The Courage to be Naked

After I finished my first draft of Diamonds in Auschwitz, I wanted two things simultaneously: 1.

To sell one million copies of my debut novel to people all over the world. And 2. To hide my

manuscript in a box, under my bed, never to see the light of day again.

As contrary as those two wishes might seem, you have to understand, that’s exactly what

happened with my favorite book.

When Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind, she took all the pages of the manuscript –

haphazard, unorganized, often out of order – placed them in a box and hid them under her bed.

(My details of her hiding place may be hazy, but the idea remains the same.)

One day, an editor from Macmillan came to town, looking for the next, great American novel.

Someone suggested he talk to “Peggy” Mitchell. She may or may not be using pages of a

manuscript to prop up a wobbly couch. Literally and true story.

To cut to the chase, Peggy’s hidden manuscript that she often proclaimed would never be read

by anyone became one of the best-selling novels of all time – winning the Pulitzer Prize, selling

over 30 million copies (and counting) and translated into 27 languages.

So is it really unreasonable to expect the same to happen for my book?

Why would I want to hide my pages when I’ve already proclaimed my belief that a book is not a

book without readers?

Because showing the words I have somehow crafted into a story is scary as hell.

It’s not like I didn’t let anyone read my first draft. My #1 reader, of course, read along chapter

by chapter as I was writing it. My mom, The Husband, a few semi-strangers (friends of friends

who promised to give an honest opinion) read it. Then I was at the point of either truly burying

my work and finding a new career aspiration or finding courage deep down to show it to more

people.

Lamenting this dilemma to my wonderful book club friends, I equated it to being naked. My

characters, my prose, my descriptions in Diamonds in Auschwitz are so personal to me. Showing

them to the world, letting others judge them – it’s like walking around naked.

In case you were wondering, I’ve never gone streaking.

So handing over my story to other people was a tremendously terrifying thing for me. After my

friends finally convinced me, every time I hovered over send on the email containing my deeply

personal and revealing words, I had to close my eyes, take a deep breath and tap the key.

I had to keep reminding myself: I’m no Margaret Mitchell so what worked for her is not going to

work for me (and also, that’s worked for literally no one but her). And if you can’t be naked in

front of your friends, acquaintances, people in the publishing world and basically all complete

strangers, who can you be naked in front of?