The Book in My Head

I attended a public “slumber party” this weekend. Actually, the event was a plethora of vendors of all shapes and sizes set up in rows and rows with a bar or a beauty salon of some kind at every corner. Every vendor was there to appeal to the “ladies”. While I had fun, I didn’t stumble upon many vendors that catered to my particular set of needs or even hobbies.

Save one.

I stumbled upon a small booth with three women all dressed in black who were peddling two books. The author of these books was a wonderful woman with whom I felt a kindred spirit. Someone who has written, whose hopes and dreams centered around 250 pages of words telling a story for the general public to gobble up and talk about for centuries to come.

Finally, someone with whom I could relate. And relate I did, asking questions about being an author. How did she do it? Did she set aside hours each day to sit in front of her computer screen? Did she use a whiteboard? Was every character carefully described so that we feel we know them? Did she write down each plot twist? Did she have an agent? I was begging her to tell me all the hidden secrets of getting her book published when so many others have drawers full of rejection letters and broken dreams.

She answered all my questions and gleefully spoke of character development, plot twists, and whiteboards. And then she told me her secret to publication – do it yourself. But she took it one step past self publishing, she started a publishing company and served as her own agent. No middle man in this equation. No rejection letters in her drawer. No ma’am! She was taking no chances in getting this book to the masses. She showed up anywhere she could with book in hand and website address on cards. This particular evening, she offered a bottle of wine in a drawing to get people to her booth to look at her book and buy one.

She had a gimmick.

So, I ask myself as I look at the whiteboard in my office with characters and plot twists and timelines, do I really need to write a good book or do I just need a gimmick? Do I want to write a book that will get “published” or do I want to write a book people will enjoy reading? The one you can’t put down and quote lines from at dinner parties.

The answer came to me as I read the quote by Benjamin Franklin that sits above my computer monitor “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do the things worth the writing.” I want to write a book worth reading. If it never gets published, that’s fine. But it must get finished and I must want to read it. I must light up when I talk about it. It must be created to bring joy to myself and to anyone who wants to read it. The only gimmick I want is a well written, quotable, memorable book.

I never asked her what her books were about or if they were a good read and she never offered me the information. She didn’t beam about the fact that she had written quality work, but that she had found a way to get it published. And that, in a nutshell, is what it’s all about now.

There are books upon books about how to and where to and when to publish. There are magazines and classes and degrees. People who publish their own books, people who find an agent, people who serve as their own agent, people who have people to talk to your people – it’s mind boggling. But not one of them tells you how to have the talent to create a work of art, because that can’t be taught – it just is.

I don’t want to write a series, I have no ambitions to be a James Patterson or Lee Child. I would like to finish my book for myself, which sounds simple, but it is the hardest job I have ever done. One book, a few thousand words, a story taken from my head and put on paper for a reader’s enjoyment. That’s all I want.

And the only person who can do it is me. No gimmicks, no magic answers to all the questions in my head, just a simple fact – I have to write this book. I have delayed it long enough. It’s time.

I’ll let you read it when I’m done. You’ll be the first to enjoy it – right after me.

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