10 Days After Launch

And 3 days before AWP

The first week after a book comes out is the hardest. I mean most fun! I mean, it is not that fun if you are me because I have a bit of an obsessive/compulsive problem and googling my books and checking ‘best seller’ stats at Amazon comprises most of my days. I’ve been especially bad with How to Plant a Billion Trees because I worked a long time on it and it was the hardest to write—not only because of the sex abuse and abortion material, but because I make a big metaphor of forests and communities that I don’t want to be too cloying, too sentimental, or for one of the ideas, that one’s life can be repaired, thanks to community, after devastating trauma or that forests, thanks to a healthy ecosystem, can recover after devastating fire, occlude or eclipse the other. (See Writing the Hard Stuff about how form helped me make this work).

It’s a little bit of narcissism and a lot of desperation to want to see your book up in the big lights! (aka in the NYT Book Review). Flood the Amazon review, dear Readers! Kirkus! Book Riot! Get on this news! Huff Post? NYT? Publish this companion essay!

But after the first week of gnawing my own paw off to escape the trap fear-of-total-book-failure ™ I chilled out a bit. Part of the chilling came from the cold fact that I’ve been using this book as an escape from the sheer brutality of the news of murders, wars, destruction of education and the environment, the fall of democracy in general. It has been the one thing to buoy me—the promise of both of these books. That’s a lot of weight for some 9 x 6’s cardboard and paper buoys to handle. It always takes me some time to gain some perspective. I needed to look around to see how much kindness had already been afforded me and the books—pubs in Craft and Brevity. So many lovely blurbs. Podcast invitations. Interviews. Willingness of friends to read and talk with me at bookstores so I don’t have to read alone. The launch was a total blast and success! I know certain things: that gratitude is the most important emotion/attitude/act after publishing a book. No one has to read it. I’m so lucky some people do.

In my substacks about my publishing story (which I haven’t finished yet because publishing drama is real drama!), I’ve been detailing the vicissitudes, but I haven’t talked about how many people it takes to make a book or how much a grassroots-effort the whole publishing project takes. As I pack my bags for AWP, I remember how at the beginning of every one of these conferences, I’ve felt that fear that I’d never publish a poem, an essay, a book, another book, a big book. But by the end of the conference, I’m loaded down with other people’s books, have made a new friend, connected with virtual friends, grad school friends, former students, editors who published me and writers whom I’ve published. AWP is a huge pain in the ass, but it’s useful for the reminder that there are thousands of people who read books and lit mags and who want to talk about the hard stuff about writing. I’m going to try to head into the conference with last-day-gratitude instead of first-day-neediness. And, there I’ll also be reminded that it’s the collective work of writing and believing in the beauty and power of words that pushes back against the heavy brutality of autocracy. A billion trees. A billion books. Each one a counterweight.