I wrote a book and it fucking sucks.
It’s a piece of shit and no one will read it.
I wrote a book and it’s the best thing I’ve ever created.
It’s so good it brings me to tears.
It changed my life.
It’s about aliens.
No one cares, there is not a single original idea in it.
It’s profound and it will change your life too.
The E-book will cost $3.99.
I will be just another wannabe self-publishee.
Maybe I will become a viral hit.
Maybe I’ll give a copy to the right person and get a publishing deal.
Maybe there is a spelling error on page 235.
Maybe it’s not as good as I remembered.
Maybe my friends who read it and gave me notes and said it was good were blowing smoke up my ass.
Maybe my friends who I sent it to who never read it had the right idea.
I remember back 10 or 11 or 12 years ago, I was out shooting an interview. I used to get hired to go out and shoot interviews for the special features of old movies being re-released on Blu-ray. One time I got to interview John Turturro about his role in Barton Fink. One time I got to interview Howard Shore about doing the soundtrack for The Exorcist 3 or some shit.
On that day I was out in New Jersey interviewing the writer of a moderately successful horror movie from the 80s.
When I did these interviews the producer would send me an address and list of questions/topics to cover. Sometimes I would do a little research on the movie… sometimes I went in blind. I’m good at improvising.
I would go in and quickly find a good angle while bantering with the actor or producer or composer or special effects artist, set up the camera and a light or two, and then hit record and conduct the interview.
So, I was in Jersey. I parked my rental car on a crowded neighborhood street right by the highway, and I rang the doorbell. I was greeted by a large man with a ponytail in the back, balding on top. He was excited to see me. No one had talked to him about this movie in a long time.
As I walked inside I entered my nightmare – a hoarder’s house, with every surface covered in a thick layer of dust and cat hair. I’m allergic to cats.
I tried my best to find an angle that wasn’t horrible, and did my best to make the background out of focus. I avoided touching any of the surfaces around me other than the folding chair he gave me to sit on.
As I was setting up, he launched into his tale. I could tell that he had been wanting to get this off his chest – probably since the 80s. If you’ve ever worked in the entertainment industry, you have heard this story before:
“Well, the original script was all my idea, but then everyone conspired to cut me out of the sequel! They blacklisted me! So and so was out to get me, they had a problem with me for xyz reason and made sure I never got another gig!”
Now, I certainly don’t ever want to victim blame, but as I listened to him and asked some gentle probing questions (before the camera had even started rolling, mind you) I began to get the sense that everyone else was not in fact the problem. He had just given up.
And don’t get me wrong, giving up is totally fine. It’s a good thing in many cases. I have given up on many many many hobbies, projects, jobs, careers… you name it, over the years.
It’s like the Tenacious D song, Cosmic Shame. Sometimes you follow your heart, sometimes your heart cuts a fart.
Sometimes it’s best to just call a spade a spade and move on.
*The guy I was interviewing actually looked a lot like Kyle from Tenacious D if you just imagine a ponytail in the back*
But here’s the thing – you don’t get to give up and then complain about it for the next 30 years.
But as I pressed record and began the interview that is exactly what I bore witness to throughout the next hour. I tried my best to elicit positive memories and stories, but each one would veer back into bitterness and blaming. I finally got enough for the editors to cobble together some soundbytes and I stopped the recording.
I honestly felt sad for this guy, holed up in his dusty cat hair hoarder house, still fixated on this perceived slight from all those years ago.
And then he asked me if I wanted a copy of his new book. I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe he had turned things around and I had just caught him on a bad day.
He grabbed a copy from a cardboard box and signed it for me. When I saw the cover my heart sank. Horrible, horrible, terrible design. I’m talking pixellated clip art of zombies, a really bad mish-mash of fonts – it was like a weird meme that someone’s grandma shares on facebook . I felt visceral repulsion looking at it.
But never judge a book by its cover, right? I thanked him for the book and told myself I would read it and give it a chance. I spent the drive back to Brooklyn sneezing and pondering.
A week or two later I gave it a read.
It was the actual worst book I have ever read in my entire life.
Think of the worst Dawn of the Dead fan-fiction you’ve ever accidentally stumbled across in the dark recesses of some old defunct forum.
A couple people are running from zombies. The zombies are gross. The people are determined. One of them dies. From the zombies. There are some attempts at dialog. There is way too much description of every little unnecessary sensory detail, it’s irritating. The characters feel like bad 80s horror movie cliches.
It was short, more like a novella, which was a good thing because it was over quickly.
I have kept it on my bookshelf all these years because it is just such a remarkable artifact.
To me, it is inspiring.
I use it as a mental benchmark for whatever I create. If I believe that whatever I have created is at least the same as or better than that book, then I will put it out into the world.
This guy really wrote that story, read it back to himself, decided it was good to go, designed or had someone design the cover, printed copies, and proudly signs them and gives them to people.
So who am I to judge that? That is his contribution to the creative world, and if he likes it then I love it.
Because what is the alternative? More gatekeepers and critics and discouraging people from creating? There’s already enough of that in the world. It’s already hard enough.
Publish it, post it, upload it, print it, launch it, fuck it!
At least he doesn’t have the regret of not publishing his book. Let the chips fall where they may. If people like it, cool. If not, you just haven’t found the right people yet. Write the next one. Keep going.
I’m really fucking proud of myself for writing a book.
I think it’s great and that people will enjoy reading it.
I love reading it.
Two people who I trust read it and liked it.
Writing it helped me work through a lot of my own limiting beliefs and work up the courage to quit my corporate job that I hated.
It has already exceeded my expectations and it hasn’t even been published yet.
It’s an artifact, a piece of my mind on paper that is completely unique.
No one else could have written it in the same way that I did.
I will gently blow my creation into the wind like summer dandelion fuzzies and watch them drift away into the sunset.
Maybe next year there will be a few more dandelions growing in the grass.
I will look at them and smile, and know that I was a part of it all.
Oh, and before you go, would you like a signed copy?