On releasing a new novel

I started writing fiction in 1996. I was four years out of college and had recently finished a masters degree. I had moved into a sublet in Geneva, Switzerland with plans to start a Ph.D. in the autumn. The flat was tiny and had a kitchen and a main room — by which I mean, another room. There was no internet to speak of (it was 1996), I didn't own a television, and I didn't know a soul in the city. I read books, went to the movies more than I care to admit, and I started writing fiction.

In 1992 I'd graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. At the time, it had one of the few undergraduate programs in creative writing. I didn't study it — opting instead for history, politics, philosophy and other humanities-oriented fields. But the environment there demystified fiction writing for me. That is, it became something one does, rather than something mystical or impossible or else a practice from a past era. I had just finished reading a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I had sort of wanted it to go a different direction. So my mind wandered and I came up with a premise and started writing it. It became my first unpublished novel, which I finished in 1998. There would be several.

I kept at it without making a fuss about it. It might be something that one does, but — to me — it wasn't something you talk about. I wasn't embarrassed, ashamed, nervous or had any concerns. But I know it can be very boring for others to listen to (i.e. "I'm writing a story, want to hear about it?") and I'm not one to talk about myself. Even writing this feels odd. Quietly, without joining any groups, classes, or chats, I simply pressed in through several unpublished novels. I'd say I wrote somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 words before finally starting Norwegian by Night in 2008 and then publishing it in Norway (in Norwegian translation) in 2010. That's a story in itself, but for the moment it's worth noting that I didn't find an English-language publisher and it was the Norwegians (yes, in Norway), who wanted the book first. Once that happened, it was picked up in the Frankfurt Book Fair and a career was born (don't try that a home … I'm not sure it's a reproducible model).

I've now published my fifth novel, How to Find Your Way in the Dark, which is a prequel to Norwegian by Night. I also published — if that's the word — an Audible Original novel called Quiet Time. So let's call it six.

What's it like?

The short answer is … it's quiet. Very quiet. The book industry continues to use the word "launch," as in "launch a book," but the verb feels a bit hysterical to me. I'm old enough to remember Robin Williams in Mork and Mindy where Mork (from outer space; arrived in a giant egg) tries to free fellow space travelers who may also have arrived in eggs. He shouts, "fly, be free!" and hurls the eggs into the air where they … don't launch. Launching a book can feel like it is subject to the same optimism and forces of gravity.

On the other hand, it's an event. Being a novelist is a lot like being a boxer. It is, without exaggeration, a full contact sport against forces far more powerful than yourself and — in the course of an entire career — you get to throw maybe a dozen punches. Azimov threw more. Nora Roberts is still swinging. But for most of us, a dozen serious books might be a literary career. You swing and miss, you get clobbered for the next several years while you're trying to both recover and try again. It's a hard state of mind to sustain. I think athletes and artists understand it best.

It's an event that had the support of many people. Literary agents, editors, copyeditors, cover designers, marketing departments, booksellers and others. So there's a comfort in knowing that there are people in your corner. But for every fifty articles and blogs celebrating hard work and telling young writers to just stick to it, there's going to be one (here's one), telling you the truth: It's mostly heartbreak and, by any reasonable measure, failure.

I've received reviews that writers dream of. Writers who won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Jewish Book Award — not to mention New York Times bestselling authors — are all on the back of my book. But none of that ensures success unless you choose to define that as success. There's a temptation to do so but in my heart-of-hearts I believe you're a success if you can make a living at your chosen profession. It's not the only definition, but it's the one that keeps tugging at me.

So launching a book can be bittersweet. There's energy and momentum and excitement along the way; right up until the day it comes out. But if it doesn't hit, you start hoping that something magical will happen and someone influential will snatch it up and declare to the world, "I am so lucky to have experienced this. You have to read this." And if that doesn't happen, you start to hope that the prizes will notice and snatch it out of the obscurity that you're afraid of falling into. And then there are the Best Of lists at the end of the year that you hope you'll be on because some attentive and serious reader will choose not to bang out the article in the last minute and mention whatever everyone else is mentioning but instead compile and honest-to-God list of the best things from the year.

After that it's over. The new books are out. The Attention Economy has moved on, and the process is repeated if you're still standing and can take more blows against the ropes of life. It's a strained metaphor but too apt not to use.

Is there joy? For some people. I see people "unboxing" and dancing and making a spectacle of themselves. Is it real? Is it all a show? Are we supposed to project that up-beat, can-do, go-go-America attitude because that's what winners do? I suspect that I'm either watching people who have only known success and the internet is now incapable of seeing narcissism, or else I'm looking at a kind of theatrical performance that I'm not inclined to join. Some people, though, do know how to make the most of a moment and I envy them. I generally don't. I need to win big to feel like I won at all. Maybe I'll grow out of it. I probably won't.

There is pride, though. I love my books. I genuinely think they're good and I look forward to the day my kids are old enough to read them and I'm proud of what I'm putting into the world. I love the act of writing, I love being a writer, and I know that I'm affecting the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of people with what I'm writing because they've told me so and I've read the reviews (yes, I often read what you all write. Sometimes I care. Sometimes I don't).

Releasing a new novel is therefore an accomplishment and an achievement and a milestone and a victory over darkness by having successfully brought something good into the light. It is a personal success and a team effort. It is the end of a journey that seldom results in life-changing results and responses, but it part of the story of who we are as writers. There is no "unpublishing" a book. What we create is out there and forever.

What's it like? I think it depends on who you are and how you experience life.

Just like everything else.