Opening Transmission
It’s warmer than it ought to be for this time of year. The daffodils are already rising from the one garden bed I’ve reclaimed from the past three years of neglect and overgrowth. The snowdrops appeared and finished their bloom early. The Chionodoxa never arrived at all, except in the graveyard, where they make their show every year on the old King plot. I am recalling that winter twelve years ago, when I was walking through Ballard and I realized it was January and I was wearing only a t-shirt and jeans. But the mountain is thick with snowpack—not as much as it ought to have, but more than was predicted, and the Farmer’s Almanac says the summer will be cooler and wetter than we’ve seen these past few years. A quarter of the way into the 21st century, we count our blessings.
Today I got the final cover art for The Ended World, my novel that’s coming out this September. I can’t show it yet, but I will as soon as I get the green light from my publisher. It’s beautiful. It’s a cover that does the work justice. I haven’t felt this good, this hopeful, about any of my books for years. The publishing industry has put me through such a wringer that I’ve found it more prudent to cultivate a jaded detachment from each book and each new release than to allow myself to get my hopes up. Luck is always the deciding factor in publishing success (that, and being attractive enough that a publisher feels you’ll be easy to market.) Neither luck nor looks have ever been on my side.
But The Ended World might be different. It might be. It’s timelier than anything I’ve written before. If it lands in the hands of an advance reader or a critic who’s enthusiastic enough—my own Albrecht Aurier—then maybe it’ll go someplace.
Most of the time, I’m fairly good at reminding myself that my path will be what it will be, and that the best way forward is always to walk through whatever door happens to open in front of me, no matter how unlikely a portal it seems to be. However, I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t a little bitter and pissed off that I’m dozens of books into my writing career and I still haven’t broken out.
The more sensible side of me says, “Patience, patience. You will break out when the time is right, when your work is good enough to sustain the kind of career you want to have.” The passionate and ambitious side, which is the side I like best, says I’ve already waited and practiced long enough. That side knows I might reach the end of my life without ever being known—not for this, not for anything. And all I’ve wanted, for as long as I can remember, is to be perceived, to no longer be the ghost I’ve always been, this transparent and insubstantial thing. I can’t help but feeling that if I am loved someday, I will finally become real. I will know what it’s like to matter.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Anyway, here’s a picture.
