Soothing Saturday: The Drawer Has Been Opened

This has been an exciting week. I published a book.

I still find that slightly strange to say. Scenes from a Life Left Behind is now out in the world after spending years sitting quietly on my computer, along with a rather large collection of other manuscripts, unfinished stories, and ideas that seemed much better when I wrote them.

I have always liked writing. Over the years, I have written quite a lot, although very little of it has ever been published. Some manuscripts were finished, some were abandoned halfway through, and some were put away because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. The drawer, real or metaphorical, became a very convenient place for anything that wasn’t quite ready.

For a long time, I assumed that if I was ever going to publish, I would need an editor. That would have been the sensible thing to do, except that professional editors cost money, and my writing career has never exactly been a financial powerhouse.

Then AI appeared, and I started wondering whether it could help.

So I dug out some of those old manuscripts and handed them over. Not to write them for me, but to do something much more useful: to act as the editor I couldn’t afford. It was surprisingly good at spotting awkward sentences, repetitions, unclear passages, and all the other little things a writer becomes blind to after reading the same manuscript too many times.

It was particularly helpful with my English. English isn’t my first language, and while I am comfortable writing in it, I sometimes know exactly what I want to say without quite finding the natural way of saying it. Having another pair of eyes to smooth those rough edges gave me considerably more confidence.

The interesting part was that the editing didn’t make me want to throw the manuscripts away. Quite the opposite. Once some of the roughness had been removed, I began to see that there might actually be something worth keeping in them. Perhaps those old stories weren’t as bad as I had convinced myself they were.

That eventually gave me the courage to publish Scenes from a Life Left Behind. It is a curious feeling to take something that has been private for years and suddenly put it on Amazon with a little button saying that people can actually buy it. There is no longer anywhere to hide.

I suppose I also have to abandon another excuse. Writers are often portrayed sitting at a large wooden desk in a beautiful room, gazing thoughtfully into the distance while composing their masterpiece. I don’t have the large wooden desk, but I do have a view of the fjord from my window, so I feel I’m reasonably well equipped in that department. The rest consists of a computer, some old manuscripts, coffee and an AI editor that doesn’t send an invoice.

I have no idea how many people will read the book. Perhaps quite a few. Perhaps not. Either way, I’m pleased that it is finally out there. Publishing it has reminded me that sometimes the biggest obstacle isn’t the quality of the work. It is simply deciding that it is time to stop keeping it in the drawer.

And now that I’ve opened one drawer, I have started wondering what is in the others.

That may turn out to be the dangerous part.

If you want to have a look at my book Scenes from a Life Left Behind, click here and it will take you straight to Amazon

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Until next time — may your coffee be warm, your records be legible, and your heart find a reason to smile. Have a great weekend!

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