October 21, 2022

Dear Reader,

Exciting news: WATL is the #1 Indie Next List Pick for November 2022! This means that independent booksellers from all over the USA voted our novel #1. Thank you, indie booksellers!

Only eleven days until We Are the Light will be officially published. 

(And only two days until my 49th birthday. The Internet says I was born in Camden, NJ, but that's a lie. Doreen Quick says I was born in Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania, and I do believe that she was there when I debuted. Thanks, Mom, for giving me life half a century ago, back when you were only twenty-two. Thanks also, Dad.)

Here's an insider secret for M.P.L. readers everywhere. Many fiction writers tend to go a little insane (if only behind the scenes) when their novels are finally published. Post-publication depression is common. There is no one-size-fits-all reason. But I have some hypotheses.

First, the odds are stacked against writers—and overwhelmingly so. The truth is this: most novels don't sell very many copies. The bestseller lists reflect only a tiny portion of the thousands and thousands of novels that are published. Statistically, it's a daunting game. And publication time often brings this reality into sharp focus.

Fiction writers tend to be people who live in their heads and spend a lot of time alone writing with the door closed. Publication is a rare moment when the internal becomes external. Best case scenario, people will suddenly be asking questions about what had been for the most part a private undertaking. Worst case scenario, what writers spent years extrovert-ing will be completely ignored when they bravely offer it up to the world at large. This takes courage either way.

No matter what, people will verbalize and write mean and sometimes unfair critiques of the work. That's the cost of doing business. Even those of us with the thickest of skins bleed (if only privately) when we are stabbed.

I think many novelists are driven to write by subconscious fantasies. There is a hope that we will emerge from our writing nests with something that will radically change the world's perception of us. I have often thought that a healthy portion of fiction writers are subconsciously trying to win the love and understanding that they didn't get in childhood.

Of course, if you are a fiction writer trying to get love from the business of publishing, you are constructing for yourself a world of pain. But the subconscious is a tricky beast, especially when it goes unexamined by our conscious minds. And much greater writers than yours truly seem to have historically fallen prey to such psychological forces.

Each of my eight previous publication experiences were colored by at least some of what I outlined above.

The six months leading up to the publication of The Silver Linings Playbook rank high amongst the most painful half-years of my life. I had no idea why at the time. I was accomplishing what I had always dreamed of—publishing with a prestigious imprint at one of the most famous publishing houses in the world. I had a movie in the works too. And yet I felt like I was being ripped apart. My anxiety was the worst it had ever been. I was drinking heavily. I often had to leave social events. And any mention of the forthcoming publication made me feel as though I was going to throw up. I was living the dream. Ha.

What I don't think I consciously realized was this: the book was about to publicly extrovert complicated internal realities. Yes, I was hiding behind the mask of fiction. But much of me was still naked on the page. I wasn't my protagonist, Pat Peoples, but—just like Pat—I was struggling with my mental health. I had never been so publicly naked about that fact before. It was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.

The launch for my debut was a brief and dreamlike whirlwind. 

I did an event with Hank Baskett, who was at the time a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles. He is also discussed in the novel as Pat Peoples' favorite player. Even though the Quick-Baskett talk was a free and completely-open-to-the-public event in Center City, Philadelphia, the attendance was small, maybe only twenty or so people. Hank couldn't have been more gracious. He seemed to really enjoy taking part in the signing line with me. I remember being starstruck, even though—at the time—Hank was younger than many of my former students.

I did a brunch speaking panel event at the famed Waldorf Astoria in New York City with Dionne Warwick, Marlo Thomas, Harlan Coben, and one or two other writers. There were hundreds of people there, including a few of my former students, Alicia, and one of my best Goddard pals, Wallace. It was a ticketed event, so everyone received books, which made all of our signing lines equally long. I remember chatting with my friends and former students in the lobby afterward and feeling like it was a moment—what I had for many years fantasized about as an unpublished writer.

I also did a small reading in a Manhattan bookstore. My agent and his assistant at the time were there. I had a drink afterward with my editor and I remember her and me running through Grand Central Station because I was late for my train home and didn't know where the platform was. When I said I didn't think I was going to make it, she declared, "I'm a New Yorker. I'll get you on that train." A few minutes later, I stepped on board as the doors were closing, just like in the movies.

All three of those experiences would have blown my mind back when I was a creative writing MFA grad student dreaming of such things. I'd say those experiences pretty much blew my mind when they were happening too.

I absolutely knew and appreciated how lucky I was.

But after so much dreaming, so much anticipation, the publishing experience lasted only two or so weeks before it was over and regular life resumed. Not much was different afterward, which kind of shocked me at the time.

I printed out every single positive thing that any Internet person had written about my novel and taped those quotes to the back of my office door. At the time, I was working in the tiny second bedroom of our little apartment over the cheese shop in Collingswood, NJ. The top half of the door was covered with kind words. But the one really nasty review I received in a major newspaper had seared itself into my memory and was pretty much all I could see at the time. I thought that less-than-generous review was going to end my career. I worried about what my editor had thought when she read it. I felt branded.

In the months after TSLP book launch, I was nervous and somewhat depressed. I remember feeling like I had failed to grab the golden ring. For a few days my fingertips seemed to brush against it, but then that prize receded back into some unseeable place to which I no longer had access.

It wasn't that I was unappreciative. I couldn't have been more grateful.

I was terrified that I had given the best of me and somehow it wasn't enough.

So I started writing again, hoping the next book would be the key that would open the door to a new and better life—to mental health and a solid sense of self-worth.

The Silver Linings Playbook received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention the next year and I got to have my picture taken with Ernest Hemingway's son, but my debut didn't even get remotely close to hitting any bestseller lists until the film adaptation started earning praise almost five years later.

To my great surprise, attending the Oscars and becoming a New York Times bestselling author didn't make me feel like enough either.

Once I understood there was no accolade, no accomplishment that could fix my internal problems, my sense of worthlessness had to be dealt with independent of my career.

It wasn't me vs. the world at large, but simply me vs. me.

So how am I feeling heading into the publication of We Are the Light?

I've had a few anxiety attacks.

The introvert in me worries about the book tour schedule—all the airports and planes and crowds. I very much want to connect with as many readers as possible. I want to be on and fully present for anyone who comes to an event. And I know that will cost me. So I've been preparing with my analyst to pay the cost.

Comparatively, I'm much more grounded heading into this launch. Much more settled into my sobriety. It also helps that this is my ninth time around the metaphorical publishing block.

In September, as the book tour schedule was being assembled—even though I very much want to be out in the world promoting WATL—I had a bit of a panic attack when I saw that I'd be flying every day for the first week. I don't like being in enclosed spaces and used to rely on a drink or two to get me through a flight. 

With my heart pounding about the tour schedule, I went for a walk in the woods with Alicia. Toward the end, we crossed paths with a young father, his small daughter, and their aging dog. As if we had known each other for her entire life, the little girl walked right up to me and said something too quickly for my ears to catch.

"She comes at you fast," the young dad said and then gave me a sympathetic look that seemed to say, You're on your own.

I bent down and—in my best talking-to-a-little-kid voice—said, "Hey there, what would you like to tell me?"

A little slower, but with as much unfettered joy as the first time, she said: "At your home what kind of dog do you have?" and then looked up at me like she and I were going to be the greatest of friends.

"A border terrier," I said.

"What's his name?"

"Kingsly."

"Do you want to see who is on my cup?" she asked and—before I could answer—she was introducing me to all the PAW Patrol characters with such an unbridled sense of giving and fearlessness that I immediately stopped feeling anxious. It was like she infected me with her ease and joy.

You could literally feel purity and light emanating from her.

She was the opposite of anxiety.

"Let's let the nice people have their walk," the dad said—sending a warm thank-you-for-indulging-my-daughter nod in my direction. The little girl replied, "Okay," and then skipped on down the road.

I've since made that little girl my role model for being more open and at ease in the world. And I plan to carry the memory of that interaction on all those planes and through all those airports. Maybe I can even practice a little unencumbered friendliness and let go of all the clenched-fist adulting I've picked up over the last almost forty-nine years. Maybe if I get really brave I'll even turn to a fellow weary traveler and say the adult equivalent of, "At your home what kind of dog do you have?"

Maybe.

Two plus years of Jungian analysis has taught me the value of seeking answers within, rather than trying to solve everything externally. I work on my mental health in the safe container of analysis. And I try to always look within for validation and a sense of selfhood. Some days this is harder than others, but I keep trying and inching forward in the right direction.

There is no golden ring somewhere out there waiting to be grasped. There is only what is and always has been within each and every one of us. All the rest is an illusion with which our unchecked egos collude.

My sobriety has also helped to cut down on the emotional rollercoaster rides.

And I have come to embrace what my old writing mentor, Roland Merullo, told me back when I was still a green unpublished novelist:

"Every novel has a fate."

That doesn't mean that novelists shouldn't try to do what they can to promote their books. It just means that the ultimate destiny of a creative project is often decided above our pay grades. Internally raging against this reality caused me much suffering over the years.

I still very much want We Are the Light to find a large audience and I have been doing everything I can—without making myself mentally or emotionally sick—to promote. I am, of course, hoping my latest will be embraced by the world. But I also hope that this time around I can maintain the right perspective, stay psychologically grounded, and enjoy the ride, regardless of outcome.

I'm hoping to maintain the humility necessary to accept that We Are the Light has a fate that is mostly beyond my scope of influence.

All that said...

If you have enjoyed the M.P.L. and would like to repay the favor—and give me an early birthday present in the process—please consider preordering copies of We Are the Light from your local bookstore. You can give them to your family members, friends, neighbors, lovers, enemies, coworkers, and/or even complete strangers. Every new copy of a book sold is a vote for an author's career. Publishers keep publishing those who sell. And you can vote as many times as you like.

If you'd like a signed copy of We Are the Light, please contact Downtown Books in Manteo, NC or hit the SIGNED COPIES button on my website.

And here's where you can see me live (and virtually) in November: EVENTS. Feel free to check the website periodically, as events will continue to be added and modified. Some events require registration.

Okay, friends.

Until the 21st of November 2022, please remember that wherever you are in the world, whatever your current battle may be, your man in Coastal NC is sending you good vibes. Always.

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MATTHEW

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