The Shit At the Centre of the Universe

Starting editing today--by which I mean, printing out the corrected manuscript, staring at it, making coffee and finding excuses not to edit it. Like, "Oh, I just remembered I didn't finish reading the entire Knightfall saga in Detective Comics. Better go to Book Warehouse and buy some Batman comics." Important shit like that...

I admit, I'm dealing with a lot of anxiety, and I do not do that well. I remember jokingly telling my friend Mike, as we contemplated book deals and such, "I'm not going to enjoy any part of this, am I?"

Well, I'm very grateful, and I think LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS deserves to be edited as well as possible. I'm very hard on my work, and I can say proudly it's a good read. But it does make me nervous, being this close to publication and having to go back through the book yet again.

In my experience, most people who want to be artists don't finish what they start. I feel like I can't stop finishing things. The book's finished when it's submitted/edited/in galleys/on the shelves...I will magestically refrain from quoting that misattributed old saw about poems never being finished, only abandoned.

I started writing LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS in 2010-2011. At that point Christian Bale was still an unproven quantity as Batman. By the time the book comes out, Ben Affleck will be Batman. And poor Michael Keaton will be a whisp of memory...

Anyway, this is exciting, terrifying, harrowing, challenging...as my friend Mercy would say, these are good problems to have.

Hemingway said, when you start writing, you get all the kick and the reader gets none, and eventually that paradigm reverses. I don't remember what makes up that "eventually," but knowing Papa I'll assume it's a combination of editing, aging, bullfighting and rum.

And after going through this process, I will never judge another artist's substance abuse, vocal outbursts or behavior again. As much of a goofball as Kanye West is, his rants betray someone torn between self-doubt and supreme arrogance. I'm not going to piss and moan if I don't get awards, or tweet an all-caps tirade if someone doesn't recognize my absolute literary magnificence and fall to their knees in genuflection...but man, do I understand the anxiety that produces idiocy like that.