Good morning!!! The Elephant on Karlův Bridge is top of mind this week, as it is still with a publisher, and anything could happen. This causes no small amount of anxiousness. I’m open to suggestions about what to do about anxiousness, and twitchiness. Let me know what I should do. You know how to get a hold of me.
Now, this alleged anxiousness raises some important questions in me about writing novels, about telling stories, and where is the “win” when it comes to publishing. Am I really anxious? Or is that just an expected emotion? Maybe I’m not anxious, but rather, excited and hopeful and honoured that my book is being read by a big publishing house – it’s being considered. For sure, I feel gratitude, humility. And it is a risk to put something you’ve worked hard on into the hands of strangers. But at my age, publishing, writing, this game in which I am intimately involved, is beyond ego. It is not about insecurities, or unaddressed damage. It’s certainly not about fame. And it is not about money. It is about story, curiosity, delight, beauty. And wonder – how is it that all of this running around mating, and dating, and falling apart, loving and hating, living and dying came to be? And isn’t it incredible? If you believe, as I do, that we human beings are hard-wired to respond to story, why? Why does “a man falls in a hole and struggles to get out, and then, finally gets out of the hole” work, every single time? The win is in the writing, the act of creating something, the surrender to imagination. There is a quote from Jane Smiley about writing that acts as a rebuttal to Hemingway’s “All first drafts are shit.” Smiley says: “Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.” That’s a much more positive take on creation. So, if the win is the creation of a novel, a story, a poem, then what’s publishing?
Well, here’s my theory: Publishing is the woman at work who has dirty blond hair and wears sweaters, a lot, and who barely looks up when you walk past her every day. She doesn’t think she’s beautiful, but you have noticed she is – she is beautiful in the persevering way truth works. On her desk, is a picture of Woody Allen sitting on a park bench with Diane Keaton watching the sun come up over the 59th Street Bridge. No pets. No family. Just that image. You say good morning to Glenys every day and she says good morning back. It is a small dance. But that’s the end of it. You do not make forays into each other’s lives. You do not question, or comment about the weather. You say good morning. Then, one morning in December, Glenys looks up and smiles, and she takes your breath away.
That’s publishing. After all the joy of creation, and imagination, and the work of writing, Glenys smiles – and then, your work will in the world. Your story will enter a larger world.
