James McMichael | CTRL+Shift: Writing practice at the dawn of the digital era

What digital devices do you have access to for writing?

Just this machine.

What are your physical archiving conventions?

These notebooks...[points to bookshelves full of notebooks] And there are probably about 10 others and the ones that fit in that shelf right there—that's about 4 years of worth. ... These are the notes that I would take for the book that I'm reading. The RED is the more important material. It's something that, if I'm going through it I can read and just pick out the highlighted parts, then GREEN are my own responses. So, I'm always working on the right hand page when I'm taking notes from books I'm reading, then when I'm going back over the material, I'll work on this page and there'll be other changes. Usually more GREEN will turn up.

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What role does correspondence play in your revision practice?

I'll send then drafts and get responses from them that are almost always helpful. And they're helpful in terms, less of my being able to meet what they might have preferred, to having what they've said to me help me prefer what happens once I make the revisions.

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How long have you been writing professionally?

I published my first poem 53 years ago.

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What digital devices do you have access to for writing?

Just this machine.

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What physical tools do you use for composition?

My files are up here to the right. They're artist sketchbook, so they're unlined. And I take notes from the reading I do in those, and I also include (in green ink) my own responses to the things I'm reading, or things that occurred to me that might turn out to be germs for lines. So, I do that longhand.

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What genres do you work in?

Only poetry.

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How do you name your files?

One document. ... The date and the notebook. So, the notebooks are numbered. It'll be from Notebook 23, or something like that. ... (A final draft) would have the title of the poem, and then the highest number of the draft of that poem would be the most current one—the one that's replaced the others. ... On Wednesday, I'm told by our tech, that what's there gets backed up. So, Wednesday about 2:00AM, or something like that, and on Thursday at 2:00AM, some back-up takes place. So, that's all I know about it.

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How did the advent of personal computing and the internet influence your writing practices?

I like the contact this machine gives me with people. ... I like the fact that it's this keyboard that connects me with them, and this keyboard that connects me with strangers who might read my poems. ...

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How do you 'feel' about your digital files? Do they feel dear to you?

All I care about is the product--that's all I care about.

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What role, if any, do other people play in your writing?

I'll send then drafts and get responses from them that are almost always helpful. And they're helpful in terms less of my being able to meet what they might have preferred to having what they've said to me help me prefer what happens once I make the revisions...there've been a couple who are new in the last 4 or 5 years on this most recent books—colleagues.

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