Writing and moving towards publishing a book have come with many surprises! First and foremost, I’ve learned that, at least for me, writing and publishing are team sports. The irony that my name will appear on the jacket of Group Living and Other Recipes all by itself is not lost on me. What would my book be without my friends who read drafts and told me when I was lost? It wouldn’t exist! What about without my editor, Joey? I do not want to read the book that would have emerged without her sharp intelligence and rhythmic sense of language. Sometimes it felt like I had begun swirling words around like making cotton candy. I handed her a big sticky pink cloud, and she was like: how about a nice bite of caramel instead of this total rat’s nest of candy filled with air! So yes, thanks to her, I think my book is edible and, more than that, nice to read! (You’ll be the judge!)
And now I am finding out about the other players on this team. I’m only just beginning to meet them, and it’s a joy! In mid-August I received the copy edits on my book. For those who aren’t familiar, copy edits are about nitpicking! It’s grammar, spelling, consistency. When people get this stuff wrnog, it jst Stops you daed, in Your traks. It’s a distraction, like seeing food in someone’s teeth as they give an important presentation. You want to listen, but it’s hard to focus because what you actually want is to hand them floss.
I had a sense of what it would be like to receive the copy edits. There would be my familiar word document and all its thousands of words (for the record, and for other writers who are curious, which I often am, my book is just shy of 85,000 words. But there are a lot of recipes so I think it reads as a little shorter.) And someone, a stranger, would have tracked changes throughout the document, making small, necessary edits that I could approve or challenge, as I saw fit. This stranger would have spent up to two weeks living inside my book (with me, although I was absent) and lingering on each word, each sentence, probing for small errors.
This fact alone, this companionship with my work, is an unreal gift. I can’t quite explain how meaningful it is to have someone else give you their time for your work, but it’s such an honor that it makes my chest ache. (It also makes me feel like giving others gifts that empower them the way these acts have empowered me! I think about this a lot—because isn’t that also group living? Topic for another day/every day!) Anyway, I did in fact receive my book with tracked changes, and that was fun and fascinating. I’d made small errors, as one does. The copyeditor had caught them—hopefully all of them—and I breathed a sigh of relief.
What I didn’t expect was a separate document that accompanied the copy edit. It was a style guide of sorts. In it, they had made note of when I intentionally broke with the Chicago Manual of Style, as when I used italics or ALL CAPS for certain kinds of emphases. At the end of this guide, they had made a list, from A to Z, of every word that appeared in the book that wasn’t in Merriam-Webster dictionary. The goal, I think, was to create a reference if a word appears in the manuscript twice. Every time I write shaki shaki, it better look exactly like that!
Reading this list made me feel high! Here was my whole book’s distinct vocabulary, listed alphabetically. This is the stuff that makes me me. Here were all the proper nouns I use—my family members’ names, the celebrities I hate and love, the places I frequent—alongside Japanese and Filipino words I’ve folded into my life and words I’ve invented! (i.e.: “Poof” as a verb!) It was the glossary of my life.
In reading this list, I discovered that I like the feeling of being a collection of things. What makes me me, or you you, is not singularity—being wholly separate and somehow distinct. Instead, perhaps, we are collections and overlaps. We share all these things (people, places, words) with others, but those others are many, and no one else is this exact same menagerie. We are at once ourself and many.
Which is all to say: I found this list ecstatic. I sent it to a friend, who was also delighted, if perhaps not as frantically thrilled as I was. She responded:
If you cut out all the non-English words and proper nouns you get something like this: ass-tight disinheritor do-gooder-y folks fun-loving funhouse mirror hapa hoohooooo jo jo potatoes laundromat mindfuck one-directional pleasure-seeking Potlatch purple-lipped push-pop rashy redface rib-sticking sous-chefing tableside under-eyeliner wheaty. Just saying.
Hoohooooo!
I’m going to include one section below (please indulge me!), so you can get a sense of the full list. In some ways, this feels like cheating. I mean, do you even have to read my book now? Just kidding!
Another friend was telling me about his recurring battles with insomnia. He said that the best trick he’d found was to choose a letter and try to think of every word he could that started with it. He could never exhaust this list, and each night, eventually, in the middle of the Bs, or the Ms, he would drift to sleep. So here is a list to fall asleep to.
What words are in the glossary of your life? What words make you you? Please, comment! I want to know!
And now, how about those Ms?
Maesri brand
Maggi sauce
Magic Castle
Magic Shell
makrut lime
Malheur National Forest
mapo tofu
Marco Ruuuubio
Margaret Mead
Mariko-san
Marjorie Sharp
Marmite
Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider
Martinotti’s
massaman curry
mati gás ang ulo
Matsiman
matsis
Matt Korda
Mayors for Peace
Meatpaper
Meet Dave
Merry Prankster
Metro racks
miang kham
Mickey Mouse
Mike Crapo
Mike Leigh
mindfuck
Mini Chicken Crimpy Shapes
misery-inducing
Mondragon
Montgomery Ward
Moses Lake
Mount Adams
Mount Athos
Mount Hood
Mount Saint Helens
Mountain Institute
muku muku
Mushrooms (book)
myrtlewood
i looooooooved this. often they ("they") say people are either writers or editors, but i want to be both. i want to make the list, and i want to BE the list. during one of my career crises i went down the rabbit hole of "how to become a copy editor" (going so far as to hand-draw a list of my services for posting on the various coop boards around town), so i learned then about the list. i can't WAIT to see all the things in the book your list hath teased!