So Much to Be Grateful For (And Yet…)

“You have a book coming out. Aren’t you excited!”

“Excited” is not the word that I or anyone around me would use.

A chicken running around without her head, is more like it. Others wouldn’t be so kind.

But the run-up to a book can be very fraught. You have to get blurbs, those advanced praise quotes you see on the back of books and on websites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Then you have to try and get media coverage, i.e., hit up everyone you ever met in the media business and see if they’ll help you (and that means remembering people’s names!). And all the while you’re wondering Is my book any good? Will anyone be interested? Will the world end before my book comes out?

Someone once told me to enjoy signing my book deal because it will be the happiest moment of the journey. And I WAS happy. So happy. But I did not understand what she meant. Now I know. After you sign your book deal, you have to write the damn thing (that’s how it works in non-fiction) and then you have to edit it (Will they like it??), then go through all the aforementioned. It’s exciting but stressful. 

I’m glad Thanksgiving is coming up though, to remind me that it’s good stress.  It’s work, it’s worry, it’s waiting, it’s anxiety but it’s for a good thing. To remember that I actually sold a book proposal, wrote an entire book in a year — a book that’s hopefully going to help lots and lots of people dealing with infertility — and I am in the process of helping it along.

And for all of that I am grateful.

 

Author: Amy Klein

Amy Klein is the author of "The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant Without Losing Your Mind," (Ballantine, 2020) based on her New York Times "Fertility Diary" column. Her writing on health, science, reproduction and essays has also appeared in Slate, Salon, The Washington Post, Aeon and more.