By the time I get to the end of every book, I absolutely hate it, more than you can possibly imagine, and I can see no reason why anyone else would ever want to read it.
It is in this lovely vein that I then must work at promoting it. I have to tell other people why they must read it. An admission, because I am feeling honest. I’ve been working on promotional stuff for Proof by Seduction in which I tell you how much I love and adore my book. But it’s all a pack of lies. I don’t love my book.
Some people say they love their books as if they were babies. Maybe there’s some truth to that, because there’s a moment in every infant’s life when it has just wet its diaper for the fourth time in thirty minutes, not that it matters, because somehow it wormed out of the diaper, which it left in a wet mass on top of the stairs. It’s crying at the top of its lungs. And despite what appears to be a general tendency towards immobility, the baby has still managed to climb out of its crib, open three intervening doors, and is now splashing in the antifreeze out in the garage. Also–dear God, what is that thing in its mouth? You have to be kidding me. It’s not a–oh. Yes. Yes, it is.
Mothers, you know what I am talking about. (I do not have children yet, but I have a dog, which is almost the same thing, and this story also perfectly describes my younger brother at one year old.) This is the moment when every mother, whether she admits it or not, wants to shriek, “Please! Anybody! TAKE THIS CHILD, I will give you twenty dollars! No, thirty!”
This is what I think about when other people say that their books are their “babies.” I hate my books with an undying passion, even if part of me feels some kind of grudging kinship and responsibility. If anyone asks me in public, of course, my books are all little angels and I adore every fat little dimple on their collective chins. But in private, my books are that baby, covered in antifreeze, oddly diaper-less, leaving a trail of terrifying baby-slime in their wake.
So. Ahem. Who wants to buy a copy of Proof by Seduction?
