I'm not very good at enjoying things
How I'm feeling 2 weeks after the release of SEX OF THE MIDWEST
So, if you’ve been following along, some fairly amazing things have happened to me in the last few weeks. SEX OF THE MIDWEST, my novel-in-stories from Galiot Press, got a Kirkus starred review. This alone is a very big deal in the publishing world and an even bigger deal for a book from a small press. It’s a monumental deal for the very first book from a press so small that it’s essentially two women.
After that, things just got more and more amazing. SEX OF THE MIDWEST was included in a list of to-read books in The Washington Post. Then it was serialized at Electric Literature. The incredible people at Midas US (a publicity and marketing firm) told me that NPR Weekend Edition wanted to interview me about the book. I about had a heart attack and during the interview, which was thankfully recorded ahead of time, I think I may have stopped breathing altogether. I had interviews with
and and David Brown. Finally, on the book’s pub date, I found out that it would be featured in People Magazine (the Nov. 3 issue, but also online here).Any one of these things by itself is a writer’s dream. Put all together, it’s a minor miracle. I’ll confess that being interviewed by Scott Simon wasn’t even something I had ever considered as possible, it was so outside the stratosphere of what I could envision.
And anyway, by the time all this happened I’d sort of given up on all those dreams of “breaking out” or “hitting it big” or, you know, “being a success.” Or, more accurately, I had very much re-defined success for myself. Success was finding joy in the process of writing and realizing how little control I had over everything else.
Which is still true. I did not make any of these amazing things happen. I mean, I did, in that I wrote the book and it seems to be a book that people love enough to include in lists and, maybe, just perhaps, actually buy or read a copy of. But also, Galiot was lucky enough to work with some amazing PR people who got the book into the hands of other people who could make all of this happen. I wrote what is the best book I could have possibly written at that time. The rest is luck.
Well, luck and my dogged persistence that borders at times on idiotic.
The point is, I should be on cloud nine right now, right? This is the happy ending. I should be ecstatic. I should be floating through my life with a dreamy smile on my face. I wish I could tell you that all of these things were true. I know that all of these things should be true.
But, as much as I hate to admit it, I might just not be very good at enjoying things.
I mean, is anyone? Seriously, are you good at enjoying things? Is it just me? Or do all of us suck a little bit at enjoyment?
Okay, I did very much enjoy the book event I did here in town at a local coffee shop. My friends and neighbors were there. Some of them had already read the book or were in the process of reading the book. It was fairly small and intimate, with me sitting on the couch answering questions and chatting. At the end, a woman I did not know came up to buy the book. Her mother in Florida had heard the NPR interview and told her daughter, who showed up to the book event. I enjoyed that.
I have enjoyed all the texts and emails I’ve received from friends and neighbors who have loved the book. I’ll admit I especially enjoy when people tell me that the book made them cry. The book makes me cry. And laugh. I like things that make me both cry and laugh. I’m glad the book does that for other people. I wish there were more books that made people cry and laugh.
I’ve enjoyed how excited people in my town are for me and for themselves and for the town. This is, after all, a book about community. My success is our success. We’re in it together, good and bad.
I enjoyed my big book launch party, where I got to have cookies with the cover on them and delicious food made by my friend, Fiona, and drinks made by Violet and where I got to read the final scene in the book, which, yes, also makes me cry and is all about how much I love our town. I think at that moment I had done what maybe all writers want to do—take a feeling we all have but cannot articulate and put it into words. That felt like a very good thing.
I enjoyed the email I got from a woman in Washington, who cried reading one story out loud to her husband. I love the idea of strangers out there in the world reading my words.
Okay, so maybe I can enjoy things after all. Maybe the larger point is that it’s easier to enjoy things that are close and immediate, as opposed to things that are at-a-distance and abstract. Perhaps the point is that I find it hard to enjoy things that are just about me and would much rather share them with a larger group. Perhaps I needed to sit down and make a list in order to actually realize how much I’ve enjoyed this whole thing. Perhaps the point is that in this fucked-up world where millions of people are about to go hungry even though people in power could easily prevent that from happening, enjoying anything is especially difficult.
Maybe I don’t even know what the point is. I’m so, so grateful to all the people who helped make these amazing things happen. I’m so grateful to every single person who’s reached out to tell me that SEX OF THE MIDWEST moved them in some way (also, for god’s sake, always let an author know when you feel this way because it is the most incredible gift).
I told my husband the other day, “Eventually, I’ll set aside some time to really enjoy all of this.”
“No you won’t,” he said.
Maybe he’s right. I don’t know.
Here’s the absolute, 100% crazy but true thing that I do know. This week, for the first time in a while, I carved out enough time to begin the hard work that is a second draft on the next novel. Those moments I did very much enjoy. To be alone again in my chair with the words and the possibility and all over again, nothing much at stake? That is quite enjoyable.
All the SEX OF THE MIDWEST links:
October reads list at The Washington Post.
Most anticipated short story and poetry collections at SheReads.
Serialized at Electric Literature (with the best headline—”Her Top Priority is to Destroy the Hot Dog Guy”
My essay about the beauty of familiar faces in Literary Hub.
My interview with David Brown at More to Come.
My interview with
at Spark.My interview at
’s Bookish.My NPR Weekend Edition interview (did that really happen?).
In People Magazine.
At BookBrowse.
List of novels-in-stories which inspired SEX OF THE MIDWEST at Book Riot.
Robyn, I'm so very happy that you are receiving all the accolades for SEX OF THE MIDWEST! And thanks for continuing to promote our interview on my little corner of the internet. I keep telling people they need to READ THIS BOOK! Hopefully, some of them will listen. DJB
As I read this, I thought back to the year I launched my novel. So many good things happened and, thankfully, I was able to experience some of them fully in the moment. But afterwards, after the adrenaline rushes, the worries, the anxieties, the unparalleled joys of seeing friends from every part of my life come out for me to both celebrate and push my book, when things quieted inside and out, I felt those joys sink in deeper. I would both smile and cry when I remembered certain moments. These sustained me as the book traveled on its own small, uncertain journey into the future. This is a very long and convoluted way of saying that the sensation of not being able to fully enjoy some of the things that have happened will turn into something else in the future. I suspect they will always be with you and that you will have a lot more to enjoy going forward.
And working on your next book? That's exactly the right thing to do. That is, after all, as you say, where the joy always can be found. Kudos to you, your team, your publishers, all of you.