Writer Unboxed

My advice this week to aspiring writers: Try not to have a book come out in the same week as a hundred-year flood.

If you’re not in the midst of it personally, you’ve probably heard about the record rainfall taking place right now across the Plains states and Texas. When it first started falling, more than two weeks ago, I never imagined the impact it would have on the release of my third novel, Heartbreak Town. I live in Texas, after all, where the saying goes that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.

But Mother Nature isn’t interested in pithy sayings, and she can (and will) do whatever the hell she wants. She doesn’t care about stuff like book tours, either. Never mind that people might have to navigate high-water crossings to get to the bookstore, or that you might find yourself stranded in a parking lot as water laps over the curbs, weighing the options of getting out now and ruining your clothes, or waiting till it lets up and risking that your intrepid readers, some of whom have driven even farther than you, will give up and go home. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Larry McMurtry’s All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers where protagonist/novelist Danny Deck slogs through a deluge to his very first book signing, only to find one store employee and no customers. He and the clerk get drunk together, if I recall correctly, which, since going in search of alcohol would have required a set of water wings, unfortunately wasn’t an option for me.

Things could have been worse. The weather let up long enough for a nice crowd to make it out for my first signing in my hometown of Austin; and even though there was a torrential downpour in College Station an hour before the event there, it was still a treat to see the gathering of old friends and new fans. There’s something about being flung together in the face of adversity that makes people giddy. The readings went well; both the audiences and I had fun. Books were sold. Soggy shoes or not, life goes on.

I’m back at home this holiday week, working on the revisions for my next book. Surely, my publicist said yesterday, the rain will have stopped ten days from now, when I’m scheduled to head out for appearances in Houston and Dallas. After all, this is Texas, land of legendary heat and drought. If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute—right?

As I write this, thunder rumbles in the distance; birds splash in the single large puddle that has become my driveway.

It may not be nice to fool Mother Nature. But I wonder if she’ll take a bribe.

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