A Once and Future Novelist

This is the first in a series of pieces in which the author discusses going from unpublished to published author and back again, the art and business of literature, and myriad matters of living the writing life.  

I recently read with great interest an article by Gather member Wendy W. titled “I’m An Independent Author… But Why?” Personally, it was timely, because I’m soon to become an independent author without even knowing that that’s what I apparently am. The appellation is better than some, I suppose, though there is still a slight twinge at having to make such a distinction: like getting into the record books but with an asterisk. Having cut my teeth during a time when writers did the writing and reading, and agents and publishers did the representing, marketing, and publishing, the sense still nags me that the purchase and publication of a novel by a third-party—with the writer providing only words and guidance, not funding—is required to affix that stamp of legitimacy, if not merit.

But, as Wendy W. pointed out, while atrocities are committed under the label of fiction by those who self publish, similarly are they committed by the publishing houses. As readers, we know this too well. As writers, we often bemoan and deplore it. Nevertheless, we still accord the approbation of the professional publisher a certain cachet. For a long time to come, I expect, this will continue to exclusively represent the concept of “making it”—stepping from the stuffy, crowded waiting room of writers onto the slightly roomier stage reserved for authors.

I come to independent authorship with a bit of reluctance. That’s not unusual. What may be unusual, however, is that I come to it after having once occupied the realm of its fair-haired companion—plain, old-fashioned authorship. Or perhaps dependent authorship. Kept authorship. In other, better, words, I had a publisher at one time, and that publisher published my first novel. With that one modest commercial transaction, I became an author and—more delicious sounding to my ear—a novelist.

My novel was called The Florentine Papers, a slim volume brought out in 1991 by a small but well-respected publisher in Utah called Gibbs Smith. (Click the link if you don’t believe me.) I wrote the book in 1985, at the earnest but inexpert age of 24. Representing myself, briefly touched by luck, and undeterred thanks to the arrogance and ignorance of youth, I stumbled upon a patron at a small publisher and—bearing the right property to the right place at the right time—managed to ascend to that state of grace: published novelist.

One can’t help but feel that such an occurrence represents a milestone in one’s career, if not one’s life. I was 30 years old. Too old to be considered a boy wonder, I lamented, but still young enough to start putting together a fairly impressive oeuvre. My sense at the time was that perhaps a long apprenticeship was over and I was moving, with great good fortune, into the next phase of my literary career.

At the time of TFP’s publication, I had been working for four years on a new novel titled Desire that I expected to finish sometime that summer. Even moreso than the previous novel, I was excited about Desire’s prospects. Six years older and with many more words under my belt, I felt that I had done some of my best work to date. Desire was narratively complex and much longer than anything I’d ever written—about a quarter of a million words. Most pleasurable to me, however, was the sensation of control and focus I experienced through much of the writing of the book. I had enjoyed episodes of writing, usually working late at night, where I’d felt completely immersed in that oft-cited athletic analogy of being “in the zone.” I sat down each evening knowing what I needed to write and—with what seemed to me a certain amount of facility and occasionally almost preternatural guidance—I wrote it.

I believed I was on the cusp of a long, productive, and happy time. I had a novel about to be published, another one almost completed, and roughs for two new novels already in the pipeline. I was in the throes and thrall of an intensely creative period, and feeling a sense of the well-being that I’d fully expected or believed came with a productive writing life, a productive creative life, and a full fertile engagement with something much more than a passing interest, much more than a career, but rather a vocation.

Now, this summer, 16 years later, Desire will finally be published.

What I thought was the beginning of a pleasure cruise turned into a 16-year odyssey of lies, intrigue, murder, ennui, cry-babyishness, forced marches, blackmail, erotic excess, drunken rages, mange, fetishistic behavior involving roosters, and dyspepsia.

Okay, some of that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m trying to sell books here, for Pete’s sake. What went astray? How, you may ask, do you come to find yourself in this situation? How did what seemed to be the start of a promising literary career instead turn out to be (at least to date) its peak, the pinnacle of your achievements in the marketplace?

It’s all pretty simple, actually. Lamentable, but simple. Gibbs Smith had right of first refusal for my new novel, and after reading it, expressed their willingness to publish it. I, however, in the grip of either irrational exuberance or, more likely, excessive hubris, decided to try my luck elsewhere.

Why not, I reasoned. I had a novel that I believed—in the blinding and a-bit-too-self-satisfied afterglow of a long project finally completed—was better, smarter, richer, more titillating, and eminently more marketable. I was now credentialed, with a published novel atop my CV, and so I was no longer (I imagined) a completely unknown quantity. By virtue of this, I figured, I could at the very least get folks at the larger publishing houses to consider Desire. After all, hadn’t I already crossed the magic threshold, gripped the grail, and sipped the inky nectar? No bridesmaid I, not anymore. I had a decent number of critically positive reviews to tote around. No, I didn’t make the New York Times, but I did get reviews in two Washington papers, the Post and Times (glowing, flattering), the LA Times (tepid but encouraging), other miscellaneous papers around the country (a mixed bag), and all papers in and around my home base of Pittsburgh (uniform support for a native son). Now, I was ready for the big time.

One doesn’t need the benefit of time, distance, and 16 years between published novels to see what a thoroughly asinine career decision this was. For all intents and purposes, I was walking away from something that I had so ardently worked and wished for. I had a publisher who had already published one odd, idiosyncratic novel and was at least willing (if not interested) in publishing an even longer, more idiosyncratic second. Sure, I wasn’t going to get a full-page ad in the New York Times Book Review—or a full-page ad anywhere, for that matter; there was no budget for that kind of thing. But so what? I had a home. Provided I did not go completely off the authorial deep end some day, I had a destination for my novels when they were finished other than the filing cabinet or the plastic storage bin in the basement: that is, to print.

Too much time has passed, too much alcohol has been consumed, and too much cognitive dissonance has occurred for me to say exactly what I was thinking back then as I embarked on this preposterous blunder. But as best I can determine, this is what I think happened: I believe that I had fallen madly and stupidly in love with the writer that I thought I might become, rather than attending to my caretaker responsibilities for the writer I actually was—at best a journeyman, only just beginning to understand the scope and character of my relative ignorance in both life and art. Only just beginning to truly understand both the pleasures and demands of the craft. Only just beginning to transition compulsion and pipe-dream into bona fide livelihood.

As I said, there were moments when I was writing Desire for which I could not account. A word, an idea, a transition, a narrative sequence—instances of writing that seemed to exceed my understanding of my abilities. How had I thought of that? How did I come to write that? Where did this come from? I didn’t even know I knew this? Etc. If the elves were sneaking in, casting spells, tampering with my brain while I was writing every night, certainly they had bigger plans for the final product as well. I know: that’s a pretty ridiculous state of mind in which to be making career-altering decisions. But I was smitten with what I perceived I had accomplished. Wouldn’t a publisher, scores of readers, even movie producers, be smitten as well?

Next: Exile on Vain Street, or How I Spent 16 Years Coming to Terms with Reality, Limitations, Market Forces, Chance, and a ‘Baggy Monster’ of a Novel That Just Needs to Move On.