Before I Go External….

categories: Cocktail Hour

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I spend a lot of time alone.  Writing. Walking in the Woods. Brooding. The usual writerly stuff. It’s part of my job.

But there’s another part of the job. The part that involves waving my arms and yelling “Look at me!” The part that, unless you are Franzen or Diaz, you better do if you hope to sell more than six books. The part that many writers, myself included, find onerous at times.

Of course I understand that I am better suited to this aspect of the work than many of my flock. I have always been part Carnival Barker. That is, I’ve always liked to talk in public and sing at parties and while I sometimes feel acutely embarrassed the next day, others, including my wife, seem to think I am lacking a crucial embarrassment gene. I have heard the word “shameless” more than once. When I do, I counterbalance it with another word: fun. Why do we writers have to be such profound and dire drips? Why do we have to act like we hate the spotlight we crave?

These thoughts are bubbling up now for a simple reason. I’ve got a book coming out in June. For the last few months I have been relatively quiet, by my standards, not doing a lot of posting, publishing or public speaking. Part of that has to do with the fact that I became Chair of our creative writing department last summer (something I’ve also been pretty quiet about) and there is a lot of non-writing work to get done. Part of it is that I am gathering my internal forces for what is to come: a very external time of speaking, promoting and arm waving. During my last book tour I briefly re-defined myself to keep sane. I was still writing in the early morning but I stopped calling myself a writer and re-christened myself an “Impresario.”

And an Impresario I will soon be again. I need to warm up my vocal chords for singing Brandy and spewing about Ultimate. I’m not quite ready yet. But I know it’s coming….

See below for rough draft of tour schedule….

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