In 2020, at the front edge of the pandemic, an editor with an Australian publishing house reached out and asked if I’d like to write a book.
Hello!
She found my writing online and envisioned a collection of essays, just as I have done in my favorite dreams.
After lots of email and Zooming, I made it through the first acquisitions meeting with a few things to polish. It was exhilarating (and terrifying) when the talk turned to design and promotion. The second, decisive, acquisitions meeting came on the very day that a national lockdown was imposed in Australia (because of course it did). The team decided that it would be too difficult to market me globally in a pandemic. The very nice and supportive editor was encouraging. Please let me know when you have a finished manuscript, perhaps after the pandemic, yada yada.
Game over.
After tucking the project away in a plague-inspired sad spiral, I’m finally flirting with the idea again. I’d like to find an agent, but haven’t actually written the book. I have about a half-book’s worth of essays and lots of scattered notes, but confidence and motivation are in short supply. Fear has a lot to say.
The world is different now. I am different. Why write? I'm not particularly ambitious and am kind of weary, but curiosity is calling. Could I?
Here’s what I know:
I need a pitch that I can send to agents. Even after consulting all the best guides —
, , — I remain daunted. I think magic must be involved. And the stars probably need to be arranged just so. I know, at the very least, that I need to write something. Job one, mission possibly impossible. Write the damned thing.Here’s what I do not know:
Everything else. I know nothing.
How many essays to send? How many agents to pitch? Do I pitch agents or publishers? Should the pitch be personable and clever, or scholarly and refined? Should I send the mouthy essays or bury them? Does anyone want to read another word about politics, ever? Should I make a pie? Should I buy gin?
This is like a pending cliff dive for a risk averse neurotic and the dawning possibility of the attempt is making me manic.
I’m excited! I’m terrified! I’m confident! I’m certain to fail!
I can do this.
No I absolutely can’t!
I’d like to be under a wing. I’d like a graphically pleasing map. A hand to hold. A cookie. Maybe a hug.
This is all catnip for an agent, I’m sure.
I am my own worst enemy. Instead of figuring how to do this thing that I’ve always wanted to do and just doing it, I’m imagining the worst what-ifs.
Let’s visit the what-ifs.
What if, for instance, I get a book deal? Then I have to write a book.
What if I can’t?
What if I write the book and it’s awful and the bad reviews gut me and I have to crawl under the covers and feel sorry for myself until I die?
What if I write the book and someone expects me to show up? The mere thought of public speaking sends my tired heart racing in the best of times. Readings? A book tour? I can’t think of much more terrifying than that. Besides, what would I wear?
What if I write the book and it’s wonderful and people love it (hang with me, the bad part is coming) and I have to show up EVEN MORE? The fantasy has a certain distant, delicious whiff to it, but the reality is that I would have to show up. I would have to leave my house and perform something.
(This is all ignoring, of course, the biggest, most likely what-if: What if I don’t get an agent or a deal? Nothing would change and that would be fine, maybe even a relief. I could say I tried, and stay home.)
Publishing now requires a “platform.” You have to be somebody, your presence in the world needs to generate buzz. Publishers want personality, and if yours is of the milquetoast variety, you’d better fix it. You need to look good and speak like a thespian, spewing witticisms like confetti. When did this happen?
Writers are, quite often, introverts. They like to be alone, with their most fascinating stuff happening on the inside, not on a stage or a platform. Writers are, generally, not performers (except on the page). In the past, they could be hermits and it would only increase buzz. As Elena Ferrante (unseen as a ghost) said:
I will be the least expensive author of the publishing house. I’ll spare you even my presence.
Now, writers face the glare of morning television. They song-and-dance their way through book tours, fretting about nerves and what to wear. I’ve seen the deer-in-the-headlights faces of new authors, the barely contained panic of previously sequestered wordsmiths. Of course, there are charismatic writers who charm us all when they grace the stage, with their gorgeous voices and dramatic dress. But public performance is a difficult pivot for many of us who live in our heads most of the time. Theatre kids aside, most of us just want the comfort of our bubbles. Sure, Doris Lessing is “delighted,” but she clearly just wants to get in the house with her artichokes.
Writers are weird. Sensitive and solipsistic, we want the world to attend our work, but many of us would like anonymity. We want glowing reviews and rafts of love, but also the scrim of mystery and fiction. Laud me but don’t look at me. Duchess Goldblatt is an inspiration. Wear a mask, share the work, collect the rewards. Bravo.
You see my dilemma. I’ve lost my mind. I’m already worried about a thing I haven’t even done. Ferrante and Lessing have shown up in this essay that is essentially about me not doing the work. I’ve got the cart a county ahead of the horse. Fantasy is the special province of the writer, I suppose.
The nutshell: I want to write a book but I don’t know how or where to start and I’m scared that, if I do write the book, it will fail and I’m also scared that it will succeed. And then people will look at me. And expect me to speak.
And, also, what will I wear?
Is this the normal process? Am I doing any of it right yet?
Fear of likely failure is universal. Fear of unlikely success is self-sabotage. Maybe I should just get a good therapist and spare us all.
Cheers!
Lisa
Things to share:
- has written a perfect essay about the stresses of publication. (See, it’s stressful even though she’s cute in pictures and happy to talk. Imagine the trauma for a house cat like me.)
And this is where I tell you that living my dream of writing a book feels sorta like living my dream of becoming a mother because both dreams were based on nebulous imagery and foolish beliefs in the ability of the external to fundamentally change or improve the internal. Motherhood did not imbue me with radiant strength or peace. Mothering meant that my days and skillset drastically changed but I was shocked to realize that my many human frailties and vulnerabilities remained, despite the fact that I’d attained Madonna status. I fear that being a published author who has written A Book might be the same. Maybe, despite having become this person I’ve dreamed of becoming, I’m still me. Middle-of-the-night anxiety sweats and all.
Last year, Nicole Chung wrote this hopeful piece about the value of writing when it feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic:
Something my friend R. O. Kwon told me not long ago has stuck with me: If I’m writing my book … that means on some level I believe in a future where this book could exist.
No longer a bright young thing, I’m aiming for a Fifty Over Fifty list.
gives us hope with her Note:
For what it is worth, my novel was published the year I turned 60. Were there moments when I felt as exposed and vulnerable as the shell-less turtle I described in my journal that year? Yes. Did it kill me? Not yet. Turns out that one way of not giving a fuck is to just say yes to yourself even when it scares you. Also , just keep that horse in front of the cart for as long as you can .
Finally, what about assembling ten essays you really like and seeing how they look together?
I wrote a book aimed at introverts so I get all this! For what it’s worth I think there are ways to get the word out about your book that are more comfortable for us introverts/homebodies :). There is a lot of stuff other authors do that I give a big nope too.