Thursday, April 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Goldberg: A novel by...

By Tod Goldberg

I stare at the computer screen and wonder if I've just wasted a year and a half of my life. I scroll through the pages, all 253 of them, looking at words and then sentences and then paragraphs and then whole chapters stream past and I catch words like "that" and "it" and "like" and "little" and I wonder if I've used them too many times, if maybe I shouldn't just rewrite the whole damn thing without any of those words. Maybe I should hit the delete button and just resign myself to the fate that I may have misused 500 days of my life.

You see, I just finished writing my new book, which in a practical and literal sense means that I've just finished giving birth to another chapter of my own life and I feel like it may well be the chapter where the main character has chronic vomiting and diarrhea and dies a painful death in the discount bin at Borders.

There's no such thing in writing as a can't-miss idea--plenty of established writers have books they've slaved over that never get sold, that sit in a drawer collecting dust (though, what's nice is that they don't collect bad reviews along the way, which is a nice side benefit to abject pre-publication failure) and are forever mentioned in hushed tones as "the book that didn't work." Of course, for non-established writers there are legions of unpublished novels, millions of awful stories and the sense that all they need is the benefit of discovery and they will reach great literary heights. And that might be true, but for the most part if a book goes unpublished after it has made the rounds of agents and editors, it's for a reason.

It sucks.

Or, rather, what I've just written sucks. That's what I've determined right at this moment as I page through my new book on the computer screen. The characters are flat. The story is boring. The conflict is...what is the conflict, Tod? Really, what the hell have you written about? Let me guess--a man of about thirtysomething dealing with important issues that may domino throughout the rest of his life...big surprise, Tod.

"Are you talking to yourself?" my wife asks.

"Yes."

"Are you done with your book?"

"Yes," I say, "but I feel like I'm having a heart attack. I can't breathe. My left arm hurts. I'm all woozy. Maybe we should go to the doctor's office."

"Print it out," my wife says and then leaves the room. "I'm sure it's good."

What does she know? Has she been sitting here every night like Scheherazade helping me narrate the story? Has she been listening to the voices in my head? (Wife's note: Yes. They are exceedingly loud.) I mean, what authority does she have to tell me if it's good? What is good, after all? Is it critical acclaim? Is it massive sales? Is it acceptance by friends, family, and former girlfriends who e-mail to say "I always knew you'd be a success...I'm sorry I slept with Gil Gerrard when we were going out," or is it personal satisfaction in a job well done?

I hover my mouse over the print icon. What a stupid icon. The page it shows popping out of the mythical printer is all straight lines and Utopian joy, as if Bill Gates really thinks what I've just written will jump out ready and perfect, as if my agent won't call to say, "Let's re-imagine a few things."

"Like what?" I'll ask.

"To begin with, what exactly were you thinking when you typed all of these words?"

A few years back, when I finished my first novel, I waited until my wife had left the house before I printed it up. I remember very clearly typing the words "A Novel By Tod Goldberg" below the title line on the cover page and feeling a rush of emotions. Everything I'd ever wanted was sitting in front of me-- evidence that I'd completed a dream. I wasn't worried about sales figures, or the 20-year-old publicist I'd be assigned, or the specter of reviews that either elevated or crushed my spirits. I was just happy.

I hit the icon and my printer warms to life. Pages begin to spit out in rapid succession and before I know it, a stack of hundred pages is already cooling in the tray. I pull them out and touch them, feel the sturdiness of the paper as compared to the blank white of the computer screen. I flip to the cover page and see my title and my name and the amount of words I've written and then, very slowly, I begin to read the story of the last five hundred days of my life. After about fifty pages, I forget that I'm reading my own book, which is an odd, somewhat spooky feeling.

"Laughing at your own work?" my wife asks.

"Yes," I say. "I forgot about this scene in the beginning where...oh, it doesn't matter, you'll read it. But it's funny. It's really good. I think."