Bitty Ruminations 70 – One lakh words

One lakh words. That sounds like so much, like stars in the night sky, an unending expanse of text. And yet, holding in hand a book just a little larger than a DVD makes it seem so small, like an astronomer used to looking at far-flung, three-dimensional galaxies through a telescope now contending with the images on his computer screen. All those late nights and early mornings of transcribing, writing, rewriting, editing, decision-making, text-shifting, all those emotions, those highs, those lows, those days when nothing and everything seemed to be going right, those arguments with the editor, those arguments with yourself — all that is now housed in a mere 328 pages, each one measuring 9 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches. This is not a complaint. A filmmaker, for instance, cannot complain about his vision, his work, his months of toil now residing on a microchip. That is how it is. But the beforehand awareness of this inevitability doesn’t really prepare you for such a profound sense of diminishment of your efforts. Happy reading.

PS: Note to self: Lighten up!

PPS: No, really!

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