I am
holding a copy of my book. It is bound with a cover and everything. My
first thoughts pulling it out of the envelope are: Wow it looks like a
real book; The cover does not look as bad as I thought it would; Wow,
it is so small. . . .
The manuscript was huge. All I can think of when I think of that manuscript
is a bowling ball. It is bigger in my memory than it really was. But when
I think of it it is huge like a bowling ball. And it kept coming back.
First with editorial notes. I finished those and shipped it off. But boom,
it came back. Cover copy. First page copy. Galleys. Copy editor's galleys.
Printer's galleys. From the day I shipped that book, it kept coming back.
It even came back from the agent once, someone messed up copies in the
copy room. I printed five copies of that book just to get it out the door.
And it kept coming back. And each time it seemed bigger.
It was
big. It was four hundred plus pages. A script is only a hundred plus pages.
I did not even own envelopes I could fit that book in. I had to buy new
ones to ship it back and forth. But probably it is not the pages that
makes that book big in my mind. Probably it is the years.
Six years.
That is in those pages too. Six years fighting my way up the food chain.
All written down.
This little book does not look big enough to hold six years.
I am afraid to open it. What if those six years are not there anymore?
© max adams
all rights reserved
