Strangers

this money wisely, to make it last through the writing of the book, while others blow it immediately on alcohol, drugs, trips to Las Vegas, cool hats, exotic snakes, recreational lobotomies, huge teddy bears, ice sculptures, attempts to ingratiate themselves with members of the performing Osmond family, on more alcohol, on antique spoons, contemporary spoons, spoons of the future, spoons from alternate realities, collectible celebrity spoons, forks, on still more alcohol, on women named Lola, on men named Fabio, on people of uncertain gender named Sassy, on reviving the dead, on murder-for-hire contracts to dispose of inconvenient loved ones, on alcohol, on costly short-term liver rentals, on gimcracks, geegaws, baubles, bangles, frippery, frillery, atomic-powered frillery… Really, there is no end to the number of things on which irresponsible writers will squander their money; but whether the writer is penny-wise or a reckless spendthrift, if he has a signed contract and delivers a book at least somewhat resembling the one described in the contract, he knows during the writing that he will be paid yet more money and that his work will eventually appear in bookstores-. and that the manuscript will not instead lie moldering in a drawer.
        Prior to writing Strangers, I had written many novels that had been contracted in advance, and some had been paperback bestsellers, which was gratifying; however, my publisher and my agent were largely of the opinion that my books didn't have quite the right stuff to be hardcover bestsellers. Though no one could explain to me what "right stuff' was missing, this preconception ensured that my books had small hardcover printings (my largest first printing at that time: seven thousand copies of Whispers) and no advertising support. Frustrated to the point that I was gnawing on my office furniture, depressed by the resulting shabbiness of my work space, racking up dental bills, afraid of developing a serious addiction to either varnish or nylon twill upholstery, I decided that selling books based on samples and outlines was a grave mistake.
        After drawing a contract, the publisher and editor had a year or eighteen months to think about the outline, to build expectations of what sort of book it would be, to create this glorious gleaming image of the book in their heads. Consequently, when the script was at last delivered, and when it was inevitably different from their idea of what the book was going to be, their enthusiasm sagged. The novel might not be inadequate in any way, might even be immeasurably better than the con-job story that had been tricked up in an outline to cage a contract, might be written with passion and narrative energy, but the very fact that it didn't match expectations was a mark against it; its lovely difference doomed it.
        Not in a state of full sanity, I planned to write a novel on spec even though a contract was offered. I dreamed of writing a book that would be big in narrative scope and theme, that would be stuffed with interesting characters, that would rivet the reader with twists and turns and mystery and wonder, that would be THE BEST DAMN BOOK EVER WRITTEN. Yes, of course, that is an absurd goal, overweening ambition of the most deplorably weening sort, especially as The Little Engine That Could had already been published and had established a literary pinnacle that no mortal writer will ever achieve again. Nevertheless, writing is so hard-even if at times filled with joy-that it doesn't make much sense to set out to write a mediocre book or even a reasonably good book. Besides, each time you set out to write the best damn book ever written, and each time that you inevitably fail to write it, you automatically motivate yourself to do better die next time, to get closer to the grail. Anyway, my intention was to deliver a story that would so surprise and delight a publisher that guarantees of a bestseller-size hardcover printing and an equivalent advertising budget would be obtainable in the contract.
        When I began Strangers, I had enough money in the bank to live for six or eight months, which was the length of time I expected that I would need to write an approximately five hundred-page manuscript. This was madness. Money never lasts as long as it ought to, and books can seldom be finished when you expect. Six months later, working sixty-hour weeks, having amassed 450 manuscript pages, I realized that I hadn't yet reached