…and I can turn it off. Since last Thursday, I’ve been slaving over the page proofs of my new book, looking to milk every last laugh out of every last situation. And even after the 30th time reading some of the selections, rewrites still jump out at me. There’s no way to be a writer and not have a hidden (or blatant) streak of anal retentiveness when rewriting. And since the page proofs are the last chance to make any kind of changes, the pressure is there to get it right.
And in all modesty, I stood up to the pressure and did it right. My only regret is that I had to cut an image from my parody of “The Wizard of Oz” that speculated about Dorothy, after being kidnapped by the flying monkeys, living a life like Sheena the Jungle Queen, living by her own laws outside society in a leather tunic. It may not sound funny now, but it was great in context, but often one must smother one’s babies for the sake of the larger story.
Working feverishly again today, as my publisher sent me the proposed jacket copy for the book. Weeell, doggies. It was about as exciting as a bowl of spit. Besides that, they got the names of my previous books wrong, and failed to mention that my #1 best-seller status was on the New York Times list, and not Elle Decor’s. So, I can either give my stamp of approval, or I can rewrite the whole thing so that someone with a passing interest might pick the damn thing up in the bookstore. My wife thinks that that’s what they had in mind all along.
I’ve been toying with the idea of publishing via print on demand for a while. On my shelf sit two novels and another book that the NY publishing industry has failed to take interest in. Which is their prerogative, of course, because their taste is impeccable and track record unblemished by failure. But after this current book, for which I lined up the cover artist, wrote the jacket copy, handled the copy edit, and undoubtedly will do a bunch of PR, marketing and outreach to bookstores on my own, I’m starting to think: I’m doing all this work anyway, why not just put them out myself? What’s the downside, except that regular newspapers won’t review the books (for now)?
But now I’m burned out. This eight-week long congestion in my chest is just wearing me down, and I need to save my energy for a camping trip this weekend, inside a cave in Wisconsin. My next book might be something like: “Fun with Mucous: The Bright Side of Life-Threatening Bouts of Pneumonia.” Then I’ll have a full week to rest up for the Super Bowl and whatever drinking that will involve.