The first print of my book is sitting on my desk.  I can touch it.  The spine is broken from the final read through.  More copies are on the way.  A box of freshly printed books with my words inside.  It’s weird.

I’ve hinted at it for too long.  It comes with a million and one lessons.  A million and one mistakes and a million and one obstacles.  The writing part is smooth.  I finished the first draft a year ago.  I printed it out on regular 8x11 paper and kept it in a box in my closet like teenage contraband, hidden from the world.  Doubt crept in.  I’d look at the box as if there were treasure inside, but I feared it could be something worse, something dead.

When I finally got the balls to pull it out, I knew the work was just beginning.  Draft number two, draft number three, four, five, eight, nine.  Sometimes my own writing disgusts me.  Time passes between each edit.  Each time I reread it, there was some obvious wound.  It’s hard to trust your own words on paper, the same way some people hate hearing their own voice.

Now it’s here, a reality.  No more running.  No more excuses.  I spent months complaining, bitching about a cover.  I couldn’t do it myself.  I said that.  I don’t know how to design a cover.  I don’t have Photoshop.  I can’t.  All fear.  Somewhere in my head, I knew if I had a cover, shit would become real.  I’d have to face the consequences of writing a book.  The task of printing, selling, shipping, and the criticism that would inevitable follow.

I made the fucking cover.  With a can of spray paint, a razor blade, an iPhone, and too much time in front of a computer.  My bedroom floor was covered with pages and pages of paint smears.  Some had hand painted pictures.  Things looked decent.  The mess dried and most of it was awful.  Then came the task of resizing it digitally.  It was too big, too small, too shitty, too grainy.  But I stopped making excuses.  I stopped being a bitch about it, and now it’s a physical thing.

Selling a thing I created still makes my armpits sweat.  Putting a value on it feels gross.  But I’m not afraid of the criticism.  Maybe I need it.  Maybe I needed to make all of these mistakes.

I owe some eternal gratitude to two people for reading the early drafts and breathing a little life into this whole thing.  There were plenty of times when I wanted to abandon ship.  The evidence can be found at the bottom of my closet.  Not everything makes it past the first draft, and Hemingway said it best, “The first draft of anything is shit.”  Some days the abandoned pages of past work look like practice, other days it smells like a rotting carcass.

I guess fear is a part of any new endeavor.  Even something as minuscule as a paperback.

Since the written word doesn’t echo, it’s hard to tell if I’m talking to an empty room at times.  So to those of you who do read, or have read, I thank you.  I’ll let you all know when the book is available on my website (grant-woods.com).  If you want to read the first few chapters, they’re up now.

The book is called, The Will Has Gone.  Take it how you will.  I stand behind it.