Being an Analog Writer in a Digital World

Recently I submitted several chapters and a synopsis to an editor at one of my dream publishing houses - something which I’ve wanted to do for many years. I met the editor in question at a conference and was delighted when she offered to look at a submission from me.

So I began to prepare my WIP to send to an actual publishing house. When I had envisioned this moment, I saw myself purchasing a manuscript box, typing a lovely query letter on high-quality bond paper and sending everything off with a silent prayer. Afterwards, I would frequently check my mailbox, anxiously waiting for an envelope with a response, much like I did when I was awaiting college acceptance letters back in the day.

But the submission process in this modern era is different than I had imagined and probably unlike it was decades ago when I first dreamed of writing. Submitting my work required me to use a computerized data entry form at the publisher’s website which, for an old analog gal like myself, took a bit of doing.

Normally, I draft on a manual typewriter for reasons I’ve explained in a previous blog entry (see “Doing it Old School” from July 8, 2022). I then voice type everything into a Google Docs document. I use a Chromebook because I don’t need or use a lot of apps in my daily life. So the inexpensive pared down Chromebook fits my style very well. However when I was trying to submit my documents to the editor, I realized that “pdf” is not one of the formats that the submission form accepts. So I converted my Google Docs document to a Word document, but the page numbers disappeared in the conversion process, which meant I ended up with a WIP with no page numbers.

I figured out a way to download the document onto a flash drive and then open it up on an old Windows based computer which I own, that has a broken screen. But when I tried to upload my newly converted Word document to the submission form, after successfully converting it without losing the page numbers, it would not upload from my Chromebook. I then had to go back to a Windows based computer to do the actual upload.

After a lot of back and forth (and a few swear words) everything uploaded. Yaay me!

The whole process made me realize that my writing dreams are older than home computers, cell phones, social media and submittable forms on publishers’ websites. Why did I wait so long to pursue those dreams?

I am reminded of that poem by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I imagine Langston Hughes was referring to deferred dreams that resulted from the racial discrimination that permeated the time in which he lived.

I am not sure why I deferred my dreams for so long. Granted, I had a whole other career and life during that deferment. But there was nothing keeping me from pursuing my writing simultaneously with my other life.

Maybe that is not important. I am taking the leap now and perhaps that is all that matters.

In the meantime, I think I’ll plop some vinyl on the old record player and do a few writing sprints.