The Better Half

The revelation came while I was in the shower getting ready to go to the gym. As revelations go, it was a timely one, because I didn’t really want to go to the gym. And I knew I had to write down this blog before I forgot this great feeling I’m having.

What is this spine-tingling revelation?

There are two halves to being a writer, more or less: writing, and being published. I should be a guru sitting on a mountaintop somewhere, with insights like that. Because of course I’ve always known this.

But I realized in one of those flash-quick moments that one half of the equation is a thousand times better and more potent than the other.

If you dream of being a Bestselling Author, of NYT lists and being limoed around NYC and being feted at posh parties, you would probably think the better half was the being-published part. And maybe you’d be right. But the best part of being a writer for me is writing: the coming-up-with-it, the way it fills in, the research, the slogging along writing it, the rewriting, that chortle of glee when you get it right, all the times you just show up and type something—typetypetypetypetype—and it makes no damn sense at all.

Toweling my hair, I felt as if an arrow of shining light had gone right through my heart. I am about to start a new book. As good an excuse as any not to go to the gym!

If selling a book and seeing it come out in stores were the real goal (although that’s what I say to myself every time), then writing would be anti-climatic. I’m no bestselling author, so I’m only guessing at this, but I don’t care how high you climb, how many Edgars you garner or how many bestseller lists you’re on—- there’s always a downside to the ego trip. And for me, a sensitive who can see a backhanded slap coming from miles away, it can be pure torture. Oh, there are some really good things about being published. The money, for one, if it’s good. Seeing the cover for the first time. Getting the galleys. Getting advance praise and great reviews. The day it comes out! (Although a look at your amazon number might take the bloom off the rose.) Holding it in your hands. Seeing it in a store. But for sensitive types like me, there’s always the down side. It’s never as good an experience as I think it will be. There’s always the store I’ll walk into where they have no books at all. It’s always something. And worse, the publisher expects you to get out there and flog that book like there’s no tomorrow, making personal appearances and talking about yourself when you don’t want to (don’t get me wrong—I love to talk about myself, but that’s not the venue for it), being on the radio, and the constant fear that someday, I’ll have to go on television.

That’s the downside.

What I love about my big new standalone is that a word isn’t written yet. Maybe this will be The One. Sure, I have fantasies of bestseller lists and fawning reviews and the whole country being taken by storm over my book, but what’s the most fun? What do I love best? The idea that I can make this one perfect. I keep trying for perfect and haven’t gotten there yet. But this one… It’s got it all. A big High Concept, a brilliant premise, great characters (at least I like their names—- Nick Holloway and Jolie somebodyorother). I can feel it in my gut, the excitement of embarking on the carnival ride of my life.

And the great thing is, it stretches out endlessly in front of me like an unpopulated beach, the surf shimmering in the sunlight, the sky a deep, aching blue.

With no publication in sight.