound “portable” Compaq and saved it on giant, actually, floppy disks. Then I printed it out. The last time was at a HUD office in East L.A. where I was temping. It shut their network down and took all day to print out.
Once printed the hard copy was sent to agents and later publishers. Each edit was done by hand, on paper. I then made the changes, reprinted and sent another paper copy. Finally, the publisher typeset the book, which involved someone there typing the whole manuscript over again. Then they sent me a paper copy. I marked changes and sent it back. This happened a few more times. Finally, the book itself was printed.
Today, things I write might not be printed on paper until they are published. I guess, with digital everything and Kindles, iPads, Nooks and eReaders eventually books will only ever be printed as collector’s items. Who knows?
The point is, the only final copy I have of Say Uncle is the book.
Hence, my interesting exercise. I have to retype the whole novel in order to publish it digitally. Alas, no file I have is final.
I love Say Uncle. It has a special place in my heart. It’s my first and so it will always mean something more to me. But I wrote it in the early 80’s. I would not be much of an artist if my writing style and skills had not changed and grown in 25 years.
Picasso’s early rose and blue periods hardly hinted at the cubism that he came to be known for. Da Vinci apparently kept the Mona Lisa with him all of his life. I wonder if he kept working on it? Perhaps that’s why it is considered such a masterwork. Or did he simply say one day, “That’s it. All through,” and hang it over the sofa?
So here I am, faced with retyping words chosen 25 years ago to describe emotions and events by a twenty-five-year-old. I am committed to preserving the original, to recreating exactly the book that’s in the Library of Congress. On the other hand, I don’t write this way anymore. I don’t even feel this way anymore.
That is to say, I feel the same things, but I feel them differently.
I’ve always thought reading was an incredibly intimate process. When I read your words, I’m actually having the thoughts that you had in the order and evolution that you had them. Through reading I get to experience personally the greatest thoughts of the greatest minds that ever were. Nothing is more intimate than that.
If you know me you’ve probably heard me say that or something like it at least once and, forgive me, probably more often. But it never occurred to me that I could have that experience with my younger self. This book was always very personal to me. It isn’t autobiographical in that I’ve never raised a child. It is in that it’s as close as I’ve gotten so far in life. It was my best imagining of what sort of parent I would have been at that point in time.
I started retyping after I exhausted every other conceivable option. I’ve only just resigned myself to the task.
It’s jarring. My first impulse, as is so often the case with youth, is to “correct.” There’s some insight in that for me. I really just want to change it. Whether that would be an improvement is debatable. I hope I’m more flexible than that with young people or just other people.
Not far along, I’m taken with the intensity of everything. I suppose since the feelings were new, they felt stronger. How intriguing to taste the salty tears of my youth on a palate jaded by experience and the knowledge of how much worse it can be.
I don’t know yet if this will be my Julie and Julia exercise – and dear god help me to be a better human being than that woman – but I’ll keep you posted. I’ll certainly let you know when it’s done and the book is again available!
Meanwhile, the thought that comes to me most comes from the original Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie: God gave us memory so we might have roses in December.
I don’t know if I’m quite at December yet, but I do want to say to that twenty-five-year-old me scratching on yellow pads at the kitchen table: “Thanks for the memories.”
On Writing #5: Redux
September 14, 2010 by Eric Shaw Quinn
My God, man– don’t re-type the whole book, use the OCR Optical Character Recognition software that comes with almost any scanner now! Just scan the pages and it will convert them to cut-and-pasteable text….
M
Don’t you DARE change that beautiful book, my little vichyssoise!!
And you must put out the sequel…I loved that one, too. (Even if it still makes me cry- *sniff*)
Congrats on this fantastic adventure-
Wow…the idea of a revised edition of Say Uncle has me excited and nervous at the same time. I love the book as you wrote it, but I am so curious to see how you would change it…would it be better….would it have a more experienced point of view…that’s a tough one. I think that most artists have to learn to let go and just stop at some point and say it is done. The quest for perfection is never ending, and like worrying if you raised your child properly, you just have to put them out there at some point and see what happens. Also, having read the original, I say go ahead, do it, change it up, make it better, but is that robbing people of the original experience of your words?
Now you are talking about the sequel that never got released? Get it out there man!
I do have to agree with Mike Hoffman about the scanning thing though…that would save you so much time which could be better spent being creative…
If you are writing now to self publish, who does all your proof reading before the final edit?
I still have my original copy of SAY UNCLE. Through move after move, purge after purge, that book has stayed with me – in more ways than one. I fell in love with the characters. I was moved by their story. I was swept away by their crazy adventures. The mix of humor and pathos kept me (and still keeps me) completely absorbed – the elevator sequence is one of the most hysterical things I have ever read. I, for one, would love to know what happened next for them.
And just a side note: The world does strange and synchronous things from time time to time. In this blog you mention SAY UNCLE & PETER PAN – my favorite book & the play I’m about to start working on at the Alley. It made me smile.
I love “Say Uncle”, and the signed copy I have (what was the name of the bookshop in 5 Pts.???) has made it through move after move, purge after purge. And knowing that my very own dog inspired the hound in the novel is just….shiver-inducing. (I AM sorry he nipped your nose. Really I am.) And for God’s sake scan the damned thing. Have you lost your only brain or what?
Love you madly,
Libby
YAY! I just finished that a few weeks ago. Loved. Even though Scott turned out to be something of a recovering brat at the end of the book.
Can we hope for a few book events…?
By the way, I always pictured Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Michael.