Thursday, June 08, 2017

Second verse, same as the first

This morning I awakened from a dream about my book. Not the one I'm writing; the one I already wrote.

I was meeting with the editor of an academic press. It's unclear what I'd been led to believe the meeting was about, but I was surprised to learn that this particular press now owned the rights to my book--so they'd commissioned an external reviewer to report on its merits. And the reviewer didn't like my book AT ALL.

The editor told me that, under the circumstances, the press couldn't keep me on, so they'd be putting this particular "property" (her words) out for bids.

I was annoyed, but also anxious, telling the editor that I was sure it would land okay--after all, it'd been published with a good press to begin with! And it had gotten mostly nice reviews!--but she just smiled briefly, looked at her watch, and returned to her computer. After a few moments I got up and left.

*

And dudes, I'm kinda embarrassed for my subconscious. My book came out three years ago; I've got a whole new set of anxieties. Time to stop going back to the fucking well.

1 comment:

Veralinda said...

It's probably a good sign: your career is going well enough that in order to feed the ceaseless Rube Goldberg machine that is academic neurosis, you're recycling old material.