Writing and books in 2009

I am cat-sitting for a friend. Today, when the litter box was scooped and the water replaced and the kibble dispensed, as is my wont, I inspected the bookshelf. I am always curious what books people buy and keep. On this particular Ikea BILLY system there were bike maintenance guides, a guide for homeopathic medicine, a guide for feeding your pet a natural diet, and a guide, even, for getting it on--next to a guide for healing a broken heart. The collection reminded me of my penchant, when I am in an especially bleak mood, for Googling "why am i here?" Somewhere among those 330,000,000 hits there ought to be an answer.

As I scanned the titles, I looked for the novels. Which stories were worth keeping, dog-earing, sharing, re-reading? I have so many fond piles around my office--Alice Munro, Philip Pullman, Ursula Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle, John Irving--most of which I have not read for years but cannot bear to resell. Most of my friends keep similar piles. But for whatever reason, I discovered that my cat-owning friend buys only nonfiction. How-to books. That makes her a pretty good representative of the average bookbuyer, and the publishing industry's buying trend.

After all, nonfiction is easier to sell than fiction. You buy it, knowing what you need and what you're getting. Novels, however, ask the reader to make an uncomfortable first step--onto an invisible bridge over a chasm. The bridge crosses into an unknown place, where single words can yawn with mystery. The road leads you through familiar cities that are suddenly strange, and you find yourself wearing a stranger's skin as easily as your own. If you are a publisher, it's difficult to trust a busy, over-scheduled, fatigued, generally worried population of book-buyers to go cavorting around in somebody else's skin at the end of a long day. But there will always be many among them who need a book about plumbing repair, about naturopathy, about bike maintenance, about getting it on.

Since October, book professionals have seen too much bad news: the firing and departure of senior editors, acquisition freezes, bookstore closures, and a cascade of other losses. This news falls on top of more of the same; a dwindling number of book reviews in newspapers, an industry model that does not encourage writers' creative risk, ingenuity, or long-term success. So. If you are a practical writer, you will now sweep your novel-in-progress off to a corner of your hard drive and start afresh, "writing what you know," literally, and as instructively as possible. Slap "How to" in front of your subject matter, and dash off a proposal to your agent. How expedient of you.

How depressing. I'll make you a deal. If you keep writing your novel, I will keep working on mine.

The good news for both of us is: you are. Last year was the busiest year of my editing business, and I read e-mails from clients every day who are finishing novels and beginning new ones, and who can recommend a dozen brilliant novels for me as fast as I can say "Roget's." You all inspire me. You remind me every day that we are human and that good stories feed us, and that good food is abundant. So, in 2009, let's step onto that invisible bridge and do cartwheels on it.

And on my friend's kitchen counter, where I will leave her key and a welcome-home note this afternoon, I will also leave a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita--the best cat novel I own.