Making Something Out of Nothing

"There’s also a part of me that admires the chutzpah, that considers how much easier being in the world might be if I had similar capacity for bullshit."

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Last fall at a publishing event, I had an involved conversation with someone I’d met once before about her not-yet-announced two-book deal with Penguin Random House, a two-book deal that turned out not to exist, and when I later had it confirmed that her story was fabricated, I wasn’t even surprised. And not JUST because she claimed to also have a film deal with Lionsgate, therefore I should have known better, but because such posturing is as essential to being a writer as actually writing is, and this person had just taken it to extremes.

Maybe she’d call it manifesting, although I’m not making excuses. I continue to be irked that she’d expected me to fall for her nonsense, at how she wasted my time and small talk, that she apparently never thought through to what might happen after almost a year had gone by with still no book deal announced. But there’s also a part of me that admires the chutzpah, that considers how much easier being in the world might be if I had similar capacity for bullshit.

If, when somebody asked me how things have been since my book came out a year ago, I could just smile and say, “Fantastic!”