#dentonlittle

[kavvykav]

Sunday afternoon post hangover vibes. I think @lancerubinparty will appreci8. #dentonlittle #books📚 #novels #hottea☕️

[lancerubin-blog]

Block Out The Noise and Make the Thing

Six months ago yesterday Denton was released into the world.

Six months ago today I had my first book launch ever, at Books of Wonder.

As always, I’m incredibly grateful for all the support and enthusiasm I’ve received over the past months from friends, readers, booksellers, librarians, fellow authors, bloggers, and festival people. (Has Festival People been the title of a horror movie yet?) (That was not a reflection on my specific festival people, who were lovely and not horrific.) The book community is filled with kind, funny, passionate human beings, and it’s been perpetually disarming. Thank you.   

But on this particular day, I want to talk about what’s been going on behind the curtain. Because, on the internet, it’s easy for everyone’s lives to look shiny and happy and great, and I think it’s important to remember we’re all just people, hitting ups and downs, feeling anxious and inadequate, trying our best. 

The release of my book, and the small tour that followed, was without a doubt a magical time. It was all so new. After years as a struggling actor, never coming close to doing anything even slightly resembling a promotional tour, it was surreal to be traveling around the country telling people about this thing I’d made, this tangible object I could hold in my hand.

When I found myself one May morning in a Kentucky high school library (whaddup, Oldham County!), watching students work on a writing exercise that I had assigned to them, I felt slightly out of body. By sitting in coffeeshops making up words on my computer, I’d somehow written myself to Kentucky, where random teenagers I’d never met were writing something down because I’d asked them to. (They rocked that exercise, btw. Those kids are awesome.)

The whole tour had that surreal quality, mainly in a positive way. But I was also anxious. I don’t even think I realized at the time just how anxious I was. Book events were completely uncharted territory. I wanted everything to go well. I wanted my book to do well. I wanted to seem like someone who knew what he was talking about. And I was missing my wife and then-14-month-old son. (My absence sent my wife Katie down an anxiety spiral of her own, which you should feel free to read about here.) 

My anxiety was camouflaged from me, though, thanks to both my book excitement and the necessity of staying on top of my life, focusing only on what was happening the next day, and not on the big picture of how I was feeling.  

When I got home from my last book tour event, I segued into final rewrites for the second Denton book, and once those were finished in late May…I suddenly had time to actually feel how I was feeling.

Which was: pretty lost. And very unnerved by that.

I got back to work on my third book. I struggled a lot.

I couldn’t focus on anything.

Every time writing got uncomfortable—which was approximately every 42.3 seconds—I went on the internet, hoping to find something, anything, that would make me feel like a capable person. Maybe someone new had tweeted about my book! Maybe someone new had blogged about my book! Maybe my book’s Amazon sales ranking had gone up!

(Quick note on that: brilliant feature, Amazon. This ranking—constantly changing throughout the day--was very obviously designed to exploit the weaknesses of neurotic, insecure authors. Nailed it!) 

Inevitably, I would not find that someone new had tweeted about my book but instead would learn of something amazing that had happened to some other author I follow. And yes, there is joy in others’ success, but not quite as much when you’re mid-anxiety-spiral.

In this June interview with the great Kurt Dinan, I compared the comedown after a book release to the comedown after one’s wedding. Or, really, any big event you look forward to for more than a year. I’d been thinking about the release of my debut novel since I’d sold it to Knopf almost eighteen months earlier. So once it happened, I realized I hadn’t thought much about what would happen afterward.

I mean, of course what I thought would happen is Denton would come out and instantly hit the NY Times Bestseller list. I guess rationally I knew that wouldn’t happen. But I still hoped it would.

Spoiler alert: my book has definitely not hit the NY Times bestseller list.

In fact, my book isn’t selling as well as my publishing house hoped it would. (I know this because I had a phone call with my editor and agent last week, where I learned that my book isn’t selling as well as they hoped it would.)

As a result, the second Denton book—which had a cool cover all set to go—is now getting a totally redesigned cover and possibly a title change.

Meanwhile, Denton Little’s Deathdate will get a new cover for the paperback release, and the overall marketing/publicity approach for both books will be reassessed. 

Meaning: the second Denton book will NOT be coming out in April 2016, as planned. There’s no new release date set but it’s looking like it’ll be Spring 2017.

Meaning: I am bummed. Even though I get why it’s happening and I’m glad Knopf cares about the books enough to reboot their design, I am still bummed. 

Meaning also: I will have lots of time to write really cool bonus Denton material to help the wait feel less long. Huzzah!

This is all very standard stuff that happens when a book doesn’t reach selling expectations (as most don’t) but that doesn’t mean it feels fantastic. I can’t help but hear a voice in my head, always whispering:

You haven’t done enough.

I perpetually feel like that, like there’s more creative marketing I can be doing, more writing, more tweeting, more reaching out to other authors, more everything. Unfortunately, when I feel like that, I freeze. Seriously. I am someone with A LOT of creative resistance. When my wife gets anxious, it drives her to do things, do things, do things. I am the exact opposite of that. That’s why I didn’t write any legitimate posts on here for months after the book came out. Yes, I was busy with events, with writing my second and third books, but not that busy. I was mostly frozen.

Which I guess means I need to “Let it Go.”

(I’m sorry. You and I both know I couldn’t not say that.)

Would my blog posts and tweets have made the difference between the book selling well and not selling well? No, probably not. There’s a billion factors at play here, most of them out of my control.

But some of them are in my control. And so I’m doing my damndest to unfreeze myself. My anxiety has dissipated considerably, and here’s what’s helped the most:

Blocking out the noise and making the thing.

In July, I finally got back into a writing groove with my third book. It wasn’t easy and it was often messy, but I’ve created a huge chunk of the thing.

And my most productive days always start and end with blocking out the noise. Look, I know everyone has their own unique relationship to social media, but for me, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram can be wonderful in a couple of ways--like allowing you to connect with other humans when in reality you’re alone in a coffeeshop—but they do very little for my creative flow. Often they just remind me of all the book festivals I’m not at, of all the awards I’m not winning, of all the NYTimes bestseller lists I’m not on.

Which is why the biggest lesson I’ve taken from the past six months, which I am trying desperately to internalize more and more is:

Block out the noise and make the thing.

I’ve already decided that the next book tour I go on—which will, let’s face it, probably be in 2017--I am not going to drop my writing practice. I am going to enjoy the events, enjoy the people I meet, but I am also going to find time whenever I can to block out that noise and make the thing.

Because, at the end of the day, the creative act is THE THING that’s going to make you feel like you’re doing the work and earning the right to call yourself an artist. 

Weirdly enough, having that phone conversation last week with my editor and agent is helping me to thaw my freeze even more. It’s motivating me to write this thing you’re reading now. It’s motivating me to feel scrappy, to feel empowered, to feel all the ways I felt when I wrote my first book. Not coincidentally, that first book was written from a place of darkness; I’d just been dropped by my acting agent and manager and was feeling totally lost in the woods. I want to believe I won’t always have to rely on the fuel of failure to really get me going, but if I do, so be it.

If there’s any other wisdom I can impart from my first six months as a published author--other than telling anyone dealing with anxiety to read this, which was and continues to be very helpful--it’s that any career as an artist is not going to be a straightforward ride. One day you’re up, another you’re down, but if you keep your mind on the creating, maybe you won’t get jostled by the bumps as much.  

Really, I’m just grateful to be on the ride at all.

And with that said, please excuse me. It’s time to block out the noise and make another thing.

[lancerubin-blog]

A deleted scene from DENTON. Don’t judge too hard.

Last week during the YA Scavenger Hunt, I hid a deleted scene from the very first draft of my debut novel Denton Little’s Deathdate. If you didn’t take the time to hunt and find it, well, you’re in luck! Because I’m about to post it RIGHT HERE.

If you haven’t read my novel yet, you can still read this scene and it won’t spoil that much. This excerpt is the first chunk of what was, like, a fifteen-page dream sequence. I’m ashamed to say I’m not even exaggerating. In the final version of the book, a dream sequence still exists, but it’s only a couple pages long. Which is a good thing. Because here’s something I learned while writing this book: Most dream sequences are pretty boring. Nobody cares about the dreams of real people, let alone fictional ones.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, and I thought---through many drafts of my book---that what I had written was one of them. I was wrong. But since I felt strongly that there needed to be at least a tiny dream sequence in the book at that particular moment for story purposes, I didn’t cut it entirely.

My book, in case you’re not aware, is about 17-year-old Denton Little, who lives in a world where everyone knows the day they’re going to die. Denton’s deathdate is tomorrow, the same day as his senior prom. At his funeral---because in this world, you get to attend your own funeral---the man leading the ceremony mentions that Denton may be reincarnated as a squirrel or a chipmunk. I loved that idea so much that I thought, “Oh man, during his deathdate, I’m going to have Denton pass out and then wake up as a squirrel and readers are going to think he’s dead and actually got reincarnated as a squirrel but then he’ll realize it’s a dream.” I thought this was an awesome idea. In fact, during the writing of the first draft, I had a short list of about five or six things that I knew I definitely wanted to happen in the book, and this squirrel dream sequence was one of those things. Kind of hilarious in retrospect.

But I have no regrets! This scene isn’t the best (there’s a joke about nuts that I contemplated taking out of this post), but I still have a deep affection for it. Because, at the time, it made me happy and kept me excited about my book. So, may this excerpt inspire you all to follow your creative impulses and let your process take you where you need to go, even if later you’ll be mercilessly crushing the fruits of some of those impulses.  

Here it is, folks:

The Deleted Squirrel Reincarnation Dream Sequence

I open my eyes, and it is still a beautiful day. The sun is shining, and a strong breeze is blowing in my ears. Not sure when it got so windy, but it feels nice.

I take a step forward and quickly realize the ground below me is not stable. It jostles up and down, and I freeze in an attempt at maintaining my balance. But I soon realize the ground below my feet is not the ground at all.

I am on a tree branch.

Very, very high up.

I look around me, and I seem to be in the tree in our front yard. There’s our house right below me, but some things are slightly off. For example, there’s an above-ground pool on the front lawn. We don’t have a pool.

Also I have paws.

And a big bushy tail.

I’ve never been a big heights person, so I head to the trunk of the tree, where I size up my options for getting back down to ground level. It seems I can either jump from branch to branch to branch till I hit ground, or I can race straight down the trunk.

I look down. I am very high up in this tree.

I dig one of my paws into the tree, and I get a surprisingly good grip, a lot of traction. The racing-down-the-trunk thing might be feasible.

This would be easier if I wasn’t so hungry. I search in the near vicinity for acorns. Is this acorn season? Does this tree have acorns? Any kind of nut would be helpful right now. Ew, that’s not how I meant it. Some nuts would not be acceptable.

A huge gust of wind blows out of nowhere, and my fur bristles as I hold onto the branch for dear life, nearly losing my grip.

I make a game-time decision to head down the trunk, and after a tentative few steps at a near-perfect 90-degree angle to the ground, I get a rhythm going. Soon I’m speeding, flying toward the grass below, and it feels easy.

Naturally, as I reach the peak of my confidence, I step onto a loose piece of trunk, which breaks off and sends me careening face-first towards solid ground. I’m only about fifteen feet up, but that’s high enough. I try to spread out all my limbs, so I can do that flying parachute thing.

It doesn’t work. I land face-first in the grassy dirt, in a weird rodent sprawl.

The impact isn’t too painful, but, much like the sitcom-football-to-the-head that magically restores the memories of the character with amnesia, it brings me back to myself.

I lift my head up and look around.

What exactly is happening right now?

I guess I’m a chipmunk. Or a squirrel.

This must be my next life.

The funny thing is I feel no shock or surprise at this revelation. I was expecting this, and I’m mainly just thankful that I’ve retained my human perspective on the world.

Pretty sweet, actually. Being a squirrel could be cool.

Do squirrels have sex?

Yeah, right? They must. Do I have a squirrel penis?

I slide a paw down to my squirrel groin and start feeling around.

“TWEEEEET!”  I snap up on all fours and look into the sky. Plummeting straight towards me, tweeting with gusto and fury, is the dead bluebird.

It is undead.

And huge and angry-looking.

Do birds eat squirrels? That doesn’t sound right. They eat worms. And cats. No, cats eat birds. Ah, no time for thinking!  

I try to yell BACK OFF!, but all that comes out of me is a high-pitched screechy sound. Dead Bluebird is screech-tweeting back at me, and I think it’s time to run.

“Run, Denton!” I screech aloud to myself, and I’m off. I’m impressed with my speed, as I use all four limbs to propel myself forward, almost gliding along the earth. I hear Dead Bluebird gaining on me, with that tweet like chunks of metal crushing into each other, and a chill runs down my animal spine. I skitter wildly back and forth, finally taking a sharp right around the above-ground pool.

I keep charging forward, but behind me, I hear a satisfying smash as Dead Bluebird careens head-first into the pool water. Yes! The bird issues sad, gurgly tweets that fade into nothing as I get further and further away.

END DELETED SCENE

There it is. It went on for many more pages. Denton turns back into a person, sees his dad in a hospital, yadayadaboringdumbcutforareason.

Happy Friday!

[lancerubin-blog]

Here’s a song I wrote.

[lancerubin-blog]

On April 15th, 2011, I wrote the first words of Denton Little’s Deathdate. Nervous and excited, I sent those words to my wife Katie. Above is a screenshot of the email in which I pasted what I had. As you can see, it was in the third-person at first. That changed the next week.

Now, almost exactly four years later, Denton Little’s Deathdate is coming out in stores, and I have no words.

Thank you to everyone who’s been so supportive during this journey. You know who you are, and it’s meant everything to me. And thank you to the booksellers, librarians, and bloggers who have already been championing this book; your support takes my breath away.

And to everyone out there buying the book today and talking it up on the internet and generally being awesome: thank you. You’re great.