Everyone wants to help. Everyone has advice. My audiences split along the divide of wanting to know more about Louisa May Alcott, wanting to know more about me or wanting to know more about the genesis of the book (that’s what I get for inventing a new genre, the “bio-memoir”). Some people also feel compelled to tell me what they did in the 1960s, that they were active against the war too.

I’ve just finished a month of book launch stuff and besides the universal friendliness and engagement, there’s also the unwelcome truth that I don’t have nearly the stamina I thought I had. Honestly. It’s exhausting. But nobody wants to hear me complain; after all, who is luckier than a writer who has had a book actually published?

My book is MISS ALCOTT’S E-MAIL, which I always write with capital letters ever since I took a book publicity class at Hugo House in Seattle. Alice Acheson taught us always to put our book titles in all caps. So I always do; I’m good at following directions. She also taught me to always send a short thank you e-mail note to everyone who reviews my book, whether they are complimentary reviews or not.

MISS ALCOTT’S E-MAIL is published by David R. Godine, a small Boston firm known in the book business for his eclectic list, his charming ways and his extremely high production values. His books are always beautiful — bindings sewn instead of glued, titles stamped in gold on the spines, erudite notes on the last page about the choice of fonts and text design, just like books used to be. He also tolerates authors like me who insist on footnotes at the bottom of the page, not at the end, and all sorts of other extras like readers’ guides, multiple fonts, chronologies, references, suggestions for further reading, illustrations and photographs.

In return, like most first-time authors at publishers large or small, there is essentially no budget to promote the book. It’s pretty much been up to me, and since I’ve learned that books have the shelf-life of lettuce, I’ve thrown everything I can into my short strut upon the public stage. Missed opportunities drive me crazy.

 After two publication delays the book finally appeared in September 2006. I flew from my home in Seattle to Boston, and from there to New York City where I was magically transformed from mere toiling writer to published author. Then I returned to Seattle to do it all over in the Pacific Northwest. All those hapless hours flogging my book via email and bookstore visits were not wasted. Here’s how I spent my two weeks back east:

• Slept in the bedrooms of six friends and family members in five states (MA, NH, CT, NY and NJ)
• Spoke and signed books at eight events.
• Did two newspaper interviews via email (okay, one was for my niece’s high school paper).
• Lured to what I thought was a national magazine interview, but turned out that the editor just wanted to chat about the 1960s.
• Met dozens of interesting people and had wonderful conversations with friends old and new.
• Gave away and sold lots of books (meaning many dozen, not many hundreds).
• Was filmed by an amateur documentary filmmaker.
• Sat in on a friend’s college freshman English class in New York City, where none of his students knew anything about the politics of the 1960s.
• Celebrated a college friend’s 60th birthday and a son-in-law’s 28th.
• Tried to keep up some semblance of my yoga practice.
• Lost track of days and hours.
• Visited a number of New York bookstores as a secret shopper for my book. Found one store already sold out, others who hadn’t received it yet. Thus began my ongoing frustration with the book business’ warehousing/distribution system. (Back in Seattle now, a month later, the supply chain difficulties continue. Advice to published writers: learn about this stuff and hold everyone’s feet to the fire. No one else will advocate for your book like you can.)
• I noticed that some stores were shelving MISS ALCOTT’S E-MAIL in Fiction, and others had it in Biography. I like the latter better — attracts a more serious reader, perhaps, and Fiction is such a large slippery pile of splashy covers and big names.
• Was drawn to police barricades around the United Nations — I retain my 1960s’ interest in cop street strategies. Interestingly, they blocked off streets with huge dump trucks filled with sand.

Below are snippets of the real-time journal I’ve been trying to maintain, thanks to Sheila Bender’s suggestion.

Friday September 8, 2006, Seattle, morning.
I have a few minutes before I have to go downtown to put my hair in the hands of Walter and Lisa. They need to get me beautiful, or at least acceptable…I leave Sunday morning for Boston and NYC for 2 weeks of book stuff, including the Great Launch at Louisa May Alcott’s house itself, in Concord MA.

I’m in a completely manic state — lists on little scraps of paper all over the house — I need a list of lists. I keep consolidating them, as if managing the lists has anything to do with accomplishing the things that are on the list.

I’m fretting over what to wear to these east coast events. I’m worrying about yammering on about boring ideas, making stupid comments, bad jokes, reading a particularly tedious passage from the book…

A friend told me to take it easy and not go overboard. I said, OF COURSE I’m going to go overboard!!! How often does a person get a book published? How could I not go completely off the tracks?

Sunday September 10, 2006, in the air over the Midwest.
The realities of travel — packing, airport hassles, etc., have anchored me to reality and brought my manic state down a notch or two. Not in a bad way — it’s just different from the high I’ve been on since the incredibly wonderful Washington Post review Friday morning. I don’t actually believe any of this. It’s not the real me the reviewer was talking about. I’m still just me, not a person who has a book published that gets national press. That’s just too weird — doesn’t happen to a person like Kit Bakke. All my friends are still the same, and so am I.

Monday, September 11, 2006, Boston.
Stupid stuff I’m worrying about instead of reviewing my talk for tomorrow:

1) The shape of my nails.

2) How should I sign the books? My signature is too sloppy; sometimes I stop mid way in the writing and lose the rhythm. Resulting signature looks awful. Also worry about spelling the recipient’s name wrong. What page do I sign on?Do I have to add something like “all the best” in addition to my name and the recipient’s name? What kind of pen?

3) How will my hair look? (Doesn’t matter! I’m an author — license to look weird, sloppy, whatever).

4) What if I fall down and get a huge bruise on my face? Will I have to explain it? I do have a kitchen knife cut on my finger…

I am also not unmindful of the fact that it is 9-11.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006, Boston. LAUNCH DAY FOR LOUISA!
At 6:30 pm we (daughter Maya, sister-in-law Jane and Jane’s daughter-in-law Nova) were at Orchard House, where the Alcotts lived and where Louisa wrote Little Women. Miss Allcot’s E-mail will be launched to the world from the Alcott’s back yard school house, built by her father Bronson in the 1870s. I changed clothes in the broken gift shop bathroom and started signing books and stickers for the store’s stock. Maya set up the tripod (which I had lugged from Seattle) and camera.

Gradually people started coming, and they kept coming until the staff had to bring in more chairs. It was amazing — over 70 people — the most they say they’ve ever had for a book signing. And they weren’t all people I knew! David Godine, I hope, is suitably impressed. The talk went comfortably well, I thought. I signed lots of books — people came up to tell me how wonderfully interesting it all was. Several confided that they too were writers.

Gradually everyone disappeared and we all piled into the rental car and I drove Maya, Jane and Nova back to their hotel, getting lost only once. It’s late and I’m exhausted and incredibly fried. It’s a long way from Concord back to their Ramada Inn south of the airport. Then I got lost several times getting back to my friend Debby’s in Chestnut Hill, where I was staying. I stopped once in Boston at a fire station for directions — everything around the Mass Turnpike is all screwed up because of the Big Dig tunnel collapsing. So I ended up very lost on surface streets for a while. I got back sometime after midnight.

I called Peter (my husband, in Seattle), but the cell phone died, so I called from the house phone, but felt guilty about using my host’s phone. And now I’m going to try to sleep, which will not be easy because I am totally jacked up and buzzing.

Friday September 15, 2006, on the afternoon train to New York.
Breakfast of toast, jam, melon and oatmeal, quite a bit to put away so early in the morning. Tried to send emails to Seattle bookstores that are hosting me to alert them to Seattle Times review coming up Sunday September 24th, but wireless in Sue’s house not working for me.

Left at 9 am on train for Providence and NEBA (New England Booksellers’ Association). Smallish turnout — publishers’ booths all over a large convention space. Books on tables with signs “do not take without permission.” Very nice people however, the publishers as well as the bookstore crowd. I signed about 35 books. Some very enthusiastic people. The competing authors in my autographing time slot had written a children’s book, a mystery and a book about dogs. I think my line was the shortest.

Back to the train station — waiting for train to New York, a woman started talking to me — also an author, from Philadelphia, also at NEBA for a signing. She’s written a romance that’s been picked up by a Harlequin spinoff — but now they are starting to pitch it as literary, she said. She’s a labor lawyer by day, working, as she said, “for the dark side.” i.e. employers. We chitchatted — I encouraged her to get a website up and she said her boyfriend was doing it for her but she had to wait for her publishers to okay it. Gee, I said, it had never occurred to me that I needed a publisher’s okay.

Sunday September 17, New York city, 3:30 pm
Much flurry this morning arranging various NYC upcoming stuff. Email problems added to general bustle.

New stuff: Booklist review very positive on Amazon. But Amazon still has it as a pre-order — NOT RIGHT! Received a funny email from Concord reader who wants to post first review on Amazon, but can’t till it’s off pre-order status. She corrects me that Thoreau did indeed travel to Minnesota once. Otherwise loves book. Talked to Bryn Mawr College alum who wants to have a party if I come back to New York later — she once did a cookbook of recipes from modern artists for MOMA. Talked to Marcia, another Bryn Mawr classmate and friend, who’s giving me a book party next Saturday. Talked to Renee, Maya’s mother-in-law in Connecticut — we’ll see each other tomorrow night at Grolier Club party. Everyone is being SO nice!

Oh, on the subway this morning there was a guy across the aisle from me, completely bent over, head on his knees, one hand entirely wrapped in clean white bandages. Head, under a baseball cap, also spiraled in white gauze. He had on a windbreaker jacket and a white tee shirt around his neck like a scarf. The shirt was blood-stained. Obviously he’d been in a Saturday night fight and was only now (2 pm) making his way home uptown — probably spent the morning in an emergency department somewhere. I looked at his bandages and wondered if he would take care of his injuries as I knew he should. He never moved the whole ride — probably exhausted, hung over and/or drugged. The world was clearly not a happy place for him. I wonder how the emergency staff had treated him. What expectations they had, if any, that their handiwork would help, would last. I imagined the alley — dirty and dark — where he had been fighting — smelly and awful — or maybe he’d been jumped and it wasn’t much of a fight at all. Or maybe he was running out of a building he’d been robbing and broke a window with his hand?

Tuesday September 19, morning in New York
David Godine made a lovely introduction at the party last night and then read from the book himself. I was very interested in what part he chose: the end of the book, the serious part where I say how much Louisa means to me, all about her courage and persistence and the Gandhi quote and everything. I was touched.

Today off to Michael’s class at Fordham. It was a freshman essay writing course. He introduced me briefly — said I was a real live terrorist. The kids knew nothing of SDS or the Weathermen, and I don’t think even the Vietnam War.

Bush is in town along with president of Iran and many others. Big UN doings. Streets barricaded all over, men in suits with wires curling out of their ears, black cars everywhere, mostly big Cadillac SUVs, Navigators, stuff like that, with cards on the dashboards for the country they represent. All these tiny, poverty stricken African countries with clearly corrupt governments. The show of police makes my blood rise — I want to knock something over.

A short train ride and I’m in Connecticut — acres of verdant green grass, beautiful old trees just starting to turn color, old stone walls, old colonial houses, screened in porches, misty rain, cricket sounds, wet green smells, so beautiful, so privileged, so rare. How can I be so lucky as to be here? And I’m within an hour of noisy, combative, jumpy, black, red and gray New York City. Within an hour of that bloodied guy, head on his knee, riding the subway uptown last Sunday morning.

Tuesday October 3, 2006, back in Seattle
Today I have a radio interview on KUOW, the local NPR station — an afternoon talk show, but taped in the morning, so no call-ins I guess. Too bad, but cool about getting on the radio. The host emailed me to ask if I’d come on after hearing about the book. I’d like to do more radio, or at least I think I would — we’ll see after it’s over.

This morning I took a couple more stabs at getting some traction in the Bay Area market, but I’m worried that it’s too little too late, which only makes my attempts more half hearted and likely doomed to fail.

I did decide that I would try to go back to New York on Oct 24, when I have a free day after getting into Philadelphia, and have asked my friend to see if she can set something up in the way of a living room party. I did three of those in September and found them more satisfying, really, than the bookstore events. The audiences were livelier. Don’t know if it’s the ambiance, or East Coast vs. the West Coast styles.

I’ve been having some rather doom-full dreams. Odd. Various settings but I always end up being caught up in some social/political machinery where there’s no way I will get out alive or, if I do survive, my integrity doesn’t.

Although I am having incredible fun, I do find myself whispering that I’m ready to have my life back. For one thing, I need to get back to being a writer — my next book is in a very delicate third draft stage and needs considerable attention. Besides, I can’t imagine being in the public eye for any length of time — it would be horrible. No wonder movie stars and politicians are all nuts.