"Blowing Off the Dust"

         Like many writers, I have my first manuscript hidden away. The yellow binder draws my eyes only when I make a forage into my closet in search of something else. I crafted the original draft on an old Amiga computer in the early 1990s. Remember 3.5 floppy discs? With diligence, I printed chapter after chapter using my new dot matrix printer. The book’s setting, Iraq, sent me to the library on weekly forays where I unearthed National Geographic articles, English to Arabic dictionaries, and a copy of the Qu’ ran. I loaded my car with textbooks and histories of the country and the entire Middle East while also dipping into novels and stories set in the region. I researched the old, hard way as I weaved my characters into real world places and events.

         I longed to write an entire manuscript created from one small idea and refine it into a draft worth publishing. In the year that I had to work on the novel, I penned a promising draft. Then, I had to return to full-time work.

         The printed story sat in a desk drawer. I occasionally pulled it out and polished passages. Sometimes I’d rewrite entire chapters. Sometimes I’d fine tune a phrase. Eventually, the manuscript shifted from a drawer to the closet into a nondescript box and became buried under life’s odds-n-ends. Our old Amiga gave way to iMacs and homebuilt PCs while the dot matrix printer shifted into obsolescence, and the novel drifted into the back corners of my mind.

         A few summers ago, I unearthed the box with yellowed pages of barely legible ink. I felt as though I’d neglected a child as I reread the book. Maybe driven by a little guilt, I retyped the entire text and printed a copy using my laser printer. I placed the pages into a bright yellow binder and positioned it on a shelf next to the notebook that contains the final, hard copies of my blog. There is no way I can let myself forget this manuscript yet again.

         On Friday, I decided to revisit this old friend. Delighted to find she’s aged well, I’m making her my next major writing project. I can’t wait to use the ease of the Internet to double check all of those details I used as I spun my narrative. Maybe the years I’ve spent sharpening my skills means I’ll finally blow off the dust from this story and share it with my readers.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman