The countdown is on. And I’m obnoxiously posting about it. Again.
Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. Published this thing without anyone knowing. Maybe used a pen name, so if it bombs royally no one will know I’m the untalented hack who wrote it in the first place. That way, I could have just continued on with life – no harm, no foul. No one the wiser.
But.
I have a tendency to stick to my comfort zone like glue. And writing a book, not to mention actually publishing it, sticking my name on it, and sending it out in the world to be *gasp* read by people other than my close friends? Well, that pretty much effs up said comfort zone.
And sticking to your comfort zone all. the. time? Man, that’s just… It’s not a good way to live. It’s like what Thoreau says about men leading lives of quiet desperation. Or Franklin, who claims that “many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they’re seventy-five.” Sticking to our comfort zones keeps us from living. It keeps us dead.
Some days I feel like I’m sitting on top of a mountain – meditation-style, of course – completely Zen with the fact that I’m accomplishing a life-long dream. But as October 10th drifts closer, I more often than not feel like I’m stuck in the middle of the ocean, during the stormiest storm of the year, without a raft, my feet circled by a pack of sharks, and a box jellyfish at my elbow.
Basically, if I didn’t tout about this thing, I probably wouldn’t be publishing it. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have written it in the first place. Accountability. It’s something I desperately needed so I could push through the self-conscious feelings of doubt and procrastination that have weighed me down over the years and, some days, still tempt me to pull the plug on this whole thing.
But I can’t pull the plug. Because my big mouth and fat fingers have spouted off so many times about this book that if I don’t publish it, people will notice. And then, to put it bluntly, I’ll look like a jackass.
Of course, I may still look like a jackass after I publish it. My rambling prose certainly isn’t Pulitzer worthy, nor is my little contemporary romance book going to hit a bestseller list. Some people may find it boring, some may hate the foul language or the sex scene or the main character. They may find it too wordy, not wordy enough, or notice a grammar error that will immediately have them slamming the book shut in protest while thinking one word – HACK.
So yes, by publishing my book I may still look like a jackass. But at least I’ll be a jackass with a set of balls.
Lisa sorbe 