Feeding that Writing Jones

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Much Ado About Publishing

Write 'Em If You Got 'Em
We writers are often portrayed as creative, sometimes tortured souls who are always addicted to something.

My only vice has been cigarettes.  

"You're such a smart person," people would say to me. "And you've written a health book, so how can you still be smoking?"  

"It's my Native American herbal treatment," I'd reply, thinking that some humor and a historical reference to the blessed tobacco of the ritual peace pipe might be just the perfect way to give a non-answer to this constantly recurring question.  

It worked for awhile, but didn't stop the conversation. So, I came up with a better answer, one that stopped everyone cold in their tracks. When people asked why I still smoked, I simply said:  

"Because I'm stupid."  

What could they say after that? Pretty much nothing.

That worked well for about five years.

Then, just recently, I told a few people that I was thinking about quitting smoking.  

The last time I tried this was many years ago, and I did not make it past the 12-hour mark. That was because I made the ridiculous mistake of taking a bike ride, through traffic, no less, with my then-husband, right in the middle of my first day of nicotine withdrawal. I was so confused, disoriented, frustrated, and downright grumpy--okay, I was spitting fire--that my ever-patient ex-hubby practically begged me to light one up the minute I walked my bicycle back into the house.  

I didn't light one up right away, though. I tried to hold out.  

Instead, I painted a duck.  

Since ex-hubby is an artist, he didn't mind that I commandeered his ceramic duck decoy and some paint, and plunked myself down at a table in his studio and began expressing my nicotine withdrawal on the poor, helpless duck.  

When I was finished, said duck had gone from looking like a rather convincing, life-like duck, to something an extra from a Cheech & Chong movie had gotten his hands on.  

I never did drugs back in the 60's, or at any other time, for that matter, but I imagine this newly painted duck thought I was doing them now. I felt embarrassed for the duck, who was now aglow with swirls of bright psychedelic colors, every color in the rainbow electrified. It would've made even Peter Max a little dizzy.  

When we divorced, ex-hubby kept the duck.  

I kept my smoking habit.  

Remember all those people who asked, "When are you going to quit?" Well, those were the very people who were the least supportive when I announced that I was thinking about quitting.  

This may sound familiar to you if you've ever told people that you wanted to write a book or were already working on one.  

Authors I know have heard: "What makes you think you can write a book?"  

And: "Why would anybody want to buy your book?"  

And the ever popular: "Nobody's gonna want to read what you have to say. Who are you that people should care what you write?"  

Aren't other peoples' fears and insecurities fun? They fling them at writers who dare to dream that they can write a book and get it published, just as they fling them at smokers who rise to the challenge of quitting.  

If you want to write a book, and you tell people about it, and they give you any crap, you have my permission to say, "Screw you."  

And, if anyone asks why you're so grumpy, tell 'em you've just quit smoking.

* * * * * *

Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.