"Sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book"

Thanks for the title, Bruce Springsteen! I felt you years ago when I was sick of sitting 'round here, trying to write another book. I sat at the kitchen table and typed--on an actual typewriter, and swore, and "Dancing in the Dark" spooled on in the background. I felt as if I'd never finish that dang book--or, if I did, that it would be good enough for me, let alone an editor, or more importantly, my hoped-for readers.

Time ran on, just like "Dancing in the Dark". Days, weeks, months, years, gobbled up by the goblins of time, by tooth-brushing and head colds, by tax returns and Port Authority bus commutes, by teething babies and angry teenagers. I seriously don't remember if I published that book, but eventually a few of my novels did slip past the editorial gatekeepers, each released to my own great excitement before dropping soundlessly into the literary abyss.

But even then, this book was germinating somewhere far below consciousness, beneath the busy streets of commerce up there on the surface of my life. I have George Nicholson to thank--or blame--for planting the mustard seed that became this book. For telling me it was my gift--or curse--to write for teenagers, despite what was then a grudging market for that age group. For telling me I would write books lit with hope, in a landscape sorely lacking in that divine commodity.

I've needed hope, myself, as well as faith and love, over the past years. My publisher stopped publishing the type of thing I used to write; and another novel, sold to a different publishing house, returned to me unpublished, when they decided to close the line. Years went by. I wrote personal essays, newspaper articles and inspirational pieces for anthologies. I didn't write books. Maybe I was done writing books. They take too long and hurt too much.

Once in awhile, I thought of my little seedling novel and an idea would flash through my head like heat lightning during a long drought. I'd scribble a note on a scrap of paper and stick it in a file labeled "Floating Against the Current". It got a bit fatter as the years crept on, but never took shape.

Finally, in July of 2005, I began writing morning pages as recommended by Julia Cameron. Like a miracle fertilizer called Help, which has rescued many a moribund plant around here, the pages seemed to restore balance in my creative mind. Months later, new shoots suddenly sprang up, and the plant began to grow again.

What does "Floating Against the Current" mean? That's a topic for another time. This is about my relationship with this particular book and what on earth I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Will there ever be another book if I can't wrestle this one to the ground?

Actually, "Floating" is done now...and not. The spectre of necessary revisions is waving its arms in front of me, bellowing like Godzilla, keeping me from ever really reaching the end of this miserable process. I despair more than I write. I have another novel well underway, and still "Floating" keeps grabbing my ankles and dragging me backward.

Writing, I've learned, isn't really about publishing--though the drive to publish is as strong as hunger, love, sex, and fear. In the end, as in the beginning, it is about writing. Writers write because the words demand to come out of us, and they won't let us alone. They bug us and they taunt us, and sometimes they play music and dance in our heads.