Torn

The phrase, "I'm so torn about..." has been coming out of my mouth much more than usual recently. In this case it's my response to Betsy Lerner's book, Forest for the Trees. I loved the first half of the book where she describes, with such love and care, writers with all their ticks and social foibles. Even if they weren't the most positive characteristics, it was wonderfully comforting to recognize myself in her words.

And then came the second half of the book: absolute terror. Maybe that's an overstatement, but only just. She describes the steps: finding an agent, then an editor, and the process of publication. And the various forms of torture these might present, from hating the book jacket design, to being ignored by... just about everyone and anyone who has anything to do with the production of your book. (Personally, being ignored is one of the worst experiences I can have. Go on, say no, or say you don't like it, but for god's sake say SOMETHING!) (This example may fall under her description of the Neurotic Writer.) Anyway, she points out the various  disasters that could befall a book/author, and to put it simply, you don't want these things happening to you and your book! She paints a very rocky terrain that softens only with the chance of finding a kind, attentive agent and then editor to shepherd your book (and its neurotic author) through the process of creating something - in my case in the quiet of my home - to the very loud realm of sales meetings and book tours and good, bad or non-existent reviews.

So why not pause and re-evaluate my life's goals? Is this really the potential roller coaster ride I want to take myself and my immediate family on? Yes! Very thankfully, I have a supportive husband and kids who think it's cool that mommy "makes books." (Not they will be allowed to read them for a number of years... that's a different post.) As scary as the process may be, it's also the most exciting thing I can possibly imagine. Not the fear/excitement of riding a motorcycle without a helmet (please don't do that), but the thrill of seeing a dream coming closer and closer to fruition. And perhaps knowing there could be potholes along the road will help me better avoid them and make my way toward the ultimate goal of writing: to touch a reader. Ms. Lerner points out that the years of writing, the thousands of dollars that go into creating a book are all for that quiet, intimate moment when the reader opens the book and is carried into another world, when she recognizes herself in situations and characters and feels, if not consciously, then somewhere deep in the primitive folds of the brain, that she is not alone.