Doubt is a sane attitude for modern writers. It hasn’t always been. But in these monetized days of on-line lists qualifying as journalism; marketing departments making the decisions about what books to publish; hucksters conning writers with promising to teach them the secret to building an on-line “platform” that will go viral; and the news that young people read more than old people – at least one book a year…I have to catch my breath here…doubt can be grace.
Doubt in the face of the world I work in is an antidote to despair. Doubt about the worth of my writing is poison. I’m going to break a rule of developing a marketing platform and tell you that most of the readings I have done over the last month have been poorly attended. That’s a gracious way to put it. They have bombed. Before you ask, my publishers, the bookstores and I did everything we could to promote the readings. By talking about my readings going anything but viral, I’m not presenting a healthy attitude to the kazillions of potential readers on the internet. (On the other hand, the opposite of viral is health.)
At the last flop – in a bookstore in which I’d once read to packed rooms – I found myself reading from 29 and finding nothing to like about the book. Perhaps four of the eighteen people at the reading had laughed at the dark humor. Those same four nodded when I read about the power of rock and roll and the irony of attraction. I closed the book and wanted never to open it again. By the time I drove home, I felt like a traitor.
Last weekend, I read at Peregrine Books in Prescott, Arizona. The listeners were intelligent and witty (That is, they laughed at my jokes and got all the back-dated hip references.) I might add that back-dated hip is not an oxymoron. Indeed, the only true hip left is back-dated. I was two minutes into the reading and fully in love with 29. I understood that my doubt about the book was not based on the book, but on these post-literate times; times in which history is disappearing at the speed of 100 Mbps (whatever the hell that is.)
I’m back in love with 29 and on my way to being back in love with writing. Honor your doubt. Here is a portal you might enter with your writing – you might be the women looking in through the busted-out window or someone inside looking back at her.
This room is a few miles from 29 Palms. As was the woman. 
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