The Business End

It's the business end of writing professionally that I find dispiriting. Will it sell? Who will it sell to? Why did that marketing strategy work, or not? How many copies to put in print, how much promotion to do, speaking engagements, book signings, agent hassles, subsidiary sales, contract negotiations. All of that and more, are some of the reasons I stopped writing. Everything about it works against creativity. It's why bestselling writers do their "search and replace" novels -- one so much like the last one that they later become indistinguishable in a reader's memory.

Paradoxically, as an aspiring writing, I believed the business end would be the part I would like, where I would excel. I daydreamed about sitting in a book store signing my name on the inside of my just-published novel. And in fact, there's very little like the anticipation of having a new book come out, the elation of seeing your work in its final form, typeface set so perfectly, the glossy dust jacket, your name in some fancy font. I never minded the process of getting something from acceptance to publication. I enjoyed dealing with all of my editors, appreciated their input, and truly believe that they all contributed to making each book better than it was before it reached their desks. But once the publication date arrived, deflation began.

I have sat in those book stores when nobody comes through the door. I've directed people to other books they were hunting on the shelves and I've had inept conversations with prospective buyers in the hope I could coerce them into purchasing my book before they left the store. I've sat in malls with people passing by, giving me an avoiding berth. I've whored myself to the process, and have yet to figure out the value in it.

To write well, a person needs solitude, quiet time to hear yourself think. If there's too much hustle and bustle creative brain cells are stifled. The racket of life can leave us feeling estranged from ourselves. We stop understanding what it is we want to say, or why we felt we had something to share in the first place. We detach. I've never felt as detached as I have on a book tour, putting my physical self on display, answering impossible questions from well-meaning people. And after all those months of quiet solitude, of getting in touch with yourself to create the thing you're sent out to publicize, the switch doesn't come easily. That first speaking engagement, the first time, after so long away, that you sit at the book store table, pen in hand, face set in a constant smile, all of those things run counter to the solitude. You feel sort of sleepy-eyed, like a mole emerging from its underground den. The publicity part -- the business end -- makes me feel inadequate. Some writers are good at it, but not many, and I am certainly not one of them.

Maybe I should follow the lead of my good friend in Boulder and write just for me. Maybe that's the reason I get such satisfaction from this blog. Maybe I should stop trying to get anything published, ever, and leave my pages for posterity, even if that posterity consists of family members only.

The truth is, I never stopped writing, I just stopped publishing. That's the fact of it anyway. I wrote my way through the pain of my last divorce, and through the wonder of reawakened love. I wrote all those book reviews so few people seemed to read. I wrote a fantastic number of emails and letters. Writing has always made me happy. It's the other part, the part that pegs a person a professional, that causes me anguish. At this late stage of life, I seem to be looking only for the joy. And maybe that should be enough.

Onward ....