the two words I didn’t fix in my book
The Point of Diminishing Returns
I’m currently in the process of formatting my book. After two and a half years of writing, it’s undergone no fewer than eight revisions, with a few later tweaks here and there.
The subject matter is personal, based on some hard-won lived experience. What started out as therapeutic venting has been channeled into something very different, something I hope will help others. It’s required me to dive back into some difficult topics, reliving things I’d finally started getting some distance from.
Let’s just say it’s been… a process.
At this moment, I find myself looking at the print-ready PDF. This should make me happy. This should signal to me that all this work is finally taking form, that I can see with my own eyes how the book will appear to the reader. It should make me feel like I’m in the home stretch.
Then I see it.
“Our bodies are asking us to place our attention where it belongs, perhaps for the very
[ page break ]
first time.”
I stare at the widowed 2-word carryover, all alone, at the top of the next page. Sure, the page goes on. There’s a blank space below that line and a fresh paragraph underneath. The rest of it looks fine. But it’s those two words…
I’ve already tried fixing it. Multiple times. I’ve removed words before it and even tried adding others after. Nothing feels right. It changes how the paragraph lands, and I don’t want that.
I glance through the PDF at the later chapters. I see a few more things that bug me: a lone word here, an unbalanced page there, a series of impossible little fixes that would require compromise of my writing to resolve. I would need to cut out words I’d spent years carefully crafting just to make it work. I would have to alter my message to fit the page.
The software I’m using is easy and intuitive. It’s also free. Both are important for someone like me, but it has its limitations. It doesn’t offer me the usual tricks to manually adjust it into place.
The reality is, I don’t have the resources to buy expensive publishing software or the inclination to tackle the steep learning curves. Besides, life has taught me to make do with what’s at hand.
So I find myself staring at this 2-word carryover and asking myself some questions. What’s most important here? Stressing myself out and trying to make this look like a pro did it? Or doing the very best I can with the tools I have? Is this a matter of simply wanting it to look its best, or proving something to myself that’s perhaps a bit unreasonable?
I understand there are industry standards and good reasons behind the rules of typography. At the same time, I also see how hard I’m trying to make something work that, in the end, might not actually be the end of the world. Perhaps even within a given set of rules, there’s room to say, “This rule simply doesn’t make sense in this situation.”
So I have a choice.
I can spend another day or two searching for two other words that I can delete from my manuscript. Maybe the fifth or sixth attempt will magically do the trick.
My other option is to let those two words settle in right where they are, let them take up all of that space at the top of the page, without forcing something else out that doesn’t want to leave. And shouldn’t.
I, too, have tried to shrink myself down in order to fit into certain spaces. And like those two words, disconnected from something more substantial, I've also felt a bit cut off at times. Maybe instead of trying to squeeze the life out of something just for the sake of someone else's rule, I can be okay with creating my own. Maybe I can allow a little more space for something to just be as it is. And just maybe, some things don't actually need fixing.
My book is called A Regular Person's Guide to Living with Chronic Pain for a reason. I chose that title because I'm not a doctor or a therapist, and I don't pretend to be. I wrote the book because I've lived the experience. Because I had some things to say about it. I knew I had something valuable to share, professional credentials or not. And that's what I'm trying to keep in mind as I stare at these two words on the page.
The truth is, I am a regular person. I'm 61 years old, living with some challenges. Even on my best days, my energy is finite. That doesn't make me lazy or unwilling to put in the effort. Anyone who knows me can verify that. It just means I'm quite familiar with my own limitations, and I know when to cut my losses. It means I know a thing or two about reaching that point of diminishing returns.
Here's what I'm not: a professional publisher, a typesetter, or a machine. I'm not infallible, perfect, omnipotent, or omniscient. While I occasionally forget those truths, I'm inevitably reminded of them.
I'm not asking you to lower your expectations of the book, or all that went into it. This is about keeping my own expectations of myself in check. So if you read the book and notice the occasional line or phrase standing on its own at the top of a page, just know that I noticed it too. It's not a lack of diligence or effort. That's where I deliberated and decided not to compromise what mattered most for the sake of aesthetics, and not to fix something that in many ways was never really broken.
I'll always know those words are there, too. I might even wish there had been a way to keep it all as visually tidy as I'd hoped. But there comes a point when improving the page begins to diminish the writing. I think, for me, that point is here.
With you on the journey,
Julie 🍃