Welcome to the hype machine
No time for dilly-dallying: I've got a book to promote!
The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook comes officially into the world on Tuesday, Sept. 10, but the reviews are already coming in -- and I'm finding the experience alternately, or simultaneously, exhilarating and terrifying.
On August 26 I was high in the mountains of Puerto Rico with a work brigade on a farm when, in a rare moment of connectivity, a Google alert came through on my phone. As I was avoiding doing any actual work (it was so hot!), I clicked on it, and discovered that the Chicago Tribune had just published a review of the book. And it was ... good. Really good. (It's here.)
That the review existed, let alone that it was a rave, was a total surprise -- and made all the more surreal by the fact that I was 2,000 miles and a lot of ocean away from Chicago at the time. I pinched myself a couple times that day, as I got muddy and rained on and eventually drove 2+ hours back down the mountain and back to San Juan and the land of somewhat reliable internet (the electricity had come back on while I was out of town!).
The next day Hurricane Dorian was starting to loom large on the horizon. Everything I was supposed to do was cancelled so, at a loss, I took the bus to Old San Juan and just wandered around. I sat by the cruise ship docks for a long time and just marveled at the monstrosity that is the Symphony of the Seas, Royal Carribean's newest and hugest ship. I bought some books and went by the governor's mansion, and tried to envision what it had been like there just a month earlier, when the streets were full of revolution. Now, the streets were quiet but the air was heavy with anxiety -- you really could feel it. Schools were letting out early and everyone was starting to get a little tense. What if Dorian hit? What if it turned out to be worse than NOAA was saying? What if the power went out again? WHAT IF WHAT IF WHAT IF? It was exhilarating and terrifying.
In the middle of all this my inner barometer spiked with anxiety, as Hurricane Imposter Syndrome picked up speed and kicked up a metric ton of psychic debris. Now that the book was coming out -- and people were starting to not just read it but holy crap talk about it -- oh god, people would really realize I was a fraud, a loser, a failure, a fake.
This inner monologue is profoundly boring, and I'll spare you the rest of it, but I'm including it here because YOU GUYS. It is a thing. Even in a tropical paradise. I had to sit on the steps of a church and call a friend to talk me down. And, bless her, she did.
I don't generally consider myself an anxious person but like everyone (like you?) I am my own worst critic, and that's not a humblebrag. I mean, humility is good, as is the ability to look at your work with a critic's clear eye. But it can be paralyzing -- or deafening at least -- walking around with that constant beat of "failure, loser, faker, fraud" drumming low and relentless in your ear. This can be hard to manage in the context of social media and book promotion where for the last two weeks I've felt like all I'm doing is saying LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT I AM GOOD (or at least give me a little blue "thumbs-up"). I don't even want to call it a necessary evil -- it's an evil with which we choose to be complicit, because it might lead to the next great and terrible thing, or at least to someone buying your book, which means that maybe, someday, I might actually get a royalty check? (Something that has never once in my life of publishing books happened.)
Anyway. imposter syndrome: it's embarrassing and it's real and it sucks! Honestly, I don't have a lot of insight to share, but for me, I've found the best way to silence it is to just force myself to run through that Buddhist checklist of non-attachment -- the inner hater is meaningless, but so is the external praise. We are all in flux, in an ever-changing state of paradox and uncertainty, exhilarated and terrified, wondering if the storm is going to make a direct hit or pass us by. All you can do is prepare -- get your extra water and your batteries lined up just in case and keep your friends close at hand.
***
I wrote two stories while I was in Puerto Rico. One was a last minute assignment covering the preparations and stress over Dorian (which, as you know, wound up making a little jog around the northeast corner of Puerto Rico, drenching us with rain and some kindof thrilling wind for a few hours, but that was basically it). The second was on proposed changes to the land-use zoning map, which many people see as the next step in the ongoing sell-off of Puerto Rico to outside capital. Both were for PRI/The World; it's been great to work with them and I hope I can do with them soon.
***
Post-Puerto Rico, I was excited to start circus training again after a two-week break, but that project has been derailed thanks to a dumb little bike accident that has left my right shoulder in a surprising amount of pain. (Like, it's not supposed to hurt when I sneeze, right?) Yet another reminder of the fallibility of making plans and setting expectations. Oh well!
***
Last: please come celebrate the release of The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook with me and the contributors this month. The big party is this Wednesday, Sept. 11, at the Hideout, from 5:30-8 pm. We have nine people reading, and there will be food and drinks and books for sale of course. Then we do it all again on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at Marz Community Brewing, from 7-9. More readers! More books! More beer! All the info on these and other events down the line can be found on the Belt events page, or scattered across the social media platforms of your choice. It would be so great to see you at one or the other, or both. Thank you!