Today, when I arrived home from a long and trying day, I found a padded manila envelope tucked behind the ratty green couch on my front porch. The envelope came to me unheralded, and I wondered what was inside. I opened it, and inside I found two copies of World Leader Pretend. Not proofs or review copies, but the actual finished product.
I remember running through Golden Gate Park seven years ago, mad at myself because I had spent the day playing a worthless online game, rather than doing my homework for gradutate school. An idea caught me, while I was running, that maybe I should write a book about the addiction. My hair stood on end. Yes, that’s it, I thought. And I started, and seven years later…
It is finished.
I don’t think I’ll read the copies. Whatever value my book might have, it is now up to readers and critics to decide upon. I will read at a few book stores, send out press releases, paste on stickers, but I will not write any more. There are flaws–some self-generated and some generated by the publishing process–but those flaws are now a part of it. There is nothing left for me to fix or to fight for. It is finished. And for a brief moment, on a rainy night in Portland, Oregon, I’m going to sit at my desk alone, sip a glass of wine, and relish this.