Maybe it’s a generational thing, but my Gen X brain is still wired to think most immediately through pen onto paper. When I first came to map out my book I did so on the back of a series of napkins, in some cases quite literally, and although I wrote the bulk of it on screen (a few passages were dictated), I’ve gone back to pen and paper for the revision stage.
I took a USB stick containing the manuscript into a copy shop in town yesterday and rather self-consciously left it with the staff to print out for me. Today I punched holes in the 158 pages and put them into the first empty ring binder that came to hand, ready to start the big job of revising every page. It was only afterwards that I noticed the label: ‘Alison Jones Antenatal Notes’.*
Really, I couldn’t have chosen anything more appropriate as this book finally approaches the end of its gestation…
*This must date from Child 1, more than 14 years ago: I was rather more blasé about the whole thing second time round.