Preparing to Publish
Sometimes I like Joan Didion and other times I don’t. I like her when I’m feeling like a Writer and can be confident in my work and my goals. “Well, we are practically the same,” I think to myself when I read her work. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, because I am just publishing my first book at age 56, while she has been a journalist and novelist nearly all her adult life and has the award-lined bookshelves to prove it. Recently, I re-read her essay “On Keeping a Notebook” as a way of shoring up my nerves and self-doubt.
Believe it or not, the latest bout of self-doubt arrived in the face of evidence that a local bookstore had ordered my book instead of having me provide copies on consignment (their usual arrangement). I went to the store to drop off a galley and the clerk behind the cash register seemed to need confirmation that I, in fact, was not making up a story to barrage her boss with yet another indie book. She looked it up on the computer and I leaned in to get a look at the screen. There it was: my title, my publisher, and the number of books ordered. I smiled so wide I nearly knocked off all the quilted Vera Bradley phone covers and multicolored ink gel pens displayed on the counter.
Turning away from the counter one second later, my smile fell. Look at all the books in here! There are hundreds of thousands of them! How is my little book--not even a novel or a cookbook or anything--going to compete with ALL THESE BOOKS? That’s when my relationship with Joan began to suffer a little. She had gotten me through the door, and then she'd abandoned me to join Anna Quindlen, Sue Monk Kidd, and Charles Krauthammer in the Best Sellers section. Why leave me now? If we’re just the same, how did she get all the recognition and success?
She herself explains a little of how she did it in the essay in “On Keeping a Notebook”: “I would like to believe that my dread then was for the human condition, but of course it was for me, because I wanted a baby and did not then have one and because I wanted to own the house that cost $1,000 a month to rent and because I had a hangover.”
That’s why. She spent her life working at it and making decisions and sacrifices that I didn’t. Not better, just different. At this point in my life, I can only go forward with who I am and what I’ve done to get here. Admittedly, there are days I wish I had done things differently. Maybe not exactly like Joan; she’s suffered great losses that I can’t begin to imagine how to deal with. But, yes, I have sometimes wished I had put my desire to write ahead of the laundry, the Scout troops, the dinner on the table every night . . . the comfort of life as I knew it.
But then I checked in with Joan and we repaired our relationship. Again, same essay, different advice:
“It all comes back. . . . I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
After reading her essay about journals, I turned to my own work and wrapped it around me like a security blanket. I like my work: I find myself in there, and I am comfortable with the woman who wrote those words.
Now that we are where we are, how much of who we were is present for it? Are you on "nodding terms" with the writer you used to be?
“On Keeping a Notebook” was included in the book Slouching Towards Bethlehem, published in 1968.
Photo credit: Associated Press
Thanks. And very true, Patricia.
I appreciate your story, Kathryn. It's incredible what is possible now with self publishing.
You're welcome Cindy...keep on writing, especially if it makes you happy or calms your soul.
Thank you, Kathryn. Stories like yours are inspirational in a very real way because it echoes the path that so many of us took. I am so happy for your success and your rewards - well-deserved, I'm sure. Thank you for your encouraging words.
Ah Cindy,
I'm one of those older writers who have sacrificed my whole life (it seems, well, I did start writing at 21) in many ways for my writing. Spending hours, days, months, years at the typewriter and now computer to write my stories. It's been 42 years now and 18 novels behind me and I still feel like the same girl/woman who first began writing in 1972. Full of dreams and hopes. But, unlike Joan, I haven't achieved the great fame and fortune she has. As strange as it sounds, though, the new age (of Internet, Amazon, eBooks and Audible audio books) are finally allowing me to have some of that fortune, and a little of that fame. My secret? I NEVER GAVE UP! Through the years, sorrows and joys of my life, divorce, full time jobs I hated, and surviving life...I kept writing and dreaming. Some times were awful...the self-doubts, the lack of money (4% royalties for my first book in 1984; 6% for the next two!) and wondering if I "was good enough a writer" and WHY I hadn't made it? Now, in my later years I think I am finally reaping the long sought after rewards I've worked so hard for for so long...as I made more money (=security) last year than I ever had with the bigger publishers because I self-published. In the next 2 years ALL my other 15 published owned titles will become mine again and I plan on self-publishing them, too. So...our stories might be different, but in the end, we are writers and WE NEVER STOP WRITING. It is who we are. 2014 Epic EBook Awards *Finalist* for Dinosaur Lake, author Kathryn Meyer Griffith [email protected]
"Are you on 'nodding terms' with the writer you used to be?" Love this. Sometimes when I find pieces I wrote ages ago, it doesn't seem possible that I wrote them. When I read essays from college I think, was I ever that smart? I seemed to know so much more back then than I do now. :)
Thank you all for your wonderful comments. I believe that both current peers and former selves have a lot of information for us as we continue on. It's up to us to figure out whether or not it is information we can use. With age comes discernment, a facility borne of practice (hopefully) and practicality (there's only so much time left!). Maintaining boundaries--especially with the past--is always a good idea!
Enjoyed reading this post; and it has a satisfying conclusion. I have recently made peace with some of my past selves, especially as a writer. I have always loved to write....had some of my essays read aloud in class by my fifth grade teacher. But still, I could use reaching out more warmly to my past selves....and to start writing more often in the notebook I carry on the train to my day job.
I, too, liked the post and enjoyed it, the relationship with Joan and its ups and down was very clever and thought-provoking. I'm not sure if I'm on nodding terms with my writing or any other past. Perhaps more like sticking out my tongue at it. But if I write about it, I can at least make it funny for others.
I really enjoyed this piece. There is a certain if I knew now what I knew then that creeps up on me sometimes. Like you I have nothing like Didion's amazing literary past, I'm a late bloomer too. But she's certainly worth listening to no matter where we are.
Great article, Cindy! I love your description of your "relationship" with Joan and its ups and downs. Very clever. And good luck with your book! Maybe you'll be resting on the bestseller shelves with Joan et al soon.