the.com/manuscript
A manuscript is years of solitary obsession disguised as a stack of paper nobody asked for.
means A manuscript is a document written or typed by hand or otherwise prepared by an author, especially a draft of a book or article submitted for publication before it becomes a printed work.
from Straight from Latin: manus, 'hand,' plus scriptus, 'written' — literally 'written by hand,' from the medieval phrase littera manuscripta. The word kept its meaning long after hands gave way to printing presses and keyboards, a fossil from the age when every copy of a text was inked out by some scribe in a cold room, which is why we still call a typed draft a 'manuscript' even when no hand has touched a quill.
- literal root
- Latin for written by hand, ink-stained and slow
- rejection rite
- Most bestsellers were rejected dozens of times first
- slush pile
- Publishers drown in unsolicited stacks they rarely open
- voynich riddle
- One medieval manuscript no one has ever decoded
- survival odds
- Ancient texts survived because monks copied them by candlelight
gutenberg bible — first major book printed with movable type, 1455, mainz
dead sea scrolls — ancient hebrew texts, 2,000 years old, found near qumran, israel
beowulf manuscript — only surviving copy of old english epic poem, british library, survived fire in 1731
voynich manuscript — mysterious 15th-century text in unknown script and language, yale university