It’s Thanksgiving week, and Friday will mark a year since the release of my second book, Leaving Analysis. I remember how different writing and publishing that second memoir felt from the first.
Now that I’m in the midst of a third memoir, it feels like even more has changed. I’m thinking about the different challenges I’ve faced as a writer. I lower my head in a gesture of patient recognition when I remember how for many years, I adamantly expressed to others how I would NEVER write a book. Now I can see that this refusal meant that unconsciously I wanted to write a book but was afraid. As I began writing that first book, I was close to the end of my career as a psychotherapist and looking for a new way to help people understand their inner lives. If I wasn’t going to have an office with a couch, I decided I could write a book that would assist others when on their personal journeys.
I have to admit that I also had dreams of writing a book that would make me famous and in demand. I dreamed of appearing on the NYTimes best seller list. My first editor once said that she had never seen a writer work so hard on marketing as I did. The two interviews I gave about my first book showed me how introverted I was. While I wanted to be interviewed, it was exhausting to put into words what I had spent months articulating on paper. The frogs in my throat hampered me during recording.
These yearnings for fame and fortune were noticeably diminished by last year when I planned my second book launch. Even if I could go on a city-to-city book tour, I knew that I really didn’t want to be away from home. I would be exhausted by the demands of travel and the need to be extroverted.
Perhaps it’s part of getting older and knowing myself better, but the appeal of writing a book now is different. Now I think of writing as a tool for helping me learn about myself. If someone else finds it useful, even better! And I savor it as the ultimate compliment when someone says, “I feel/did the same thing!”
And by the way, have you ever wanted to write a book? If your initial response is a resounding “NO!” you might want to think again.
IMAGE: Doesn’t seem so dark when I see the moon.
