Stand up, sweetie

Probably Nothing is published today! Nothing else of note is happening

At his book launch for the brilliant Leading Man a few weeks ago, the equally brilliant

Justin Myers

included a small pep talk for fellow writers in his (obviously, brilliant) speech.

He explained that he used to send advance copies of his books out to fellow authors with squirmily self-deprecating notes that read something like “Here’s my silly book, sorry, if you don’t want to read it then it would make a good doorstop?”

I squirmed, because this is exactly what I do, when I’m brave enough to do the agonising DM slide at all. The downplaying, the apology, the little joke about how the book is probably terrible, no pressure haha, tick tick tick. It has been my habit, when kind people message to tell me that they or their mum or their hairdresser is reading my book, to reply with a cheerful “Sorry if it’s shit!”.

But, Justin went on, he isn’t doing that anymore. Because how can we expect someone to want to read something when we deliver it wrapped in snivelly self-doubt? Life is short, people’s TB…