I should probably say, right off the bat, that I'm a very self-conscious journal-writer. Years of whining to a diary in my teens (and then making the mistake of going back to it in my adulthood and reading the endless entries) have cured me not only of confiding to a diary, but of so much as writing fiction in the first person. So you can see that this little journal of mine will force me to break abandoned ground. Still, I will pop in here from time to time with writing-related musings, reflections, and ramblings that I hope will be at least reasonably interesting and mercifully brief. Oh, and look me up on Facebook!
August 13, 2008:
Don't you think it's odd that an experienced writer (I think I can pass for that) should find it more unsettling to have a book released now than she did the first time? I'd have thought it would work the other way around, but no. Maybe it's because I haven't had a new book out since 2005. Maybe it's because this will be my first book with HarperCollins, and I'm afraid I'll let them down. Or maybe it's simply that I know now how quickly, how quietly, a book can slip below the horizon and disappear forever.
Which is to say, my expectations are finally realistic.
When my first book, Going to Bend, came out in January 2004, Doubleday was ready for huge sales figures and so was I. They didn't materialize, even though the reviews were excellent. And it was even worse when Homesick Creek was published a year and a few months later. Back then, I didn't know that critical acclaim and the number of books sold weren't even casually related. Now I know.
I also have a much better idea of how many people, never mind how much money, it takes to birth a book. The writing is the least of it. By the time Hannah comes out, it will have passed through dozens of capable hands, starting with my editor Kate Nintzel's, but also including those of copy editors, proofreaders, book designers, sales representatives, marketing specialists, publicists, printers, and, well, you probably get the idea. If the book doesn't meet their collective expectations, won't it somehow be my fault? After all, I wrote the damned thing. And it doesn't really help as much as you'd think to remember that it's a much more complicated world than that.
So day by day I'll be getting twitchier and harder to be around, until, by The Day (Sept. 2--if it isn't in your personal diary yet, enter it now), I'll be nearly unbearable. So breathe with me. Deeply in and deeply out. Serenely, composedly, confidently. Or, failing that, a glass of wine in the evenings might not hurt, either.
Read my past journal entries:
July 31, 2008
There are just thirty-four days to go before Hannah's Dream is released, and I'm getting nervous. Will you like the book? Will anyone? People sometimes compare . . . . read more
