There it is – hovering in the top corner of my screen like some digital vulture.
Do you see it on your screen too … the SEND button.
I’ve recently sent a new book off to my lovely publisher. And am about to send my equally lovely editor the corrected pages of my soon-to-be-released second Coorah Creek book.
And the send button haunts me…
When I first started out in this writing game, everything was done via snail mail – using compressed dead trees otherwise known as paper.
And no, I’m not ancient. I’m talking ten years ago.
While some do still work with paper submissions, for the most part, the publishing world has gone from bits of paper to digital bits and bytes.
I applaud the saving in time and money – postage for book manuscript is not cheap. I also applaud the saving of trees. But somehow – it’s not quite the same.
There used to be ceremony in sending off the manuscript. First is had to be printed out and neatly stacked – with the pages in the correct order of course. I always checked at least three times on the order of the pages.
The postage had to be carefully thought out. A short story of just a few pages was perfectly safe in a normal manila envelope. A full book though was bulky and needed protection. Not just from rough handling – but what if the postman was caught in the rain? A plastic padded bag was called for.
Then I would walk down to the post office, clutching this precious parcel and place it on the scale – possibly blanching just a little at the cost.
Postage paid, all that remained was the ceremony of passing it through the slot to the man behind the counter. And it was on its way.
Now – I hit the send button. Not quite the same amount of ceremony.
I applaud the speed and ease of the send button – but there are times I miss the fun of physically posting a manuscript.
One thing however has not changed … as soon as it’s gone and is beyond my recall, I immediately think of two other changes I desperately needed to make in the manuscript.
Then the send button allows me to send a quick e-mail asking for that last little correction.