My wife, Carol Wallace, and I were on vacation in California this past summer, lounging at the beach, when her cell rang. She plucked it out of her bag, looked to see who it was, then answered. She walked off to the water’s edge, talking, listening. The call was important.
Ten minutes later she returned, dropped her phone in her bag and went back to the water without a word. She kicked the sand and shook her head.
My wife and I both work with words. If you ask me, she has the far tougher job. I work for Guideposts, finding and editing stories for the magazine and writing for our website.
Carol works at home, writing books. She’s had over 20 books published, but still hits rough patches and has dealt with disappointments.
I waited a moment then went to Carol.
“The book’s not doing well,” she said. This was her latest novel, Leaving Van Gogh, about the artist Vincent van Gogh and the doctor who cared for him. A project she’d put her heart and soul into. “It’s only been out a couple of months,” I said. “You’ve gotten some great reviews. Isn’t it too soon to tell?”
“Not for the publisher. Remember the publicist who told me that a book has just six weeks to find its readers?”
“But, but…” I sputtered. I wanted to protect her and at the same time argue her out of her despair. Make her see the bright side, even if it was pretty dim. I wanted to help. “Books last a long time. People can still buy it online. Strangers have sent you e-mails. Readers love it!”
“Apparently not enough of them.” She turned to me, too angry to cry. “I got fooled by this book. I shouldn’t have hoped so much. I hate hoping. What a waste of energy and time.”
I wanted to say more. She couldn’t give up hoping! But something, maybe a little lesson gleaned from 28 years of marriage, told me to keep silent. I hugged her and she headed down the shore, grieving. I returned to our summer rental, hatching plans.
I opened my laptop and started compiling a list of how to fix things. Isn’t that what husbands do? I knew how publishing worked. Some of Carol’s books had sold hundreds of thousands of copies, some had dropped off the map, but that was no reason to give up.
I thought of one of her first books, To Marry an English Lord, about American heiresses at the turn of the last century who married into British aristocracy. It hadn’t been a best seller, yet 20 years later it was still in print.
“Thirty Surefire Ways to Promote Leaving Van Gogh,” I typed.
“1. Launch new publicity campaign.
“2. Create Facebook identity for Leaving Van Gogh with paintings on wall.
“3. Tweet Van Gogh quotes three times a day & link to website.
“4. Forward reviews to additional press.”
Late afternoon, brimming with ideas, I put on my running shoes and jogged out on the boardwalk, following the curve of the bay. Mentally I added to the list: Contact libraries for a potential book talk… Visit local Barnes & Noble and offer to sign inventory…
The sun dipped lower on the horizon. Move Carol to the top of your prayer list. Of course. She was feeling down. If she’d follow my suggestions, just half of them, books would start moving.
I turned around and headed back, my feet pounding along the boardwalk. What else could I do to help Carol?
Carol had spent four years on this book. She took a huge risk. No publisher had asked her for it. She’d done it on faith, trusting she’d been given the inspiration for the story because she was meant to write it. She’d labored over every page.
The first few agents she sent it to didn’t respond to her e-mails. When she finally sold the manuscript, it was like sending our firstborn off to kindergarten.
She quoted Van Gogh at the front, “It is my constant hope that I am not working for myself alone,” but the epigraph could have been hers too. And now she felt like she’d failed. I felt her pain.
I stopped running and focused on a sudden thought: Rick, keep that list to yourself. It’s not what Carol needs. Don’t try to fix things. Just listen and sympathize.
Our vacation ended and we went back to New York. Carol had a few talks scheduled. Friends asked her to speak to their book groups. She got another rave review and more positive comments on Amazon. I wanted to say, “See, good books do find their readers,” but I refrained.
We were anxious about money with our younger son in college, but when Carol asked, “Who will ever buy a book of mine again?” I knew it wasn’t a question to answer out of anxiety.
It takes as much faith to write a book as it does to trust in God’s provision. That was what we needed to do. But Carol was inconsolable.
Then something amazing happened. That September we got hooked on a British TV series called Downton Abbey, about a British earl and his American heiress wife. It was fictional, but the details were familiar to Carol from her earlier book—the grand English manor, the rituals, the upstairs-downstairs tensions.
The DVDs from Netflix couldn’t come fast enough. “The screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, is working on the sequel already,” Carol said.
One night I came home from work to find a clipping from the UK Daily Telegraph on the bed. It was an article about how Julian Fellowes had come up with the concept for Downton Abbey. He was searching for ideas for a new screenplay when he happened to read To Marry an English Lord.
“Wow,” I said. “Your book inspired Downton Abbey!” “I know. Isn’t that great?” Hoping again, I thought. Good books find their readers. Especially when they’re written with passion and faith. It is for writers to trust themselves and their gifts.
I couldn’t have said it better. But I didn’t have to. All I had to do was be there for Carol and listen. That was what she needed most.
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