Outtakes

One word, more than almost any other, describes the process of writing this book: revision. My book was reviewed by at least six (seven counting myself!) people. Each added immeasurably to the final manuscript. Each “final chapter” went through at least four substantial revisions. And then the cutting began. The book was too long and was reduced from over 120,000 words to just under 103,000. I took on that task mostly by myself. It was not easy, lots of good stuff had to go (and some of lesser quality to be sure), a process called “killing the darlings” in writing circles. I call a number of my darlings “Outtakes,” and include of number of them in this blog.

OUTTAKE 1 – Spider Man

A story of how a young married undergraduate couple made ends meet as fulltime students.

We moved into a two-story house, known as the “Hippy House,” subdivided into seven studio apartments, all occupied by students. Ours was the largest and the only one with a private bathroom and shower, both oddly placed. The bathroom was a screened off part of the living room and the shower was in the kitchen. Eventually I became the Hippy House manager; my duties consisting only of collecting rents for the owner. I did not show apartments or handle the renting side. The owners did that for themselves, telling me they wanted to see their renters face to face.  I received a $25 discount on our rent for this task, reducing it to $50 per month, including utilities! Collecting rent was a mighty struggle. The residents, for the most part, were also students, short of cash, constantly putting me off, often being mysteriously gone at rent time. I learned what the word “dunning” meant, and I did not relish the task. We shared the house with many colorful characters. One renter I was meeting for the first time opened the door with a blast of marijuana smoke billowing from his room. This was common enough in 1970, but the black widow tattoo in the middle of his forehead wasn’t. He turned out to be a good payer though, an art major and judging from some of his work, an entomologist as well, particularly fond of drawing spiders.