What did I just spend 6 months doing? I have a couple notebooks full of writing in pencil. I have colorful tabs to organize and point the way to chapters and parts of chapters that I wrote months ago. I have a summary/outline that changed a couple of times along the way. Now what?

Transcribe, scribe! Onto the computer I go. Most of you probably know by now that I write longhand in pencil. I seem unwilling to go high, mid, or low tech with the writing of my first drafts. One might think that transcription is a royal pain. Why type 80,000 words right after you wrote them? Isn’t it doing double work?

Nonsense! It’s actually a pretty cool process. Here are three reasons why:

1)   It’s like a mini-vacation. Yes, I did say vacation. Where’s the special destination? Your story! The reason I call it a vacation is because you get to “tour” your hard work with no pressure at all. You don’t need to change a thing. I actually recommend that you leave most of what you wrote by hand as it was. This isn’t the time to dive into revisions. This is the time to get acquainted with your accomplishment. Some of this you haven’t seen for months, reintroduce yourself.

2)   It gets you prepared for some serious revising and rewriting. Sometimes I call transcription a “half pass” meaning, yes—I do correct little things, a sentence here or there, add a sentence that I don’t have to think about. But if I have to wonder for more than a nanosecond I leave it alone. When I have questions or things I want to explore changing, I write them on a separate piece of paper and save it. When it comes time to do that first major rewrite I have not only familiarity with the piece as a whole but direction. I feel like I did my homework and I can proceed with confidence.

3)   It gets you pumped up! Dude, dudette, you just finished a novel! That’s what I’m talking about!! Get pumped, celebrate. Enjoy those moments when your fingers fly because you put together an inspired scene that came out how you wanted! (They didn’t all come out that way, but there will be some. Enjoy them!)

I am about halfway through transcribing THE TRUBAKER ORPHANAGE. Another few weeks and I should be done with this step. Do you write longhand and transcribe? Share your stories!