You’re a writer, right? You’ve been writing for eight years, ten years, fifteen… and you’ve had a few small successes. But not with ‘the book,’ the one you poured your heart into over the years, the one that is not merely an entertainment, but is true, containing the essence of yours and others’ experiences, and the little bit of insight it all gave you. You’ve submitted it to the big New York houses hundreds (sometimes it seems like thousands) of times… with no result other than enough rejection slips to stuff a queen sized mattress.

Finally you’ve had it and you decide to go rogue, go Indie. Your book is ‘e-published’ with a small ebook company, with no fanfare, no publicity, other than your emails and phone calls to friends and family. During the first two months little appears to be happening. Your book rises in the Amazon ranks from 2,538,000 to 2,463,000, indicating a few sales, thanks to your friends and relatives (actually, you’ve sold eight, yes, eight (8) copies, and your publisher has, without telling you, submitted the book along with the four other titles in their catalogue, to the Frankfurt eBook Awards.)

The thrill of it all fades, and on a day at work much like any other, you get a call from your editor. Your book, she tells you excitedly, has just been named one of twelve finalists at the IeBAF! You go on line and sure enough, there it is – your book… listed as one of twelve finalists along with books by writers like Alan Furst, Joyce Carole Oates, David McCullough, Amitav Ghosh!

You can’t believe it, thinking it must be some kind of internet hoax. After all, nobody knows your work… and this supposed ‘big news’ is just some words on a web site (can’t this stuff be hacked in?), just one site at this point. A couple days later your editor calls to breathlessly tell you that the news is now appearing on Publishers Weekly’s web site.  You check and sure enough…it’s there too. Too amazed to keep quiet about it, you tell a trusted co-worker. A week later everyone at work knows. People smile and wave to you as you walk around the facility. Associates stop by your cubicle to smile at you in amazement, saying that they hadn’t even known you were a writer. And now your book is getting international attention! Other co-workers lean on your cubicle wall asking you if you will continue to work, assuming that only fame and fortune can follow such an honor. Your editor calls to tell you that your ticket to the Frankfurt Book Faire has already been purchased for you…a room reserved. Will you go? You go to your boss and he says with a smile in front of the three other workers in his office, “I think we can spare you for a week to receive such an honor.”

You walk around in a daze as the weeks ooze by. Wild fantasies of the event and the aftermath fill your head along with the mundane details of planning your trip, making it more and more difficult to concentrate on your duties. Then, about four weeks before you are to leave, a band of ‘religious’ homicidal-maniacs take control of jet airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania. All air travel is suspended. The country is wounded, paranoid and angry, completely shut down. Your dreams are over because the world as we know it has come to an end.

Sounds like fiction, doesn’t it? Google, “Eight Copies Sold is Enough” Check out the dates.

I went to Frankfurt and Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam didn’t win. It took me three more years before I finally found a publisher to print it. But the finalist nomination was an honor and a vindication of sorts -- I guess I really was a writer.

So, what did I learn from all of this? I guess... don’t get too full of yourself. It’s a big world and there are forces at work more powerful than your dreams, forces greater than the efforts of just one person. Put things in perspective. Live for today, and for those you love. This doesn’t mean that we can’t exert influence in the world and change things, but there are perhaps bigger issues which have to be resolved before we can make the changes we want.

To hone in a little further… When I was in Frankfurt, they held a moment of silence for those whose lives had been so cruelly and gruesomely ended on 911. I remember the announcement coming over the PA, and how respectful everyone was. And I had a realization during all of this. This book faire was one of the many culminations of (the oft maligned) Western Civilization. I walked the aisles of book vendors, miles of them it seemed, a celebration of ‘the book’ and not 'THE BOOK,' real cultural diversity from every continent and culture. And the bloodthirsty Neanderthals who smashed everything in New York were absolutely opposed to that and the FREE SPEECH it represented! So if you get weary of this ‘war’ think about how there really are some fundamental things at stake.

Getting back to writing. If you’re looking for a life of great wealth, influence, and leisure, study law and get a political job in Washington, or else have your teeth straightened and polished and head to Hollywood. If all of that’s too much work, maybe just buy a lottery ticket. If you want to write, just do it for the doing of it and the love of getting it right, or almost so. Take the serious criticism from serious people to heart and threw the rest in the garbage.

By the way, although the hardback version of Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam is ‘out-of-print,’ I have made the book available in all ebook formats. Best!

PAUL CLAYTON writes historical fiction, mainstream fiction, literary fiction, and short stories, as well as opinion pieces and humor. In 2001 his fictionalized account of his tour in Vietnam was named a finalist in the Frankfurt eBook Awards. He has lived in the SF Bay area for the last twenty-five years. You can read more of his writing HERE.

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