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| My book for reals. |
I
think I was nine or ten when I decided I wanted to be a writer. It
was around this time anyway that I started looking for ways to write
stories as a means of fulfilling homework assignments, and that I
began to fudge the answers on aptitude tests so the results would
show I ought to be a writer. Since then I've done some of the things
that most writers do – I've sporadically kept journals, I've
written and submitted in a variety of genres and styles, I've bought
and read entire libraries-full of writing how-to books. And I've done
some things most writers probably don't, such as just plain trying to
give up writing because it's so fucking hard and heart-breaking.
But
I've always come back to it. And
I always feel a huge sense of relief when I do.
And
now, finally, after a lot of years, I have a novel coming out that
has my name on the cover and everything. And I know that I already
have several books with my name on them out there. But they've been
collections of comics and that's just not what I envisioned back when
I was nine or ten. And this is not meant as a slight against comics
at all. Comics buoyed me at a time when I was very low, and they helped me pay some bills. The work I
did in comics kept me believing that I was able to write at all.
Hell, it's because I was able to sell comics scripts that I even
decided to give writing prose again a chance. So, yeah, I owe a lot
to comics.
Still,
I always wanted to write a prose novel and to have it be published
and loose in the world, and it looks like that's about to happen.
Last week I received a small package from my publisher (Kensington,
which is an independent publisher and which has been just freaking
wonderful to work with). The package contained a small number of comp
copies of my book, Zomburbia – just a taste, the rest of my comps
will come later. I opened that package and held in my hands a real
book with my name on the cover.
And
the nine-or ten-year-old in me knew that I hadn't messed things up
too badly if I'd accomplished this.
Listen,
I know what the book market is like. Zomburbia may come and go
without making a single ripple in the publishing industry, but it's
here now. And that's enough. Also, the sequel is already written and
in the hands of the publisher and now I'm writing something new and I
have a reasonable expectation that someone will buy it. So there's
that.
By
the way, my second choice of career when I was ten was to become a
politician. I think we can all be happy I chose to become a writer.
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