Bringing a Book into the World

Sitting in Silence Main Newsletter

Hello and Welcome to Sitting in Silence, the newsletter about writing, craft, worry, and joy.

Welcome to all the new subscribers and to the premium subscribers who support this newsletter. You’re all appreciated dearly. It’s always a joy to write these words.

A few updates to start off. It’s a busy time.

Firstly, thanks to everyone picking up what I’m laying down. Long time readers know that I write this newsletter purely for the fun of it. I’ve also enjoyed starting the new no-frills podcast also the same reason. Like any of you, I have a few things to say. I hope you find that podcast informative, inspiring, and even occasionally delightful.

Meanwhile, I have added an educational component to Sitting in Silence for premium subscribers. Basically, I give away teaching tools I’ve made over the years (in the premium newsletter) and explain what the tools mean (in the premium version of the podcast).    

To that end, I'm running my first new premium subscriber sale. Anyone who signs up for an annual subscription before March 15, will receive 20% off(!). Don’t miss out. For details, click here.

Second, my next book, The American Daughters, comes out in just over a month on Tuesday, February 27. I’ll release the book tour schedule soon. Here’s some praise for the novel from National Book Award and MacArthur Genius Grant winners:

“An emotionally and intellectually captivating journey through slavery and into our future. It is a wholly unique story that challenges what we think we know of the past, truth, American history, and how we will carry what was into what will be.”— Imani Perry

 “Maurice Ruffin is an absolute master of craft and genre here. How has this book not been written before? Because we've never experienced a radical loving living talent like Maurice Ruffin. This is a forever book.”— Kiese Laymon

And some praise for the novel from literary magazines:

“A vibrant picture of antebellum New Orleans. Readers won’t be able to resist this stirring story of freedom by any means necessary.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A high adventure, a revealing history, and a chronicle of one woman’s self-realization…. Black women as agents—literally—of their own liberation. Who wouldn’t be inspired?” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Feel free to pre-order The American Daughters from your favorite independent bookseller. And give a copy to someone in your life who enjoys good literature.

So far, people seem to be enjoying the early copies we sent out. You can enter my giveaway until February 3, and maybe win a free copy.

And now without further ramblings…

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Today, let’s talk about Bringing a Book into the World.

Perhaps the craziest thing about writing a book is that your book wouldn’t exist without you. Literally. One day, you decide to make a book. Then one day, that book is on a shelf. This is not like childbirth, which can intentional or unplanned. This is not like some movies, which spring from the mind of overstimulated Hollywood executives only to be completed by a team of producers, actors, and, yes, writers.

A book is the most intentional thing there is because it comes down to you. You must want the book to exist or there’s no chance it’ll happen.

I would love to take a poll of published authors to ask them what they felt their chance of publication was, say, five years before their first book came out. I believe that many of those writers would admit to being surprised because so often the early part of the writing process is uncertain, herky jerky, and carried on the winds of faith in the unseen.

My first book, We Cast a Shadow, came out in 2019. The drafting lasted from 2012 to 2016. In 2014, I was in the middle of writing it. But I can only say it was the middle in retrospect. If you asked me in May of 2014 where I was in the process, honestly, I might have said I had no idea. And if you crawled into my mind, you would have seen unbridled panic—burning sofas, strobe lights, small children swinging from ceiling fan to chandelier. I believed I would finish and publish, but I wouldn’t have bet the life of anyone that I knew when or how I would publish.

My latest (book three), The American Daughters, comes out in just under a month. It’s been a remarkably smooth process. I sold it the fall of 2022. But if you asked me in September 2022 whether the book was almost done, I would have responded with a confused, “I don’t know. Yes. I mean…no. Maybe?”

But the book was almost done, and it did sell to One World Random House.

My point is that the process of bringing a book into the world is fraught for most of us, even when it’s mostly pleasant. I understand that now. This understanding makes me appreciate all the missteps and pain it took to become what I apparently am now: a mid-career author.

Let’s just walk through the basic steps of publishing a book from start to finish:

·        Write a book.

·        Publish a book.

*dusts off hands* Pretty easy, right? Of course, those cryptic phrases don’t tell us much. They’re like the birth and death date on a tombstone. Factual, but sadly uninformative.

Let’s try a version of my journey. *cracks knuckles*

1.      I joined a writing group.

2.      I took independent classes.

3.      I joined a second writing group.

4.      I went back to school.

5.      I used my day job to support me for 5 10 15 years while I learned to write.

6.      I published stories.

7.      I wrote a book.

8.      I found an agent.

9.      He helped me find a publisher.

10.   I published a book.

*15 years after cracking knuckles, dusts off hands* Now, we have some information. But it still lacks depth. Like trying to track a three-dimensional person on a two-dimensional map. (“Yes, I see that he’s at the Chrysler Building, but for Pete’s sake what floor!?!”) I placed “wrote a book” at number 7, but in truth I was “wroting” a book during 1-9. Indeed, even before 1.

What I’m trying to tell you is that the writing is the main thing. Every writer starts out nascent, a baby deer (fawn, right?) on wobbly legs. You know it because when you’re new at writing fiction, the words on the page don’t compare to the hyperdetailed, hyperobject in your brain. I’m sure that when Toni Morrison or Melville looked at their drafts, it was exactly as their brilliant minds imaged. But here’s a confession: even my published work doesn’t look like the work of staggering genius* in my mind.

But…I know that I’m a better writer than I was even five years ago.

One of the most frustrating things about becoming a published author is the before times. When you’re writing and working and getting better but there’s no book. It’s so hard to gage where you are in the process of becoming yourself. You ever tried cooking risotto? Because it’s like that. You have to watch and stir and baby it or it’s ruined. But if you do well suddenly there’s heaven in your pot.

Here’s an example of nascent writer frustration that I and countless writer friends of mine have experienced: You go to a conference and an agent likes your short story enough to ask that evergreen question: “So, are you working on a novel?” And you just cringe because the malformed overcooked lump in your brain isn’t really anything yet. But it will be if you keep going.

The transition from unpublished writer to published author is not unlike the transition from child to young adult. The prior is an extended agonizing period of not quite yet. The latter is a time of looking back in mild awe as though you’ve returned to your old middle school. “There’s no way we were that small a couple years ago. Impossible!”

Thing of it is, you’re not small at all. You are an engine of potential. A whole society rages within your chest.

Between roughly 2006 and 2016, I had so many false starts. I sent off manuscripts, eyes gleaming as the gods of the internet whisked my work off to uncaring interns and editors. No, they were caring…about good work. And I wasn’t quite there. I was a child wearing my older brother’s giant football jersey.

I suppose what I’m really trying to say is this. Every book is a struggle. The other day, I watched an underappreciated film about a champion swimmer named Diana Nyad. She’s a difficult woman, and I love difficult women. She’s brusque and narcissistic. At one point when asked why she thinks so highly of herself: “Everyone should have a superiority complex,” she says. I gasped at this because it is a rude, even delusional thing to say. And yet, every athlete and artist needs this spirit within to succeed. Nyad is redeemable because she’s referring only to herself. She’s only competing with her past accomplishments.

This is exactly what writers need. If you’ve tried and failed to publish stories and books, well, that’s tough, but that’s also the story of 99% of us (Joyce Carol Oates excluded).

To write a book and publish a book requires the selfsame internal spark that compels a woman to swim for 60 hours from Cuba to Key West. Madness, for sure. But calculated madness. Every writer must have equal parts pragmatism, innovation, and a dollop of hearing voices no one else can.

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My apologies for any typos but it proves this wasn’t written by AI…yet.