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Proofreading is done and the book will be ready for printing after some final touches to the illustrations this weekend. I also have a beautiful cover, which you can see in all its glory on the new landing page for the book: https://www.thebluegarret.com/novelstudy. In addition to all of the final, tedious production steps, a lot of the work this week has been focused on things like the web page and other marketing materials. That plus getting the cover has made it all feel very real and, to be honest, more than a little scary. I’m pretty brave when it comes to putting my work out into the world (like sending this newsletter to a thousand strangers!), but I’m most comfortable flying just under the radar and not drawing a lot of attention to myself. The problem is, if you want to sell books, that’s not going to be very effective. I see authors I work with confront this barrier all the time, either when they are preparing to query or preparing to self-publish. Often I’m the one encouraging them, reminding them that the work is ready, that they are ready. One advantage of traditional publishing is that if your book makes it to shelves, then you know there are at least a handful of people who have judged it to be saleable (different from judging it to be good, but that’s a whole other conversation). In self-publishing, authors have to give themselves the green light: Is the book really ready? Is it good? We’re the only ones who can say yes. And then, because we operate most of the publishing machinery ourselves, there are many opportunities for self-doubt to creep in and threaten to stop the presses. I’m definitely noticing it every time I overreact to a small problem or fixate on a tiny detail. Anne Lamott’s admission in Bird by Bird that the only way she can get any writing done at all is “to write really, really shitty first drafts” has turned into a chestnut of advice, passed from writer to writer. She goes on to say: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”
I wholeheartedly believe all of this, and I wrote plenty of shitty first drafts while working on this book. (See week 30 where I showed you just how little of the shitty first draft of chapter 31 survived the revision process.) BUT! What’s the role of perfectionism when it comes to the fourth draft? The tenth? The final book? Here’s where it gets hard. I can’t guarantee perfection for my clients’ work, and I can’t guarantee it for my own. I do try to get as close as possible. But ultimately we have to let the work go out into the world and meet its readers—who might possibly find a typo or poke a hole in an argument or just simply not like the book. If I’m so fearful of those real possibilities that I never publish the book, then the voice of the oppressor has won indeed. I see all of you who are hovering over that “send” or “submit” button. I’m right there with you, summoning all of my own bravery. I’ll be back in two weeks to let you know when the book will be live!
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