I've already recounted the joy of getting a book deal. The culmination of a lifelong dream is a wonderful thing. Recently, I spoke to a friend I've known since childhood. Ron was one of my best friends from grade school through college, and we still have that bond, even though we only speak once a year or so now. (He's in the military, spent a year in Iraq, and is now stationed in Germany. But that's another story.) Anyway, when his inevitable question ("So, Tony, what's been happening in your life?") came up, you can probably imagine what I talked about.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the reaction from everyone when I tell them I have a book deal--that's perhaps a subject for another post--and Ron was no different. He was downright ecstatic. "That's great news, Tony! You've wanted that ever since we were kids!" I hadn't thought about it, but after I hung up the phone, I realized just how right he was: I've been scribbling in notebooks, writing and dreaming of being published since the time I had a vague grasp of what "being published" meant. So yes, I've been dreaming of this for more than two decades, and edging closer to three.

I suppose I expected, once I had a deal in hand, that I would cross some kind of threshold into a realm of supreme confidence and self-assurance. After all, a publishing contract is an independent verification of your storytelling ability, isn't it? Respected publishers wouldn't give you a contract unless they thought they could sell your books, right?

If anything, I've struggled a bit with the opposite feeling. After that initial euphoria (which, truth be told, still exists, and probably will for a long, long time), I've begun to notice an opposite boomerang effect: What if it gets bad reveiws? What if it doesn't sell? What if it really isn't any good, and gets laughed off the shelf? Every writer struggles with that Dark Heart inside, the Anti-Stuart Smalley voice that whispers You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, and darnit, people don't like you. I guess I expected a publishing deal would kill that voice, but sometimes it's actually louder. After all, the stakes have been raised, and other people will, in fact, read my work now.

Okay, it's not like I'm collapsing into some jangle of quivering self-doubt. But it's important to acknowledge, and that's today's Object Lesson for writers chasing a deal: make sure your work is as good as it can be before you send it out. Not only because it has to be that way to get noticed and published, but also because you don't want to give the voice of self-doubt any kind of toehold.

You will, inevitably, hear your mind say you have no right at all to be published. But then, of course, you'll remind yourself that you are going to be published, and the fog will lift, and you will cock your arm and send that boomerang back into the crisp blue sky once again.