On Tuesday I typed the last
word of the last page of the more than 450 pages of transcription of interview I conducted with Peter in order to co-author his memoir with him. Did you hear what I said? The last word of the last page of the transcriptions!
I still have an hour of tape to listen to, and possibly to transcribe; Peter recorded these before he knew me, as he was trying to figure out how to tell his story. I think it's unlikely that this hour of material contains any stories I haven't already heard versions of; yet there may be some little details I'll want to cherry-pick and use to add just the right touch to a passage I have already roughed out, or will be putting together soon.
I now have three chapters of the book in a relative state of "final" draft - Chapters 1, 2, & 4. You may notice that Chapter 3 was skipped over. Chapter 4 is self-contained and belongs where I've put it, and it was easy to finish. Chapter 3 is a little more problematic, and I continue to massage it or, to use the blacksmith analogy, to hammer it into shape. Where the iron resists is where beauty shows itself.
Am I making progress on the book? Yes. Am I making enough progress? I don't know. At the end of January and the beginning of February I want to start reviewing the final draft with Peter, to get his final and definitive approval of the shape of each passage, to correct any details I might have gotten wrong, and to straighten any sentences I might have gotten crooked.
It is a two-fold challenge: to convert Peter's oral telling of the stories into prose that also reads well on the page; and to lay out in clear and proper fashion all the bits and pieces of Peter's life from the time he was two and a half years old until he was eighteen. Some of what we have to tell happened simultaneous with other incidents we are relating, so the constant questions before me are: which to tell first, which to tell next; which to highlight, which to reduce or leave out; which is scene, which is summary.
You find yourself finally juggling all the pieces of a chapter in your mind at once, and your wife calls you to supper. Then after you eat you come back and try to get them all in the air again. What you want is for the pieces to fall onto the page 1, 2 3, in proper order, everything in the proper place for maximum impact and appropriate to the greater arc of the telling. Sometimes this means you just sit and look at what you've got. You sit and look. And you trust that - however slowly - the glacier is moving. That's where I am right now with Chapter 3, sitting here trying to discern where the glacier is going. Then I'll take my cue from that, and Chapter 3 will be under control.
In the meantime, a mile marker. You can rejoice with me, if you would, that the last word of the last page of those transcriptions of the interviews have been typed. Hooray!
Rejoice!! Hooray! Well done!! And wish you well with Chapter 3.
Posted by: marja-leena | December 22, 2006 at 10:10 AM
Thanks, Marja-Leena. I have to tell you: I got up at 3:30 this morning and finished Chapter 3. I would have liked to stay in bed another hour, but the book wouldn't let me. I'm sure you know the feeling. So that is four chapters DONE! Onward to Chapter 5.
Posted by: Tom Montag | December 22, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Hooray! We celebrate our milestones where we can!
Posted by: MB | December 22, 2006 at 01:33 PM
Really enjoyed your description of how chapters come together. I really connected with the "juggling" metaphor.
Congratulations on the completed chapters!
Posted by: JTMontbro | December 22, 2006 at 04:39 PM
Hi, MB. Thanks. Yep, milestones are important, especially for a project such as this, which I've been at for awhile....
Posted by: Tom Montag | December 22, 2006 at 08:05 PM
JT--thanks for the good words. Sometimes, though, it does seem more like pounding iron than juggling....
Though I am happy to report I have Chapter 3 done now!
Posted by: Tom Montag | December 22, 2006 at 08:07 PM
Woo-hoo! And congrats -- I know it takes patient effort, brick by brick, board by board, to build a beautiful dwelling for hearts and minds. I'll raise a glad glass for you tonight!
Posted by: Lori Witzel | December 22, 2006 at 08:10 PM
Hi, Lori. Thanks. It's "bird by bird," as Annie Lamott would say. "Bird by bird."
Posted by: Tom Montag | December 23, 2006 at 07:38 AM