TheBanyanTree: Why I Will Most Likely Never Write Another Book

[Monique Colver]

I say most likely because I’ve learned it’s best not to state what I will
emphatically do or not do, on the off chance that I wake up one day and
change my mind.

It’s a changeable thing, my mind.

I don’t have the heart for it, for one thing. There are so many things I
want to write, and it’s not the writing that I have no heart for, but it’s
the rest of it.

The god awful rest of it.

The writing of it is bad enough, the planning, the words, the time spent
trying to find the right words to go in the right order, because if you
don’t have that, it’s useless. It’s a lonely task, unless you have a
collaborator, which I don’t (I’ve tried, but I’m not interesting enough as
a co-writer for anyone to take me up on it because I’m not a name, and I’m
just me) and it’s a thankless task, because who else really cares? And I
could be spending that time knitting.

Knitting, while I’m not very good at it, at least provides me something
concrete when I’m done with it. Which is not to say my knitting projects
are made of concrete. That would require a skill I do not possess. I can
stop and start my knitting at will, and not lose track of where I’m at. I
don’t have to re-read what I’ve written so I can pick up where I left off –
it’s all right there, it’s obvious.

I don’t have the heart for it, the writing.

People tell me I can just write for myself, because that’s what really
matters, right?

Not for me it doesn’t. I write this, and I write that, but it’s not because
I want something to read. If I want something to read, I won’t go through
the bother of writing it myself first. There’s plenty of good writing out
there for me to find. If I want to tell a story to myself, I keep it in my
head. I don’t need to put the words in a beautiful order, just the images.

I write to be read, and while I love it, it’s work.

It doesn’t pay, it’s frustrating, and I don’t have the heart for what goes
into making a successful writer. The self-promotion. (I at first typed
elf-promotion, which is another thing altogether, but not relevant here.)
The constant hyping of a product I’m not sure anyone else will care about
because it’s a big wide open market and there are thousands of people out
there hyping their own book, their own product, their own fabulous selves.

We are all fabulous.

I did one book. I bought into the hype, and I promoted it the best I could,
but I don’t have the personality to carry it off. But I believed in it. I
believed in it so much that I spent money I didn’t have to promote it. And
if you ever want a story about the wolves who are happy to spin stories
about pitching your book, just ask. I had a couple of weird radio
interviews. I paid for a lot of review copies that ended up in remainder
bins, or on the shelves, or in the trash.



The people who were close to the story drifted away after it was out, and
the people who weren’t said, “Great book!” I have a small but devoted
following.

I cringed when a relative, one of the few who was interested, told others
that she’d lend them her copy to read and I thought, “But that’s not how I
recoup my costs, everyone running around reading the one copy.” But you
can’t say that, can you? You have to act happy she loved it and recommends
it, and you can’t say, “No! Go buy your own damn copies!”

All I wanted was to recoup my costs, and that didn’t happen, nowhere near
close.

I’m far more successful in my other business, the one that pays the bills
and lets me put money away for the future. The one that lets me work with
fabulous people in all different kinds of businesses. I’m an accountant.
That’s what I’ve done for 30 years. I could do some writing, but people
want their accountants serious, not smart assy with the words, not clever
with the sentences.

I could write another book, but what would be the point? A few people would
like it. I know this because I know my people, and I could probably put out
drivel and they would still like it because they love me.

But I don’t want to put out drivel.

I don’t have the stomach for the self-promotion. It’s not me. And if I
can’t see my books sell, I’d rather not write them.

That’s just me. If I wrote another book, I’d want it to sell, and when it
didn’t I’d be sad. I don’t want to be sad. I want to have time to live my
life. As it is, I spend too much time working. Another book would the end
of me.

I’ll pop out a few words now and then, here and there, if I feel like it.
That’s the most I can do.

I don’t have the heart nor the stomach for the rest of it. And that’s okay.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

That’s okay.
M