I Wrote This Little Book

Rachel Levy Lesser

A few months ago, I ran into a friend at a smoothie shop I frequent in my town. This friend of mine was drinking a smoothie with a friend of hers — someone I didn’t know. The conversation went something like this.

My friend: “This is my friend, Rachel. She is an amazing writer and she has this new book coming out.”

My friend’s friend: “That’s so cool. What’s the book about?”

Me: “Oh I wrote this little book. It’s just a memoir…….Yes I’m excited about it. I write a bit. It keeps me out of trouble.”

And then I paused and quite purposefully deflected.

“What kind of smoothie did you get?” I asked the friend. She answered and then we chatted for a few moments about our smoothies, our kids and our lives as I felt safer in the confines of topics unrelated to my work. I said goodbye and went home to proofread the new little book of mine — to stay out of trouble and all.

As I drove home, aggressively sipping my thick smoothie through a thin biodegradable straw, I heard my aunt’s voice in my head. Never say just a little anything about what you do, she once told me. It seems I never forgot her advice, but also that I never employed it.

Why did I tell the friend’s friend that I wrote a little book? That it’s just a memoir? And also that writing keeps me out of trouble? None of those statements are even remotely true.

The memoir was kind of gut wrenching for me to write. It was all encompassing and dare I say, kind of a big deal.  Also, I write a lot. I just went through the exercise of selecting a few essays to feature on my new web site, and it was really hard to do. You know why? Because I’ve written a lot of essays. And this little memoir of mine is my fourth book. (I’m nauseated as I type this now because I feel like I am bragging and my mother taught me never to brag.)

When a friend of mine, who is also a professional editor, did an early read of the manuscript of my little memoir, she advised me to take out the self-deprecating comments that I sprinkled in rather frequently throughout the book to make sure I wasn’t bragging. “Own it” she wrote to me in an extremely constructive critique style email.

I am trying to own in, but I find that to be rather challenging. I suffer from imposter syndrome. I don’t think of myself as a real writer. I reserve that seemingly aspirational title for others.

I went to at a book party not long after the “little book” smoothie store remark, and I found myself in conversation with several real writers. These are authors, whose work I have read and admired. They are legitimate people — the real deal. I asked them about their books, their writing processes, and what they are working on. And then shockingly to me, they asked me similar questions. I had answers. I tried to deflect to other topics, but there were no smoothies nearby to speak about. I talked about my daily writing schedule, how I’m starting to write fiction and about my new book which didn’t sound little to them.

Once I made it safely through those conversations, I sat down next to a writer friend of mine for the formal book talk and presentation part of the event. My writer friend smiled at me. I smiled back at her and took a deep breath.

“We are real book people,” I said to her, softly but out loud. She laughed. I did too. But then I stopped laughing. I told her that I actually did feel like a legitimate writer that day. She told me I was, and then she confessed that she doubts herself too — all the time. In fact, she postulated that many of the real writers in that room probably felt the same way I did, the same way she did at one point or another.

I looked around at the authors who I’ve longed emulated. I suspected that my writer friend was correct — that at some point these very real writers have doubted their own work. Maybe they felt not legitimate? Perhaps one or two of them even described her work as a little this or a little that? I wondered why they would have done that? Why I do that? Why we all do that? Is it a female thing? An artist thing? Or maybe just a human thing?

I’m currently working on pre-publicity for my new book, an outline for a newer book and perhaps most importantly on not saying a little anything anymore. I am laughing at myself right now wondering what I even meant in once stating over smoothies that writing keeps me out of trouble. Did I mean that if I wasn’t writing books and essays, I’d be dealing drugs on the street corner? I kind of doubt I would. I also kind of doubt that people sell drugs on street corners. That seems too obvious.

I write because I have something to say. People tell me I am good at it. I am good at it. I will continue to write – more essays, more books and not the little kind, definitely not little at all.

Rachel Levy Lesser’s articles and essays have appeared in various outlets, including The Huffington Post, Glamour.com, Parenting.com, Kveller, Modern Loss, Scary Mommy, and The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. She is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania and received her MBA from the Ross School of Business at The University of Michigan. In her previous life as a marketing professional, she worked on the business side of Time Inc. on magazines including InStyle, Life, People, Real Simple, and Sports Illustrated for Kids. Lesser lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

She is the author of Life’s Accessories, her fourth book, which came out November 5. 

Follow her on Twitter @rachlevylesser

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips