July 12th, 2011
I know I’m supposed to be sort of cool about all this but I have to say that when galleys for PORT CITY BLACK AND WHITE arrived in the mail yesterday I felt that little jump, that skip of the heartbeat that comes when you see your words in print. 
I’ve been doing this for 18 years now and PC B&W, out in September, is my 11th book. No small number, but not up there in the ranks for somebody like the late Robert B. Parker, for example (whose endorsement I still wear with pride). But you’d think that after nearly a dozen books a bit of the thrill would be gone. No way. I picked up the package at the post office, saw the Down East Books label. I tore it open in the car outside and held the galleys up. Flipped through the pages. Read a passage or two or six. Recalled when all of this was just a few scrawled notes on a legal pad. And it wasn’t all that long ago.
Something there is about the printed word. I got that jolt daily when I was newspaper columnist. Now I get it in Colby magazine, where I write stories. I have to wait a bit longer for the bigger bang, the delayed gratification of an actual book.
I have a friend named Earl Smith who just sold his first mystery novel, THE DAM COMMITTEE. I’m going to remind Earl (and the same goes for any writer just setting out) to savor every success because each one follow a lot of very hard work. When the book is sold. When you see page proofs for the first time. A cover design. Galleys. Your first good review (Negative ones we dismiss). That first carton of books. Pulling them out and seeing your name on the cover. Opening it up and seeing the words you wrote.
This craft can very quickly become a business. There’s the money side of it. The marketing side. The slog of copy editing (OK, it’s a slog to me, maybe not to everybody). But I always tell myself not to become numb to the pure joy of doing this, the absolute privilege that it is. You invent characters, draw a place on a blank page, tell a story. And once published, the book has a life of its own. That’s very cool.
If you’re a published writer, you know what I mean. If you’re still working toward that goal, let this be an incentive, something to encourage you on one of those dark days. Opening that box—it’s a blast.
Tags: crime novels, Down East Books, Gerry Boyle, Maine Crime Writers, Maine writers, mystery novels, Port City Black and White, Robert B. Parker, Writing No Comments »