Inherited Manuscript Mess

I'm here seeking advice. Today, I finally broke down and upboxed 4+ moving boxes worth of my mother's attempt at fiction. The pages are fragile and piled together in no discernible order, though most do have part and chapter numbers at least, and together, I think they're at least 10x the length of War and Peace. Nearly all are typed, but some are handwritten. She seemed to written multiple revisions -- undated, ordered. It occurred to me that I could try to use an OCR scanner and attempt to put this gazillion piece puzzle together, but unless I devote my life to it, I can't imagine even finishing the scanning before I depart this world. Common sense suggests a nice bonfire over which to roast tofu dogs, but my conscience won't allow it. She poured her soul into it. The writing, IMHO, is quite good, but the style, plot, and situations seem dated to me. I'm not sure anyone would want to read it. For the moment, I've decided to try to spend no more than 20 minutes/day scanning and editing, but it seems an exercise in futility.

If you had inherited this mess, what would you do? (And, nope, there are no siblings to dump it on.)

Thanks for any insights.

Diane

 

Welcome to the forums Diane. This does sound like a lot to take on. I am trying to image what four plus boxes or ten times war and peace actually looks like.

I don’t really have much advice for you on how to approaching writing this as it sounds like a gargantuan task however you approach it, but I will take a moment to say something that probably needs to be said regardless.

In your mothers absence, you are left with her writings which, as you said “she poured her soul into it”. It is more like someone writing to you from beyond the grave and holding on to part of her memory. Some people keep photos to remind them of loved ones and the good times they have had, but you have found yourself buried under pages and pages of her writing. You are allowed to feel that way because grief affects everyone differently. There is no “correct” way to deal with it.

So this is quite an intimate process to begin with and is unlikely to be entirely about the writing itself. It is also about your relationship with your mother.

Personally, I would suggest keeping it on one-side and doing a little bit at a time as you are doing. Maybe you will decide it is worth doing for your mother or you will accept that preserving her writing can’t replace her and who she ways to you. At some level, this sounds like how you decide to respect your mothers memory and everything associated with it. That is your choice and no one can take that away from you or really give you advice beyond how to deal with the feelings you have about it.

Don’t throw it out or burn it until you are absolutely certain that is what you want to do. You don’t know what is in there, what memories, secrets or experiences are buried amongst those pages and you may regret not knowing in the future. It is of course possible you may regret finding out as well if there is something you didn’t know about her in there as well. Either way, you deserve to spend time with your mother through her writing if that is what you wish to do.

And no, you aren’t letting your mother down by deciding not to organise and publish her writings if that is what you chose to do. To produce that much writing means it was clearly her passion, but it doesn’t have to be yours. You can make your own choices and have your own life and that is ok.

The main point is to take your time and let the emotions do there thing so you can heal. You can’t rush writing or the grieving process. So be kind to yourself and treat yourself and your feelings with respect. Even without knowing her, I hope that is what she would have wanted for you.

 

Wow, what a dilemma. I certainly feel for you. I love what @Kyle Phoenix just said above. I think I'd add something to that.

Is there any chance you could get somebody else to help you with this? Have you got any friends who write, or people who knew your mom who might be willing to give this a shot? Unless your mother made it clear that nobody was ever to have a look at it—in which case you don't have to try to publish it—then somebody else might not find it quite so daunting a task.

Do you get the feeling that the typed bits are more 'finished' than the handwritten bits? Could you maybe work only with these? If there are gaps, you could go back to the handwritten stuff.

You say her writing was good, but dated. Dated how? In terms of subject matter? Word choices? Is anything there of historical interest at all? And by 'dated,' how far back would you say the dating goes?

Are you a writer yourself?

I'm very curious about this, to be honest.

 

I just ran this dilemma past an old friend of mine (in her early 80s.) She said she faces a similar dilemma with her deceased husband's writings ...just songs, etc, so not quite such a daunting task. However, due to arthritis in her hands she can no longer type very well, so she fears it's all not going to happen any more.

She put an interesting slant on your problem. She said that your mother obviously wrote for enjoyment...and she had her enjoyment! You don't need to take these boxes of writing on as a burden, and spend the rest of YOUR life trying to get it sorted and published. My friend supported the notion of binning it—although not till you're ready—and to stop worrying about it or feeling guilty.

My friend's own daughters (and grandkids), who are very loving towards her and look after her very well (her daughters live in the same village as her, here in Scotland) have already told her,"Mum, when you die, we're going to hire a skip." (That's the word for 'dumpster' here in Scotland.) My friend says she doesn't blame them one bit. They have their own lives and their own detritus to deal with.

Unless your mother left you explicit instructions about what she wanted done with this, I'd just let it go. It's not as if you didn't try; you did. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

 

Thank you all so much for your kind and thoughtful responses, and I’m sure you know how rarely online forums exude kindness.

My mother died 15 years ago, and the manuscript boxes remained sealed until yesterday. I’ve been wrestling with the dilemma all this time. Ugh!

She shared much of her writing with me while in progress, so I am already familiar with the contents to some extent. It deals with the life of a young, innocent, aspiring actress, a well-intentioned but over-controlling repertory theater director, some bad guys, and various romantic conflicts. The overarching theme is the corruption of the arts though the pursuit of the almighty dollar/pound/euro. It has numerous points of comic relief. The plot is a gradual reveal of the mystery of the lead character’s disappearance after achieving fame and fortune — so there’s suspense.

You’re welcome if I’ve supplied you with a usable plot.

The datedness, to my mind, is due to the democratization of the arts over the past few decades. The gatekeepers are by and large gone, don’t you think? Think independent films, YouTube, Instagram, hundreds of cable channels, etc. The story deals heavily with filtering by theatrical gatekeepers. I also think it’s no longer credible to have a female protagonist be that innocent and naive. In terms of language and explicitness, it could have been written by Jane Austen, if you know what I mean.

I *can* write, but I wouldn’t consider myself a writer. I think it has to be a kind of compulsion. THAT, I completely lack. I can edit her writing to an extent, but to update any of her premises would destroy its unity.

It’s funny that my first thought 15 years ago was to put it up on eBay and sell it to anyone willing to pay the shipping costs (which would be exorbitant). Couldn’t bring myself to do it. Ditto for the bonfire and the shredder.

My husband suggests that perhaps one of you can run with my problem and write a story about a woman who inherits her mother’s mess of a manuscript. LOL If I were a writer, I’d go for it myself.

You’ve actually been very helpful because together, you’ve enumerated all the possible solutions and I will no longer worry that there’s a viable option I’ve overlooked.

I've ordered an OCR scanner and have placed a timer in the middle of the piles of paper. If there's one thing my mother achieved, it was to give me an overactive conscience. Sigh!!!

Diane

 

Well, good luck with this. But don't feel an obligation either ...especially if you don't think it will 'fly' as a publishable story. She had fun writing it, but maybe its time has passed? Even if she had published it, would it still be selling? Everybody has a 'time,' and this is your time. Don't let it get eaten up by something that doesn't have your entire heart and soul wrapped up in it.

You could certainly advertise that you have it, maybe on Facebook? See if you have any 'takers.' Explain as you did for us, and see if anybody out there has any ideas. Somebody who is interested in the Golden Age of Hollywood, or in movie history, might be inclined to take a look at it. While the issue is certainly dated, there is no reason it couldn't be written up as a piece of historical fiction, set in it's own time period. However, you might not be the person who can bring it to life.

 

I've come up with another idea for dealing with it that might satisfy my need to preserve and honor the manuscript without it sucking all the air out of my life: a sort of digital scrapbook. I've located at least a dozen of her plot summaries and outlines (conflicting, of course) so far. I think I may be able to integrate them into a single coherent outline. Next, I can quickly read through the jumble of papers, and if any snatches of dialog or action catch my attention, I can scan/transcribe those and organize them so that they fit into the outline. It would be a collection of random excerpts for each chapter, yet enough to give the sense of the chapter. When I'm satisfied with it, the papers themselves can contribute to a nice bonfire.

@jannert, I honestly don't see any sane person wanting this, even if it was completely free. If only she had been able to organize her endless revisions and at least keep pages belonging to the same chapter in the same file folder! A word processor would have been such a game changer. It's such a sad thing.

 

She is a great example of why I never seriously tried to write UNTIL I got a word processor. That's exactly what I would have left behind. Yikes.

Well, good luck. But just don't allow it to (as you so aptly put it) suck the air out of your life. It does sound to me as if it might be a project whose time has passed. Seemed like a good idea at the time, etc.

You can also continue to let it 'sit.' It has sat unopened for the last 15 years. Now that you have opened it, and have seen what's really there, you might need a bit more time to process what you've been left with. As you just said, you've had a new idea about what to do. Don't put pressure on yourself. Maybe let the idea cook a bit more, before embarking on it.

I forgot to ask. Have you been through all four boxes of stuff? Do you know exactly what you've got, top to bottom? Or are there bits you still haven't looked at yet?

 

@jannert, I've opened all the boxes and am in the process of trying to sort the papers into the 5 "parts" she defined. As far as I can tell, each box contains the same mishmash. Most of the pages, fortunately, have a part number. But then I'll find multiple pages labeled, say, Part II, chapter 6, p 10 -- each with different content. No dates. No revision numbers. Ah well, I'm limiting it to 20 minutes/day, so it's not as awful as it could be, and I think the scrapbook concept might actually be doable. Lacking technology, I can see how easy it was for her to get lost in a forest of her own making. I'm so reliant on technology at this point, I don't know how I managed to be a functioning human without it.