The author’s own mini forest.
This author life is a wonderful thing, equal parts strangers writing to tell me how much they enjoy Taking London and others emailing to say their hands are shaking in rage about something I wrote in Confronting the Presidents and they'll never read a word of mine again. I listen intently to the nice words and reply with a thank you. The haters get nothing, not even the nasty response they're praying to re-post on X to show my spiteful nature.
What can I say? The check cashed just fine. My job is to be the best I can be. Working someone into a hot lather is far preferable to people not caring at all.
I'm three chapters into the new history piece and this comme ci, comme ça sort of audience response plays a prominent role, as it does with the first 100 pages of any book. I want readers to be happy, to get where I'm coming from. Only this one's about running, which is even more emotional and personal than your favorite president. I can already hear the voices telling me how to do it better.
I will bleed on the page a whole lot between now and my deadline. It's stressful. Calene says I'm walking around with a frown on my face. I get snappish, out of sorts. When a woman from the HOA told me my runners couldn't gather in a local park this morning without a permit, it took every ounce of willpower to smile and let it roll of my shoulders. This has been going on all week. One of my runners even called me out on Wednesday. I had no answer when she demanded if something was wrong.
People don't understand when creative dilemmas are eating at my soul. Creativity is supposed to be giddy and ethereal, which it can be. I saw a logo from some firm while in line at BevMo the other day. I won't print the name of the company, but "creative" was in the title. It looked so magical. Made me want to change my name on the cover: "Dugard Creative." I can see it now. Burden lifted.
Won't work. Creative is only magical when the project is done.
But this misery — and I use this term to the full depth of its meaning, surpassed by only the total agony of being in love, as they say in Love, Actually ("Get a grip,” Emma Thompson tells Liam Neeson. "Everyone hates sissies") — is the only way to get to Page 100. Every writer needs to walk through the minefield. The project percolates in your subconscious 24/7, white noise in the brain, and you don't even know it's there.
This is why many writers quit a book. It's not coming easily and they believe that's a sign it's never going to happen. It doesn't work like that. There's no shortcut. Even if it comes easily, it's usually shit that has to be rewritten. Easy means sloppy.
This is why I'm sitting in my mini-forest, listening to the sound of running water, and reading Agatha Christie. The great ones are inspirational. The running book will find itself. The words will come. In the meantime, I just need to remind myself, after so many books and so many years, that "creative" is total agony until it's not.