Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 11 June 2004

Off from work today due to US Government being sort of shut down for Ronald Reagan’s funeral. So I mow the lawn, run some errands, take kids to and from school, and chaperon my middle child Kevin’s end-of-year school party. I bring my face-painting gear and end up doing about 40 kids, but just cheek art.

At the end of the party I find myself feeling awfully tense, and I’m wondering why. I mean, I’ve got people coming up to me all the time now congratulating me on the book, telling me they just bought it (it’s selling very fast at the Naval War College’s bookstore), or recounting some TV show they saw me on. It’s been 48 hours since I found out about the NYT Best Seller list, so I should be as happy as can be.

Then I realize why I’m feeling so tense. Spoke with my agent this afternoon. Jennifer is a great lady and I enjoy having her as my agent, but she unwittingly triggered my low-grade panic attack by floating the idea of going to Putnam with a proposal for a follow-on book—you know, strike while the iron is hot. As soon as she said it, I spun her a wonderful tale about an option book that just sprang naturally out of the concluding chapter (Hope Without Guarantees), or something that basically ran down those “10 steps to a future worth creating.” Hell, I know there’s a book there, just waiting to be written, and the idea matched her instincts. So I promised her some short proposal by the end of the month that we might forward on to Neil Nyren at Putnam, getting it under his nose before the August doldrums hit the publishing world.

It’s a logical next step: Putnam’s discovered me and shepherded me through book #1, which just happens to crack the NYT Best Seller list. So now it’s only natural to extend the run and go for book #2 that really explodes on the national consciousness and catapults me as an author far beyond PNM. I know I could write something, hell, probably something really good, and I know Putnam would love to grow me as a writer, because that’s what they do.

The question is, What do I want to do next?

Here’s the hitch. I have a ten-year-old manuscript of my diary of my daughter Emily’s battle with cancer as a three-year-old. At 200k, it probably needs to lose at least 100k and then add in some shaping material both fore and aft of the main text, plus perhaps some 20/20 hindsight commentary from myself and my wife looking back on the diary itself.

It’s a neat and easy project, plus it gets me refocused on family by involving my spouse and our first-born. It’s all just so huggy-huggy-inclusive, and frankly, after writing a book on war and peace, that sounds pretty good—something small and intimate and all Nicholas Sparks-ish.

[Tom pauses to fantasize briefly about emoting on Oprah, with his loving spouse and writing partner at his side . . . God, there would have to be some fabulous sex after something like that . . . I mean, rock the universe sort of stuff . . . probably in a five-star hotel executive suite . . . the kind with a Jacuzzi plus shower in a walk-in bathroom to die for . . . Ahem!]

Anyway, I think the original diary is some of the best writing I have ever done, as does my agent Jennifer. Mark Warren of Esquire is also convinced it could be a great book, and is ready to sign on as my editor again.

Jennifer wants to push this book, but she wants the PNM follow-up too. As my agent, she needs to tell me that the kid-with-cancer book will be a tough sell, and that the easiest sell right now is “Son of PNM.” I’m not averse to further success, but I don’t just want to crank something for the sake of cranking something.

Then again, I can sign a contract this Sept for a book that’s due a year from then, so it would follow a year after the paperback release of PNM in May 2005. The contract would simply focus my attention, not just in the blog but in my day-to-day thinking. I’d be stupid not to run with that ball, if it can be had, so all I really need to do is get comfortable with a book proposal idea and start building the text in my mind over the fall, winter and spring, and then just crank it out (as I must as a writer) when I reach a critical mass next summer. Doesn’t have to be the 150k PNM; it can be something far slimmer and more focused. Cripes, I write 3k here almost every day, so what’s the big deal?

I guess my ambivalence and angst at Jennifer’s proposal is that I don’t yet feel like I’ve recovered my wind from PNM. What attracts me to the “Emily Updates” concept (turning the diary into a book) is that I’ve already written the text, by and large, so that project would be editing (mostly Mark Warren) plus writing new shaping material (which frankly I love doing so much I don’t consider it work). Plus, if that gets to be the next book, then maybe I reposition myself as a writer of profound (hopefully perceived) stuff in general, vice the military analyst guy.

Then there’s the avenue of simply doing both. The “Emily Updates” is something I work in terms of editing and shaping through the end of the year, and by then, I have a clear idea of how the Son of PNM is going to be laid out. I work the data collection on that one over the first few months of 2005 and then crank 100k over the following summer, delivering something to Putnam on time. The joy of that sequential scenario is that I am full-time “writing man” outside of my duties at the college, so I don’t sweat the decline of Barnett Consulting and I simply accept the notion that my future is one of being a writer.

Hmmmm. I’m getting tired just describing these possibilities. Maybe this all simply nuts to consider trying. Maybe I’m drawn to the Emily Updates because I fear my ability to handle another book from scratch anytime soon, what with a new child joining our family, plus all the continuing ancillary stuff flowing out of the PNM itself. Maybe this option book concept is simply too much, too fast. It does violate my basic rule: don’t write until you feel the need—the overwhelming need—to put something down on paper.

Then why in the hell am I wasting my time on this blog everyday?

[thinking . . . thinking . . . Jacuzzi in five-star Chicago hotel . . . thinking . . . really good sex . . . thinking . . . what was I writing about?]

Oh yeah!

Maybe because I’m one of those thinkers who thinks best when he’s writing or speaking—you know, in the output mode. I mean, I do like writing the blog. It’s like playing the piano every day: either you exercise those muscles or you lose the fluidity. I know I love to write, so why the hell not pursue both the Emily Updates and Son of PNM?

Then I think I really understand my sense of angst: I don’t feel like I have the rule set down in my head about what a Son of PNM would logically be. I just don’t feel like I have the angle in my head. For example, I don’t have the chapters down, or the tone. Do I try to run the reader to some distant future (say 2025) and paint that future worth creating? Or do I run the reader step by step, loading up the book with predictions galore? Or . . . or . . . or . . ..

When I wrote PNM, I knew I was writing the book only I could write. Why I want the Emily Updates published is that this manuscript was likewise something only I could write (with many stories “told to” me by my wife). When I think of Son of PNM, I keep coming up with notions of books that I think I could write, but so could a bunch of other people—so why the hell should I bother?

Enough of me, for here is where you come in. I have pursued by career primarily by listening to what other people told me I did best and simply concentrating on that while ignoring the rest—by and large. That’s a very Peter Drucker-ish sort of approach: go with the thing you do best and outsource the rest.

So here I have this blog that connects me to many people who’ve read much of my writings, and presumably the book. All of you know why you liked the book or why you like the blog. Knowing that, what’s the logically wished-for book you’d have me write next?

I’m not asking you to comment on the utility or difficulty of getting the Emily Updates published, because I have a certain personal commitment to that project that is simply too profound for me to care what others really think (some experiences from your life are just like that, as I’m sure you know). I’m really looking for what you think is the logical Son of PNM pathway that I need to pursue as a writer—meaning, as you read the book, what did you logically want more of? What’s the next extension of these ideas that appeals to you most as readers? Do I drill down inside the military on the Leviathan/Sys Admin split? Do I write the book about America and how it must change, along with its government? Or do I write about the future of the world system and the changes that must occur there? [There you have it, the three Waltzian levels of perspective: individual, state, system.] Or do I do a bit of each and simply write that Future Worth Creating 2025 manifesto?

Or are all of these the wrong ideas?

Help me out here. The suspense is killing me. I can only rest on my laurels for so long—well, at least until 20 June.

You know, we could really use a Jacuzzi in this house . . ..