Anything Good This Weekend? #3
What’s the deal with all the crying?
My book came out this past week. Meaning, instead of the usual cooking and gaming, I spent most of the week and weekend feeling every emotion in the whole wide world.
Releasing a book always makes me feel accomplished and empty, and proud and ashamed. It’s hard to parse what is real from what is prescribed unto me because of my preconceived notions of success. But I am proud. I love CRYBABY, and I hope you do as well.
So, anything good this weekend?
Between January 24 and January 27, I was lucky enough to…
Listen to Mac Miller’s Balloonerism 4 times. What can I say that I haven’t already written in BOOK OF MAC? He remains the artist of my life. A true original.
Make coconut covered cashews since Aldi stopped selling them, which I did take as a personal affront. We also did coffee and caramel shortbread bars. Nice!
Write over 3,000 words for my middle grade draft, which is now feeling like a duology. I told this to my agent. Let’s see how he responds.
Read the entirety of The City of Brass. Very good! I’m looking forward to the rest of the series, but am taking a break to read The Last Mapmaker first.
Cry a ton. This is not a joke. I think crying is so good for you. I’m happy to have cried; it’s what I needed.
What’s the deal with all the crying?
If you’re new to my writing and oversharing, crying is sort of my thing. If you’re not new, and have read BOOK OF MAC or any of my previous bylines from the last decade, you know what I’m talking about.
When CRYBABY came out on the 21st, I had a fairly standard day. I did all my posting. I went to work—where no one knew I had a book come out, which was honestly refreshing—and then after work I popped a bottle of cheap champagne and wrote on the cork. Whenever something good happens in our lives, my wife and I get said champy, write the summary of the goodness and date on the cork, and store it in an acrylic fixture on the wall. The ritual is a nice reminder of the sweetness of life.
So we did the cork drop, and then we had a nice dinner just my wife and me, and then we went up to read. By all accounts, it was just another day! I think I needed that. The fanfare surrounding BOOK OF MAC in 2021 was a lot. I’m still so grateful for it, and for everyone who got something out of the text. It found a new audience these last two weeks with the release of Balloonerism, and that was very special. Media moves so fast, so to see the book rise in the ranks again was extremely rewarding.
That said, I don’t think I can handle that level of attention anymore—not that I ever could. My desire to have books do well, find readers, and make people feel something is constantly at odds with my desire to abscond to a cottage in the countryside of Scotland where I will use a VPN to watch the Phillies, write books, and hide away. And so, when I felt that tension, despite knowing it didn’t actually mean anything about me, I started to cry. Shocking!
A day later, I cried because readers for CRYBABY outside of the US were asking for release details for Brazil and Europe. I was so grateful and flattered. Their interest is an important reminder to me that while writing first happens alone, the best part of publishing is the ability to share far and wide.
On Friday, I cried because I was relieved to feel like the big pressure of the Big Release Day was over, and now I could resume simply promoting the book and writing my next two projects, and existing as I was before. Now I’m a two-time author, and of course I am living my dream, but I have dreams to achieve them, not to bask in them. One day I will learn to just be, but for now, I have to keep giving myself homework.
On Sunday, I did not cry. This was a revelation after crying for days. Sometimes, you run out of tears, but other times, you reach a point of incredible clarity and are ready to move on. Self-belief is typically what comes out of my week-long cry spells. So here’s to the next step in the writing journey, which is more like scaling a spiral staircase that never ends but has tons of great views, rather than rushing through a straight line from point A to point B.
For every writer out there, it’s so important to remember your own relationship to publishing can be messy and confusing. It is that way for everyone I’ve ever spoken to about this sort of thing. Publishing is not the same as writing, and this is coming from someone in the Everything Is Writing, Duh, camp. Be proud or be a teary-eyed dope. Be whatever you must. But keep on writing. There’s nothing better than that.
That’s all from me today. Until next time.