Why Writing a Book is Like Having a Baby

I just returned very late last night from having a BALL at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. This is my second time at the Festival, with the first being in 2011 after my first book, Cartel, was published. However, of the four book festivals I've participated in as an author, this was the first one I actually had the time to thoroughly enjoy. I wouldn't call myself a book "nerd," as so many attendees are unfortunately labeled, but I absolutely love to read. Sadly, I rarely know any authors at these festivals because I write about such niche stuff, I don't pay attention to the authors of my kids' books, and I don't read popular fiction.

So, I just picked and chose sessions that sounded interesting, and what luck did I have! I got to listen to Craig Johnson, who is the author of the Walt Longmire (um, yeah) series of books and a producer for the A&E television show. He is a complete riot, a cowboy through and through (he lives in a town with a population of 25 people), and just a really nice and humble man. I got his new book signed for my husband and took a fun photo with him.

The social stuff was also pretty great! The first night, they held an authors' after-party mixer thing that took place immediately after the $250/plate Literary Gala. I met some seriously fun people/authors there who would constitute my social circle for the next two days. It was a little crowded, but people made room for my "horse," as I like to call my scooter now--especially when in Texas.

I should confess that there was one author I really wanted to hear--and possibly meet: Lawrence Wright, who is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, Going Clear, and most recently 13 Days (about the Camp David peace accords between Carter, Bagin, and Sadat). After I read his exposé of Scientology a couple of years ago, I went on a reading binge

about the subject and just fell in love with his writing style. Anyway, I did get to meet him (see picture), and we actually spoke at length at the authors' cocktail party on Saturday evening. It was a great conversation, until he asked me about my next book.

This is nothing against him, or any of the dozens of other people who have asked me the same thing since Cartel came out in 2011. I like to explain to people--and this explanation works much better with parents, particularly mothers--that writing and publishing a book is like having a kid. A pregnancy and the time taken to write a non-fiction book about current events is roughly the same; trust me, I've done both. Twice. The "labor" associated with getting the kid and the book out into the world can be quite painful. But goodness gracious, what a joyous day it is when the baby is born and the book hits the shelves on Pub Day! You can live off that joy for a little while...but then the midnight feedings start wearing on you, as do the constant things you have to do to promote your book and keep it fresh in people's minds. At some point, many moms and authors say after their first baby/book, "I'm never doing this again. That was great, I'm proud, I'm happy, but this is going to be an only child. I'm never going through THAT again!"

Then about 18 months to two years down the road, something we moms call pregnancy amnesia sets in. You forget about the sleepless nights, the crying, the nasty diapers, the millions of edits and revisions, the 5am radio interviews (if you're on Pacific Time like me), the book signings where five people show up, and spending two hours to get ready for a 3-minute TV news interview. You think, Huh. Maybe I could do this one more time...

And that's exactly what I did. Writing Cartel was brutal because it was my first book and I had no guidance or experience with regards to how I should pace myself. It was hard on my family, on my marriage, and on my sanity. I dreaded the moment when I had to tell my husband I wanted to write Border Insecurity because I thought he would really be against it based on our experience with Cartel. But we came to an agreement, and writing the second book was actually really enjoyable. So was having our second kid, coincidentally. We still had our sleepless nights and he had his own unique quirks that were totally different than his brother's, but we certainly felt more confident about the process.

So this brings me to the question I've been getting asked since Border Insecurity came out in April: "What's your next book going to be about?" with the variant of, "When is your next book coming out?" Now, try rephrasing the question as if you were posing it to a mother of two children whose youngest child is only six months old: "So when are you going to have a third kid?" with the variant of, "How often are you and your husband trying to get pregnant again?" Yeah, exactly.

These questions (about the next book) don't bother me because I know few people, relatively speaking, truly understand the labor involved in writing and getting a book to market. I am truly excited and proud to be a TWICE-published author of two titles that have been commercially successful by all measures. But (a) I feel like I've used up all my expertise in those two books, and (b) with two companies to run and a family to help care for--with my MS getting worse every year--I have no idea where I would find the time to write something else. I know my publisher wouldn't be happy to hear talk of being done writing books, and I also know myself and my love of researching and writing. So I'm done...for now. Until the pregnancy amnesia (for books ONLY) sets in again...