Yesterday, I turned in my comments on the proof for my next book, the novelization of Glixman in a Fix. It’s weird reading something I wrote a couple years ago, already. I think the manuscript is in pretty good shape. We’re IY”H expecting the book to hit stores just before Pesach.
The good news is that I made myself laugh more than once, and I still find the characters charming after all this time. When I read the last page, I contemplated writing a sequel just so I could hang out a little longer with Mendel, Ari, Ilan, and Yehudis.
The bad news is that friends and colleagues are now telling me how they all want to buy my book. This leads to a potentially awkward conversation.
Some of the aforementioned friends and colleagues primarily have read my adult work. They read my essays in Tablet, my fiction in Inyan. I think that many of them expect me to sound the same in this book…but since the initial audience was so different, I sound very different in Glixman. I’m kinda afraid how they will react to it.
Rebecca Klempner 
Well, I’m prejudiced…I’ve read some of the stories in the serialized version. And loved them! As an adult (well, I try!), I found it refreshing to read a well-written kids story; took me out of my daily adult life! I think this shows off your talent as a writer–you can write for adults and kids! As I said at the beginning, I’m prejudiced!
LikeLike
🙂 Maybe I need to shmooze with other readers before they read my book! Then they can be prejudiced, too!! 😉
LikeLike
Try not to overthink this. It’s a great book and story and your fans don’t have expectations of you being one way all the time. Kids books are different from adult essays.
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLike
I will try to follow orders. 😉
LikeLike
I don’t know what one says to someone who has a book coming out: mazal tov? Behatzlachah? Besha’ah tovah? Whatever it is, consider it said. As to the questions:
1) Definitely. At the moment I’m re-reading a lot of John le Carré. I don’t know how well-known he is Stateside, but he writes spy thrillers, but very intellectual ones. At his best, he writes books that are great thrillers and great novels of character and great novels about the world, politics and ethics. At his worst, which would be all of his non-Cold War novels that I’ve read, he’s overlong, dull and preachy. He also hates Americans, can’t write women and has some funny views about Jews (although I don’t think he’s consciously antisemitic), all of which are irritating.
I love Philip K. Dick too, but reading some of his early short stories recently, I could see he was definitely on a learning curve.
2) Always, about everything from blog posts to stories to poems to comments on other people’s blogs and on Hevria! I have very low self-esteem when it comes to my writing…
LikeLike
Your answer to #1 gives me chizzuk. And #2…I wish I could convince you of how much readers appreciate your writing. It’s always a pleasure to read your comments, Daniel!!
LikeLike
And #2…I wish I could convince you of how much readers appreciate your writing. It’s always a pleasure to read your comments, Daniel!!
Thank you for this! It’s hard to feel it, though, through the low self-esteem. Lately my confidence has been a bit better (I’ll need it as I’ve got a job interview next week and possibly a shidduch date coming up!). But it’s hard to feel positive about my writing, particularly when I feel that I’m acting the drama queen on Hevria. Still, I am working on a book, which might be more fulfilling than blog comments.
LikeLike
DID YOU SAY BOOK!?!?! I’m looking forward to reading that!
I think Hevria is meant to be a safe space to articulate feelings that sometimes make other people uncomfortable. It’s okay to let the mental health issues/bad feelings/etc. hang out there.
LikeLike
DID YOU SAY BOOK!?!?! I’m looking forward to reading that!
That’s really sweet of you, but I wouldn’t get too excited at this stage! Basically, I’m trying to put together a load of posts from my Doctor Who blog into a book about stylistic change in Doctor Who from the sixties to the present day, but it’s a pretty saturated marketplace right now and I doubt whether I will actually be able to sell it. At the moment I’m just concentrating on rewriting and expanding those posts, alongside watching a load of Doctor Who as “research” (that’s my excuse, anyway). On the plus side, I feel as if I’ve finally found my voice after writing for something like fifteen years, so maybe it will lead on to something else at some point.
You may be right about Hevria. I do feel that sometimes I hijack people’s comment threads, which doesn’t seem right. I guess I also feel that it’s better not to bother people too much about my mental health. I don’t mention it to people at shul or Gemarah shiur, even when it would be relevant e.g. when they ask how I am and I’m having a bad day, depression-wise, I just lie and say I’m fine partly because of worrying how they will react and partly because of the difficulty of dropping something so big into casual conversation. I’m already worrying a bit about what happens if I go on that date in a week or two, whether it will come up and what to say if it does and how to bring it if things get serious.
LikeLike
I think that maybe you should offer honesty with the person you date, but maybe in a small dose, so it doesn’t get too intense. At least initially.
LikeLike
Yeah, my thought was not to mention it on the first date unless it comes up (in which case, be honest), but to bring it up on the second or third date if it goes that far. I don’t know much about the woman, but I understand she works for a mental health charity, so I’m hoping she might be understanding. Of course, my pessimism says she won’t want to take her work home with her…
LikeLike
Just show up and let her decide. 😉
LikeLike
Yeah, I worry too much!
LikeLike
That just means you’re Jewish.
LikeLike