After much messing around with the website blurb.com and their poor text handling software, I finally took delivery of one box-fresh copy of the working draft of Jefferson Greenspan Saves The World? For some time, I have thought that instead of printing out reams of double spaced A4, I should get a proper bound book printed. I find editing on screen and bits of paper is fine, except it gets very messy very quickly, and 300 pages of A4 weigh a ton. Pages fall out of order, and it lacks the reading experience that you get from having a book in your hands. Equally, scrolling through text, highlighting bits and making notes can be frustrating. What I wanted was to be able to carry the thing around, read it in bed, or wherever I happen to be, make notes in pencil, and also just to read what I've written in a manner that is close to how the reader will encounter the work. I believe the medium (in this case, a physical book) has a large impact on how people react to the contents, myself included. Now it is in book form, I find I am reading it like a book, and it's giving me a clearer picture of how the novel holds together (or not), and will make the next stage (finishing the first draft in order to send to my agent) a more controlled process.
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