Saturday, December 14, 2024
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Why I Write: From Sartre to Recovery and Back Again

Writing a book is bizarre. You work in a cubicle inside a hovel within a cave, and then suddenly, word by sentence by paragraph you finish, stumbling bleary-eyed into the world, clutching something you pray someone somewhere might kinda-sorta like.

(Are You a Good Writer?)

Recently, I released my second book, Big G and Me: In Pillness and in Health 2 about staying sober through chronic pain. It’s the sequel to my first memoir, In Pillness and in Health about my husband donating a kidney to me when I was addicted to pharmaceuticals.

Self-publishing a book is a big deal. Full stop. I sold 9,000 copies of Pillness, and I am proud. But when you are an independent author, all the publishing and marketing rests upon your quaking shoulders. There’s no parade, unless I throw one for myself, which would be weird, although I’m sure my husband would come. There’s no corporate book launch—unless my local bookstore agrees to another. (Fingers crossed!) And there’s no interview with Ms. O. On Pub Day, it was just me, years of Jane Friedman’s wisdom, and my pretty fancy knowledge of Amazon KDP (Amazon’s self-publishing arm).

Because I am an addict, I look at book sales once a day. Anything can become my drug from eating sugar until I’m sick, to crushing on pretty boys, to obsessively refreshing my phone for sales. Initial sales had been terrific. And the superlatives! Go Hen! Proud of you! You did it! So Monday morning, I was not expecting to see this:

Zero sales. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

It was a sucker punch. My husband proceeded to do what he always does when his ferocious protectiveness kicks in. He becomes chattier than a tween raving about Taylor Swift. I am so proud! Most people just talk talk talk! You did it! But I heard only buzzing as my gut turned inside out on the verge of throw up.

Two years to write? Two days to disappear?

I walked and cried and cried some more. And then I went existential. Remembering reading Nausea in university, and the exploded pieces of my mind I gathered up after class when I realized Sartre was right. What IS the point of life? What IS the point in writing books? I turned my wet cheeks to the sun, kicking through the leaf-clogged gutters and wondered, Why do I write?

Like a sunbeam streaking through the golden leaves, he flashed through my mind. Ruan from South Africa. Three years ago, he reached out to me, and shared his story of chronic illness and pain. (And gave me permission to share it today.) In the haze of stress and surgeries, alcohol became his coping mechanism until it backfired. He had read Pillness and thanked me for my complete honesty, calling it the best addiction memoir he had ever read.

A year later, he shared his two-year sober anniversary with me, admitting he felt vulnerable because no one in his family is an alcoholic, and they don’t believe he is one. I shared that’s why we need each other—alcoholics. No one else will understand why we just can’t stop. Why the power of choice is taken from us. But it is. I was able to tell him I understood because I have lost the power of choice, too.

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Last year Ruan asked if he could have a signed copy of Pillness. Of course I agreed, gratis, the only caveat being I got a photo of his beautiful sober face holding my book in South Africa. It is a magnificent photo of a restored young man glowing with life. A few days ago, Ruan sent me his four-year sober anniversary notice and the tears fell. He is sober, still married, and now a father.

Today I thank Ruan for reminding me why I write. It’s not for bestseller lists or book sales, or talk show interviews. It’s because story saved me. I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and identified with how a 63-year-old Hispanic man perceived the world. He blew my mind in an altogether different way from Sartre. His story did not terrify me. It gave me hope, and then purpose.

Monday’s end came and there were sales. There have been sales since. I hope there will be more. As an artist, I always hope my work will land. But that isn’t why I write. I write because story saved my life, and paying that forward is a privilege, maybe brave, definitely necessary, but entirely my duty.

Find your why. It will be the pilot light that fuels your desire to write. It will be your shield against an ego that wants to gnaw away at your success. Because success is sharing from your corner of the world and watching another person rise because you did.

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