Putting It Out There

I wonder if all writers are reclusive by nature. I think you have to be somewhat reclusive in order to spend as much time inside your head as writing requires — at least fiction writing. It is now almost two weeks since My Last Romance and other passions arrived on my doorstep and I am having a terrible time with the promotion end of this. People have been wonderful. I am the problem.

John Ronan is a local writer/poet/film-maker who has been hosting a television program called The Writer’s Block for years. He has been talking to me about being on his show for some time now based on my involvement in the Hovey House Writer’s Group and, now that my book is available, he has called again. This isn’t easy. In the first place, I am not a television person. My TV sits on the floor under the dining room table and I dust the cobwebs off it periodically. When John called the other day I tried to think of every reason I could think of to get out of filming a show for him but realized that this isn’t for me, it is for the book. So on October 3rd I will go to his studio to film a program for later broadcast. I am nervous as hell about this.

I have also agreed to do a Know Your Neighbor program at the Emerson Inn about the book. Actually, Mark agreed to do it with me. Since both of us are naturally shy people this is a good opportunity to make an appearance, push our books, and have each other for support. The Hovey House Writer’s Group is also starting up again. That’s a little easier because I know all those people and am familiar with Jane’s beautiful house. I was at a meeting there last night and thought how luck the arts community of Cape Ann is to have Jane and her generosity with her beautiful house.

But the point is that promoting a book is difficult if you are not an outgoing person. Mark has been working with a reporter from the local newspaper on a feature on him and his book. It is going to be a big boost for his book in this area but he is pushing himself doing it. He isn’t comfortable about it.

Maybe that’s why people like us write. Maybe it is because, being reclusive, we have this big internal life and it needs expression. So we write. Then, when we have created this thing and published, we have to do something with it. Sara Gruen, who wrote the very popular Water for Elephants, and Joshlyn Jackson, who wrote Between, Georgia, are both in my Working Novelists group and I have been reading with absolute fascination their posts about their book tours and appearances. Both of them are young mothers — I can’t imagine how they handle it from that perspective. But they seem to be very happy going out there to all these readings, lunches, speaking engagements, etc. I admire them greatly for that. I literally don’t know how they handle it.

So, we persist. I find myself thinking obsessively about my novel and the longing I feel to get back to work on it. Partly this is because I genuinely love but also, I suspect, it is a diversion from the necessity of promoting this book. Now that the days are growing shorter I just want to stay home and write. It is a sweet temptation but one that has to wait for awhile.

Thanks for reading.