I’ve been wanting to bring out a second edition of my book of poetry, Fault Lines. I needed to correct some typos, update the bio, and add some credits to the “Acknowledgements.” Most importantly, the first edition, brought out by a local micro press which has since closed up shop, was not available online. That just won’t do these days. My friend Jo recommended a formatter, as I’m not quite up to doing it myself. All I had to do was send her the manuscript and cover art. But when I opened the Word document, I was dismayed to find that somehow all the front matter had disappeared. So, now, in addition to correcting the issues I was aware of, I will have to recreate both the table of contents and the information on the verso of the title page. It could have been much worse, of course. The entire manuscript lost or garbled. I got off easy

When I was in college, one of our dormmates came to the room I shared with Hannah. She had a five-page paper due the next day, and only had three pages written. She was stuck, couldn’t think of anything else to add. Meeting the page minimums was a problem for a lot of us. We commiserated with her for a while and then she meandered off. Once the door closed behind her, Hannah, a very astute woman, even at 18, turned to me and said, “There’s only one answer. Go back and grind out another two pages.” Gosh, that applies to so many things in life. So, I’ll just open the Word file and, step by step, (or Bird by Bird, as Anne Lamott would say) recreate the lost material. No short cuts, no tricks. Just one more example of “butt-in-chair.”