Birth of A Book, Month #2
The big challenge for this second month of the nine-month gestation period during which my novel goes from manuscript to book has turned out to be technological. Surprise, surprise. But I felt strongly that by the time I came to you with the second installment of this blog, I wanted to have a stronger grasp of its execution: how to place photos; apply bold or italics to a piece of text. Oddly enough, this struggle with the ups and downs of posting just happens to coincide with what is going on in a woman’s body during the second month of pregnancy.
In my previous post, I promised only a modicum of science, but for those of you with a hankering for technical precision, the second month of pregnancy sees the blastocyst become an embryo. This is big, especially when you discover, through the auspices of the medical dictionary at Medicine.Net what a blastocyst is:
A thin-walled hollow structure in early embryonic development that contains a cluster of cells called the inner cell mass from which the embryo arises.
A blastocyst looks something like this:
An embryo, more like this:
Recognizable human form is beginning to take shape, but here’s what’s distinctive and oh so salient about this period: According to about.com:
In the beginning of this month, it’s hard to tell which way is up on your baby. As this month progresses it becomes very easy to tell which end is your baby’s head and which end is your baby’s bottom.
Which end is up: this is precisely what I had determined to discover before coming to you again with my thoughts, experiences, and insights about delivering my novel, A Tale of Two Citizens. By the second installment of “Birth of A Book,” I would have tumblr down cold, in the pocket, slave to my mastery, (even if there was nothing I could do about that gnawing absent ‘e’ before the ‘r.’)
To achieve my goal of learning how to craft a blog into something that looked reasonably inviting, I sought human expertise – my daughter*; the nice young IT guy who’s house-sitting next door; an acquaintance and fellow-writer who generously offered to help me out - I watched videos, read articles, exchanged emails with the pros at tumblr itself, plumbed (or shall I say plumbd?) the known universe to learn the ins and outs of what I was assured by everyone is by far the simplest platform for a blog. (And who even knows if “platform” is the right word for tumblr? As I make my way through browsers, search engines, operating systems, crowd forums, composing software - the jargon is endless).
Reader, here’s what I came up with, the top and bottom of it all: The operating system on my computer is too small to allow me to upgrade my search engine to make it so that it can accommodate the interface that would make posting as simple and quick as tumblr’s well-deserved reputation of ease suggests. To wrap up the meta-blog portion of this post: In order to get these thoughts out to you, I need to buy a new computer! Or: post my entries on my husband’s machine, which has the necessary memory to accommodate tumblr’s simple format. I have chosen the latter; how’s that for a high-tech solution?
*To delve more deeply into what our children go through when they try to teach us the most basic uses of technology, you may enjoy this Amy Schumer sketch, sent to me by my daughter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6A331B1oq8
Eight Months to Delivery: Wherein Mother and Author May Lose Their Marbles
I’ve already shared with you one of the things that made my head spin in this most recent month, and once again the timing of my emotional sensitivity parallels that of the expecting mother: Paraphrasing about.com:
The pregnancy symptoms really kick in during this month. You may find that you’re alternating between being tired, wide awake, unable to sleep, sweating and/or feeling like you want to be sick. …The mood swings can also be rough. Make sure you tell those around you and your closest circle what’s going on so they don’t think you lost your mind.
Consider yourself told.
The other thing that kind of threw me for a loop (as long as I’m going with all these circular images) this past month was an unexpected development about the delivery, itself. Or the deliverer: the very excellent and highly regarded company that was on board to distribute my book was sold! That’s right, mere months before the due date, a heretofore unknown entity, to me at least, has come on board to handle the delivery. Perseus, the large New York company that was set to distribute my book, was bought by Hachette (we won’t even talk about the name), an even larger New York publishing company. But it’s not quite as straightforward as that. Here’s how the transaction was described in Publishers Weekly:
“The Perseus Books Group is being sold to the Hachette Book Group which will sell the distribution business to Ingram.” As noted by The Associated Press, “Perseus has … been a top distributor for smaller publishers.” Oh, great. Will my feisty, small, independent publishing company get lost in the behemoth that is Hachette/Ingram? What will become of my debut novel?
You may remember from my first post that my Uncle Norman told me I ask too many questions. I’ll tell you the story behind that, mainly because it gives me the opportunity to include a picture of a kitty – and for whatever reason, people surfing the Internet just love a picture of a kitty. Also, it’s a good story.
It was the 70’s, and I was getting ready to fly cross-country to meet up with my boyfriend, who had moved from New York to San Francisco and found us a place to share with some other friends and, my trunk already shipped, I was planning to take to the airport my guitar, and two cats – mother and daughter as it happens (fitting nicely with the maternal theme of this blog.) The night before I was to take my flight, a friend told me that I needed documents of good health for each of my cats before I would be allowed on the plane with them. Huh, what? It was dark out already; I’d never find a veterinarian at this hour; who wanted to find a veterinarian at 9 p.m. in Manhattan? Put the cats in their carrying cases, find a cab…? I decided it couldn’t be true. According to my Uncle Norman, this is where my reasoning should have ended. Alas…
I called the airline, hoping that my friend’s information was wrong, was told that indeed I did need certificates of good health for the cats, and what was there for it but to pull out the Yellow Pages (along with my hair) and search for vets located near my mother’s West 24th Street apartment, where I was staying. Many, many phone calls later, I finally reached a vet who said he would see me at 6 a.m. the next morning, so that I could still make my flight.
Wrestling the cats into their cases at the break of dawn on the day I was moving clear across the country from anything I had ever known, striding with an angrily jiggling carrying case under each arm, I arrived at the West 26th Street offices of Dr. ______, whose name I have forgotten but whose kindness I never will, and rang the bell. Mama Cat and Kitty checked out just fine and the doc filled out the necessary forms.
By the time we human and feline mothers and daughters got to the check-in counter at the airport, I was sweating, but I felt confident that I’d make the flight and that I had all the necessary paperwork for the cats. Which I didn’t need. No one asked for the documents.
My mother and I were rolling our eyes over all the unbelievably unnecessary last-minute hassles, when my Uncle Norman appeared completely unexpectedly at the gate. He had come to see me off, and that made me feel very good. My father died when I was three years old (the poignant story of his immigration to the U.S. is at the heart of A Tale of Two Citizens), and Norman’s attention and presence over the years meant a great deal to me. This morning was no different. I hugged him and told him what had happened with the cats’ health certificates, how I’d called the airline the night before, been told I had to have the paperwork, and in fact it hadn’t even been needed; no one even asked for any kind of documentation about the cats. And that’s when he looked deep into my eyes and said it, like it was the most important piece of information about me that he would ever impart: “Elyce, you ask too many questions.”
Jeff met me at the airport in San Francisco, put one cat carrying case under each arm and welcomed me into his life. In about a half hour, I’m going to see if I can use his computer.
I’ll see you in about a month, when the first trimester of expectations will be drawing to a close, and the baby’s eyes will be wide open - the better to see the cover of the book, which should be set by then!
~
