My Book Release Was Delayed Because of COVID-19. It Wasn’t (Completely) a Bad Thing.

Eckhartz Press was supposed to release my book Inside Melania: What I Know About Melania Trump by Impersonating Her in mid-March 2020.

Just in time for the world to shut down due to Coronavirus.

Like a lot of other soon-to-be authors, my book can not come out until after the restrictions have lifted because, literally, it can not be printed. The presses are closed.

*Cue thoughts of a year of effort going into a toilet and Dr. Fauci flushing.*

Luckily, I didn’t have time to feel bad for myself as I was busy rescheduling my tour and trying to adjust to life in quarantine.

My favorite strategy to cover up uncomfortable feelings is staying active from waking up in the morning until passing out in exhaustion at night. In quarantine times I’ve had to try extra hard to find activities to fill in all the moments. Try my method of avoidance and you might just find yourself taking four Master Classes and studying Swahili, because who wants the time to reflect on world events?

As days passed, I became more anxious and started piling on more activities to avoid the feeling. Online workshops, webinars, classes — let’s do more, more, more so that we can think less, less, less!

And through all the activity there laid my book, the first proof via mail, and then in my email inbox as the designer and I went through several drafts.

Time started to expand, despite my efforts to distract myself into not realizing I’ve left the house in weeks. Still desperately trying to avoid spiraling, I put my hopeless amount of energy toward making sure my book was perfect. I realized, much to my horror, that there were some mistakes; small ones that 99.99% of readers would not notice. BUT I WOULD.

The nightmare of having these mindless mistakes go to print provoked my anxiety even more.

I channeled this feeling into:

  1. Rereading. Every. Single. Word. And rereading.

  2. Bribing a friend who is attentive to detail to read. Every. Single. World.

  3. Hiding under a pillow when I saw the abhorrent mistakes I found when reading. Every. Single. Word.

  4. Shaking my fist in frustration when finding formatting mistakes that would make my words look unprofessional and unflattering.

  5. Deep breathing and chanting mantras while imagining the response on Reddit if trolls caught my mistakes in my cheeky political humor book. Like me, they will notice. Every. Single Word. And then, like my superego, use it against me.

Would my book go to press containing these mistakes if not for the quarantine? What am I even thinking of writing a book when I almost missed that the font on page 125 is 1pt larger than that on 262! And what about that extra space between the first two words in the second paragraph on page 65?!

Clearly, too much time with work is bad for writers with any self-doubt in their heads. Spiraling is easy, especially when you’re isolated with your thoughts. Into the depth of self-hatred I went:

  1. This book sucks.

  2. No one will buy it or read it.

  3. Even if someone does buy it and read it, they will hate it.

  4. This delay is a divine sign that you shouldn’t be writing. It causes COVID.

My mind was creating these thoughts at such a clip that I started to stand up for myself.

“Don’t take that shit!” one part of my brain says to the other.

“Yeah, don’t listen to that asshole who is really you! You have a right to write … even if it causes pandemics!!” says another.

So, I’ve been picking up my proverbial pen again to prove to myself that I can do this writing thing, that I am worthy. Because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll never let you see my book.

I must admit, writing this blog post is another strategy to maintain consistent activity throughout my day. It also keeps me writing and believing that I should do so. And even if, like many others, COVID19 has thrown an unexpected wrench in my book release plans, it’s not all bad. At least when you read my book you won’t see any spacing mistakes.