Jennifer Lawler's blog post: publishing in the raw
These days, the blogger who gets a book deal is practically an industry clich茅. But how about the established author who touches a new audience through blogging 鈥� and wanders down a different literary road?
Most people who saw a recent post on author knew nothing about , and weren鈥檛 regular readers of her little-known blog about writing and publishing. They came after a cascade of Facebook and Twitter accolades recommending an unusual, rawly personal post titled 鈥淔or Jessica,鈥� some first suggesting a stop for Kleenex.
about her daughter鈥檚 life, spurred by a recent study on the relative happiness of parenthood, Lawler grabbed readers early. She wrote:
鈥淥nly an academic would undertake a study like this, defining happiness as something along the lines of 'satisfaction with life' and 'feeling rewarded by your work.' If there鈥檚 an occupation more likely to make you feel incompetent and unrewarded than being a parent, I have never heard of it.
If you weren鈥檛 an academic, you might define happiness as the experience of being fully alive. To know grace, and despair, and the kind of hardness you have to learn to stand against; to watch your family fail you when you need them the most, and have your ex-husband look around, shrug his shoulders, and hold out his hand to help you up again.
Right. Your ex-husband, so that you can learn a bit of gratitude, just enough to appreciate him, which you didn鈥檛 manage the first time around.
These are things you鈥檇 never know if you hadn鈥檛 had your daughter. Things you wouldn鈥檛 have had to know, and learn the hard way, bitterly.
If the medical resident hadn鈥檛 sat down while you held your baby girl in the neonatal intensive care unit and said, 'Your daughter鈥檚 brain is massively deformed.' "
The daughter you loved even before she was born. When she was an abstraction, a positive sign on a pregnancy test, before she kicked you in the ribs, long before she ever drew her first breath. Love you did not know you were capable of feeling, primal and angry and powerful, you would kill ten men and Satan if you had to.
But the universe doesn鈥檛 ask that from you.鈥�
At the end of her story, filled with hard strength and love, nearly 450 people have left comments so far. As one wrote, 鈥淭hank you. Thank you for sharing, thank you for understanding, and thank you for knowing me without knowing me.鈥� They send their love to Jessica. They ask Lawler to write more about her story.
But here鈥檚 what Lawler, herself a former book agent, wrote in :
鈥�Many of you have also asked why I don鈥檛 write a book about my experiences with Jessica. I have. My agent, the indomitable Neil Salkind, has been trying to find a publisher for it since last August. We have received many rejections, mostly on the grounds of 'it鈥檚 too painful; it won鈥檛 find an audience.' 鈥�
鈥淚 have never believed that, and your response to 'For Jessica' is my validation. People want to read the truth, even if it is raw and makes them cry. They want to be moved, to feel that there is more to life than just another bathroom to clean or a new pair of shoes to buy.鈥�
And she uploaded her manuscript as a PDF file to sell on (a 鈥渄igital delivery service for the DIY folks.鈥�) If people want to read Jessica鈥檚 whole story, she wrote in the post, at least .
And, at the least, Lawler now has a base of devoted new fans.
I鈥檓 not in the business side of publishing, but I do wonder if the flare of attention on Lawler鈥檚 blog would make publishers think twice about her manuscript, which is so different from her past published works, which range from martial arts guides to romance novels. I do wonder about what Lawler said, if publishers truly think readers won鈥檛 spend money on a story that is both true and terribly sad.
鈥楻ight,鈥� one commenter wrote sarcastically. 鈥淏ecause NO ONE read 'A Child Called It.' Or 'When Rabbit Howls' or Angela鈥檚 friggin鈥� Ashes or any war memoir, ever鈥� Our world is absolutely, not at all full of people who are going through awful things, who look for books by other people who have been there first.鈥�
Wrote another, 鈥淧eople want to read the raw, the naked, the real of life. People hunger for it. The problem is, they don鈥檛 know it until they do it.鈥�
Have you ever loved a book that had no happy ending?
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