New Reviews of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter and a Little Letdown
- At April 24, 2015
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 2
First of all, thanks to Darlene at Peeking Between the Pages for this new review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter! This blog book tour has been really fun to be part of; I have to say I really love hearing what non-poet-types have to say about my book!
Update: Here’s another review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, just posted up at Patricia’s Wisdom. Thanks again! As you may be able to tell from the rest of the post, today I definitely needed the pick-me-up!
I got sick the night before my parents left, a couple of days after the launch, and since then have been a little down. Also, the beautiful sunny spring weather turned cold, windy, and bitter. One of my friends yesterday reminded me of the very real phenomenon of “letdown” after a book launch, so I thought I’d write a little about that today.
This is my fourth poetry book (and fifth book), yet every time a book comes out, I can’t help but think, “This might be the one that takes off, that changes my life.” And then, well, it doesn’t. You go back to your laptop, and if you’re anything like me, you get out the notebook of your rejection slips from the last five years, look at the nice notes from great publishers and places that haven’t ever taken your work, and rejections from places that did eventually take your work, and it makes you take stock of what you’re doing, where you’re going, which frankly, can sometimes feel like “I am crazy for doing this.” And I think, though I do not know for sure, that this happens to everyone. You think: “Why am I writing?” and “Why in God’s name am I writing poetry?”
And the weird thing is, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter is probably doing pretty well, for a poetry book – maybe better than most of my other books. It’s got a bunch of reviews already, it sold pretty well in its first month, and I got a lot of pre-orders for it. But it still sort of feels like failure. I mean, I’ll think to myself: Look at my Amazon rankings. Look at the fact I only have three Amazon reviews so far. I haven’t gotten a review in The New York Times, or a mention on national radio or television. No one has put me on any lists of “poets you have to read” or “best books of 2015 so far.” So why did I even bother writing this book? (For an essay about why I bothered writing this book, see here.)
So if you get this feeling after your book comes out, remember, it’s normal. I probably just need a lot of sleep, a little chocolate, maybe a few therapeutic episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. By the time my next reading for the book comes up on May 13, I’ll probably be full of optimism and hope again. I’ll be another year older. I hope I will have written a new poem.
Lesley Wheeler
I totally know that feeling and cycle through it after every accomplishment. The only thing that helps me is to think: it’s gotta be about the writing itself. Writing has to be the source of happiness, because publishing never will. In 2008, after all, I thought publishing a book at all might be an impossible dream, and if I ever did I’d never complain again…
Jeannine Gailey
Yes, one of the weird things about the last few months is I’ve only written two poems – I usually average a couple a month at least, and that hasn’t been happening – maybe because I’ve been focusing energy on other stuff? Anyway, I always get in a bad mood when I’m not writing.
It is strange to talk about these phenomenon because others might be “Why is she down? She should feel great! She’s so lucky! Etc.” I remember thinking the same as you – oh, if I can only get my first book out, then I’ll be happy. Then it was “if I can only get the next three books published, then I’ll be happy.” But the thing is, I don’t think many people feel awesome right after they, say, graduate, or publish a book, or any big accomplishment, because we build things up so much in our minds that the reality always feels a little “wah-wahhh.”