I'd be the last guy to complain
about having to put my nose to the grindstone and write, write, write. We're home from Cozumel and I'm busier than hell. In the past, I've let my blogging and blog-reading slow down some other work I need to get done, so now I've made this rule: I have to transcribe 25 pages of interview for my Peter's Story project before I can spend any substantial amount of time answering e-mail, reading blogs, looking at the news, or any other work I have to do. That's the rule. Every day I have to complete twenty-five handwritten 6x9 notebook pages of transcription, about one side (forty-five minutes) of a ninety minute tape. I've just finished Side 11, and have a total of 250-some pages transcribed. There are twenty-three sides of interview altogether, plus several other tapes of reminiscence Peter has recorded, so I suppose it'll come to well more than 550 pages of raw material by the time I'm done. (I want to hear you now; come on, everybody shout: Go, Tom! Go! Go! Go!)
I met Peter in late 2003 when I was teaching my "Writing Memoir" seminar at the Northshore Library in Glendale, Wisconsin, and spent the next several months interviewing him. Peter wants to write his memoir, but his eyesight has failed him. He's eighty years old. He has had several heart surgeries. We don't know how much time he has to tell it, but I think he has an interesting story to tell.
Peter and I "clicked" when we met each other. When I saw him walk into the room, my head snapped to attention: I had to look at him. He seemed to glow with a shimmering aura. He told me later that, as he sat at the table while I was teaching, he would think to himself "Tom, look at me," and I would turn and look at him. Every time.
Peter's story is an interesting one, as I say, and I want to help him tell it. I've promised him I will. You don't know if there'll be any money in this work, of course. Certainly Peter can't afford to pay me: his monthly Social Security check wouldn't buy biscuits for a medium-size dog. Yeah, folks, I know: this is the kind of windmill I'm usually seen jousting with. St. Jude is my buddy - St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases. As William Clark might have said to Meriwether: "Lewis, why do we do this?"
But I do what I do. What can I say? So I've put my nose to the grindstone and I'm working hard. By the middle of February I want to be able to take draft pages down to review with Peter. If it looks like I've made myself kinda scarce in the meantime, that's why. I'm here, and I'm working hard.
Which is the sense that I'm getting from a lot of the blogs I read, that everybody is either busy or busier than busy. So I'm in good company.
Chow, as I say in Italian. (Peter is Italian, so he says "Ciao.")
Go, Tom! Go! Go! Go!
Posted by: Ivy | January 21, 2005 at 06:34 AM
Aw, Ivy said it first! So, I'll join in the chant....Go, Tom, go! :-)
Posted by: Lorianne | January 21, 2005 at 07:42 AM
Bird by bird and you'll get it done - at least that's what my wise dad always told me when I lamented about the overabundance of work required to finish my dissertation! I have to say, I think he was right -- but like I'd tell him that!
Posted by: jess | January 21, 2005 at 10:13 AM
Where there's a will there's a way. You have writing WILLPOWER. I have such trouble just making myself do it sometimes.
Posted by: Amy | January 21, 2005 at 06:40 PM
Ivy & Lorianne--Thanks for the encouragement. I've made a public promise. Now you'll just have to keep encouraging me to meet my commitment.
Daughter--You made me LAUGH. Quote me quoting Annie Lamott to you back at me, will you? I didn't think you'd do that. Well, actually, let me re-phrase that. I didn't think you'd do it so soon.
Amy--I don't know if it's WILLPOWER, or if it's that I have the wisdom to keep putting myself in crunch situations and SOMETHING gets squeezed out of me. Seems like I work best when it's under pressure, like writing term papers the night before they're due.
All of you--thanks for the encouragement. I'll get there. I'll keep putting up little progress reports so you know how it's coming.
Posted by: Tom Montag | January 22, 2005 at 11:15 AM
Heh. I knew that had to be one of your kids before I even got to the end of Jess's comment.
I have a really good idea of just how tedious tape transcription can be. More power to you! The results should make it all worthwhile.
Posted by: Dave | January 22, 2005 at 07:00 PM
Dave--
Her sardonic wit gave her away, huh?
As for the tape transcription, I'm starting to enjoy it, except for the sore butt and the cramp in my writing hand that goes all the way up to my elbow. Listening to the tapes themselves is pretty interesting. Peter's a decent story-teller and I'm a pretty good interviewer, if I do say so myself. :)
Posted by: Tom Montag | January 23, 2005 at 03:17 PM