Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

Things to worry about , and having faith Posted on Mar 3rd , 2011 . 3134 comments When my son was one minute old , he taught me something about life . The nurse handed him to me and in those first few seconds , I felt relief . The months of anxiety were over . My naïve thought was : I can stop worrying now . I held onto that belief for as long as it took to exhale and draw in one breath . Then I realized my worries were n't over . They were just beginning . So I guess what I learned was : It never ends . Zane's eighteen now . Things have more or less worked out . Still , last night my wife woke up around midnight , worried that he did n't have enough gas to get to school in the morning . I could hear rain hitting the window . I almost asked if she wanted me to go out and check the gauge . But I did n't . Never ask a question you do n't want to know the answer to . A manuscript is like a kid that way , at least for me . The day Tin House said they 'd take my book , I thought I 'd reached the finish line . Instead , there 's a whole new universe of things to obsess over . Should I be promoting it more ? Am I tweeting too much ? What if Tin House has changed their mind about publishing it ? I have n't heard from them in a while . Should I call them just to be sure ? What about reviews ? Should I even read them ? Last Sunday I finished Tom Grimes' brilliant memoir , Mentor . It 's the story of Grimes' life as a writer and his time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop . Grimes' mentor is Frank Conroy ; their relationship is at the heart of the story . It 's an amazing book . Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review . Initially , I thought the appeal of reading Mentor would be in seeing the path I did n't take . At about the same time Grimes went to Iowa , I quit my day job , started freelancing and tried to teach myself to write fiction . I thought it would take five years . It took much longer . But although those two paths are different , they have something in common . A writer's life is irrational , as Grimes says Conroy says . And you inflict all sorts of crap on yourself along the way . Irrational worries . Twice I put the book down and said , that 's enough . It 's too close to the bone . The problem is , it 's not the kind of book you can stop reading . When I finished Mentor on Sunday night , one gift it gave me was a sense of resolve . I promised myself not to let the world define Wire to Wire for me . Reviews do n't matter . The world , being a kind and gentle place , let me hold onto that belief for almost 12 hours before outing me as a hypocrite . The next morning Publishers Weekly gave Wire to Wire a starred review and made it Pick of the Week . So hold that thought . It turns out reviews do matter . As long as they 're good . As for my resolve not to read them ... hey , revision is everything in writing . That includes revising my beliefs . Somebody tell me if I 'm tweeting too much , though . Sometimes you gotta lose it , just to lose it , just to find it again : Alejandro Escovedo says you gotta have " Faith . " 11 Posted by ManuelOwek on August 6th , 2015 at 10 : 04 PM