I got added by the first of my unpublished novels on facebook a few days ago. Notice came in an email, which asked me to confirm that I in fact knew this unpublished novel. I went to facebook and hit 'confirm.' Then I visited my novel's profile page and was sad to see that it had added no picture of itself, that it was content to go by that creepy silhouette. On the plus side, the first of my unpublished novels had friends, people I didn't know, people I'd never heard of. Apparently the first of my unpublished novels had survived abandonment. It was doing all right.
Then yesterday, on my facebook home page, I learned in a notice that the first of my unpublished novels and the second of my unpublished novels were now friends. This was a strange and bad moment for me. I wondered if the second of my unpublished novels would discover me in the pictures of my first unpublished novel's friends, and if it did, whether it would decide to connect itself to me via the friending process. I suspected that the second of my unpublished novels--which was the most unruly, and which I secretly loved best--would probably not bother to formalize ties with me, and though this hadn't yet happened for sure, I was angry in advance. I wanted to hurt the second of my unpublished novels, but I couldn't. There was nothing more I could do to affect it in any way. I guess that was the point that the second of my unpublished novels was trying to make with me, by not immediately adding me to its facebook friends. I saw that, and I began to soften again towards the second of my unpublished novels. I decided that I would be grown-up about this. I went to its public profile page and with calm and decision clicked 'Add as Friend.' I don't know if the second of my unpublished novels is going to confirm our friendship, but if it doesn't, there'll be consolation, I guess. If it doesn't, I'll be able to see it as having to face up to how mean and small it is. You probably didn't deserve to be published anyway, I'll be able to think.
5 comments:
Your second unpublished novel just went from being "single" to "it's complicated."
Weird. But Simone de Beauvoir burned her first 2 novels. BUT published her 3rd.
So.
I read this yesterday and then last night I dreamt that I plagarized it and got it published in something like my local newspaper.
b-
that's funny because i think it came out of dream, or a near dream; i'd just woken up...
s-
sometimes i think about writing a 3rd but i always see myself as an old man writing it
Highly entertaining.
Good stuff.
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