Week 65: Most Personal Dump Ever

[IlanaSimons]

Time for a totally personal blog.

 

I missed the target when I wrote last week.  I wanted to write something personal but ended up hiding my big concerns in the shadows of Marxist Theory.

 

Here’s my dilemma: I don’t know how much energy to spend on books.  Do they make a difference?  Or: If I’m going to spend a lot of energy in this life, is energy better spent on tangible social projects like public education and civil advocacy?

 

Because the publishing industry is so conservative in its investments and because books are increasingly unimportant in our culture, I don’t know where to put my energy.  Over the past year, I followed a love of writing I’d grown up with—and I spent loads of energy in somewhat narcissistic isolation, dreaming up and sending out three book proposals. 

 

My projects ranged from seemingly marketable topics I didn’t care a lot about to projects I liked.  The first was Conversations with Jane: How Jane Eyre Models a Well-Lived Life (which was self-help bologna I pumped out because I thought it would sell).  The second was The Myth of Happiness (in which I ambitiously tried to be a social critic, judging all sorts of trends like Dr. Phil and the search for a female Viagra).  The last was one I actually cared about, called On Conversation: The Dream of Intimacy from Socrates through Freud to Woody Allen.  It used this book club (with your names disguised) as a jumping-off point for discussing the challenges and rewards of intimacy.  All three projects went through NYC agents to 50 publishing houses.  Each book proposal was rejected everywhere. 

 

Doing a nonfiction book proposal takes a lot of work.  You have to write a 50-or-so page proposal that describes the book and its marketing plan and offers a sample chapter.  Each proposal took me about 6 months of isolation, heavy drinking, nasty mood swings, and general social pissiness to write.

 

So now I’m sitting still—and don’t know what to do: to throw my head into a new proposal, which again might not produce any real product, or to shift my energy elsewhere.

 

People who love me have offered me sweetisms: You’re a writer!  The market is simply tough these days.  Wait, and stay calm, and write!

 

But the political side of me—and the side that’s engaged in clinical therapy (face-to-face, clearly meaningful activity)—says something different: All that isolated work isn’t so important today.  If I were to spend five years on some half-baked self-help book as opposed to five years seeing hundreds of people in some social services clinic, I’d affect and learn far more in the latter.

So this is a very loose and personal blog: Do books by dabblers matter?  Are there too many books in the stores today?  And: Is it a more economical use of energy to work directly with individual people rather than on that mass production of ink-spilled paper?

[Timbuktu1]

First, you are so hard on yourself!  In every way!

Second, I can't believe you wrote this today as I've been going through something very similar, if on a much smaller scale.  I've been feeling sort of... happy.  That may sound good to most people, but it makes me guility.   Narcissistic.  

Just today I was listening to a tape that contrasts the differences between Greek ideals and Biblical ideals.

The description of the Greek ideal, of "arete", of being able to throw the rock farther, run faster, kill more people, etc. sounded so... American.  I was thinking, while listening to it, that we've become pagans.  The biblical ideal, of doing good, of social justice, of caring for the weak, is something that is so often missing in the scheme of things.  Your blog sounds like the comparison.  Is there more glory in personal achievement and excelling or in doing for others?  

I just discussed this with my husband.  He's very achievement oriented.  He felt that by doing and achieving you are improving the world.  Made me think of Ayn Rand.   Of course the example he used was curing disease!  But I hear what you're saying and feel it in my heart.  Does it have to be a choice?  Is it possible to do both at once?  I haven't a clue.   

[Timbuktu1]

BTW, any book that has Socrates, Freud and Woody Allen in the title would be on my shelf in a flash!

[IlanaSimons]

You always get it, Timbuktu.

That was the central concern: narcissism's trip or bridled social action.

My value system has changed since about 2001.  I think it's time for creative action to take root in social places--rather than in isolation.

This is odd for me.  After all, my heroes--the Modernists--did their great art between WW1 and WW2.  People say that it was precisely the political climate that prompted their art.  But I feel something opposite today (e.g. what in the world do the old art genres matter?).

---

Timbuktu1 wrote:

First, you are so hard on yourself!  In every way!

Second, I can't believe you wrote this today as I've been going through something very similar, if on a much smaller scale.  I've been feeling sort of... happy.  That may sound good to most people, but it makes me guility.   Narcissistic.  

Just today I was listening to a tape that contrasts the differences between Greek ideals and Biblical ideals.

The description of the Greek ideal, of "arete", of being able to throw the rock farther, run faster, kill more people, etc. sounded so... American.  I was thinking, while listening to it, that we've become pagans.  The biblical ideal, of doing good, of social justice, of caring for the weak, is something that is so often missing in the scheme of things.  Your blog sounds like the comparison.  Is there more glory in personal achievement and excelling or in doing for others?  

I just discussed this with my husband.  He's very achievement oriented.  He felt that by doing and achieving you are improving the world.  Made me think of Ayn Rand.   Of course the example he used was curing disease!  But I hear what you're saying and feel it in my heart.  Does it have to be a choice?  Is it possible to do both at once?  I haven't a clue.   

---

[Sunltcloud]

What I just read in your blog made me sad; it was like reading my daughter's mind. Once I asked her, "It's never enough, is it?" And she simply said, "No."

My daughter is a much more accomplished woman than I.

What I mean by "your blog made me sad" is the amount of work that I see going into this almost desperate search for meaning. And acceptance. Project upon project. Which, I guess, in our society, is so very important and largely expected.

It could be that your search simply makes me feel old. Slow. Out of touch. But wait. I'm happy. I know that some books make me happy. I know that writing makes me happy. I know that I am accepted as writer in my group of amateur writers. I know I am helping my peers with their writing, their concerns.

What makes me "dated" (sounds better than old) and "unconcered" (out of touch) is my lack of competitiveness. My dislike of writing fifty-page proposals. I only sent out one proposal, many years ago, and received a rejection slip.  I was relieved. From then on I wrote for fun only.

Yes, books by dabblers do matter. No, there are never enough books in the store; who knows, the next one might be important to me. I think I mentioned that I received a postcard from Guernsey, looked up Guernsey and was overwhelmed with google's attempt to sell me on "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." It worked. I have read the book, spent every night since then researching Guernsey, and will take a trip to Guernsey in October. I've picked out the coffee shop I will visit first; that's where I think I will write my journal pages. I've picked out museums, cliff walks, even a clothing store where they sell "Guernsey Jumpers." And I will probably not see everything I want to see, but will find something I had not thought of before. I'm blissfully happy. And I just smile at everybody who tells me "oh, you have to write about your experience, send it to the paper." Or, what's worse, "write to a magazine before you leave, maybe they'll pay for your trip." No thank you. I have taken all sorts of writing courses, including travel writing, and have no desire to jump into the "market."

I understand that we are all different, but I don't understand what "economical use of energy" means. Maybe because I have no place in my heart for the word "economical" in relationship to energy. Creativity comes from this bottomless pit. It doesn't matter whether you have saved up your energy for that moment when the gate opens, or if you have drained it on some other "important project." All you have to do is BE THERE. The rest unfolds. (There is a modern phrase I don't really like, probably because it is sometimes said with arrogance: "It is what it is." But that's how I see creativity.)

Wow, I have given you some very personal thoughts; I hope you don't mind. I usually don't repsond in such preachy manner. And I thank you for being so honest with us. That alone means more to me than seeing another book of yours in print though I hope you never give up "dabbling," no matter what you regard as your priorities.

[Katelyn]

Ilana,

I agree with Timbuktu that you are being much too hard on yourself.  You are still quite young and you already published one book.  Three book proposals are are lot of work (and work you can be proud of at that), but having them rejected seems hardly like failure -- more like par for the course. 

I think a life doing what one loves is never a life wasted. If a project is meaningful, it is never a waste.  It can always be re-packaged and turned into something else. Who knows a book one throws away may also be *exactly* what the mind needs to "prepare" itself for its next great endeaver -- a work that may not have been possible without the preceeding one.

I also think women tend to worry about being selfish when they are involved with something that takes a lot of concentration.  When one thinks one is in some respects alone and there is always this anxiety that when one resurfaces something crucial may have changed or an opportunity will have slipped by.  I used to worry horribly about everyone I knew aging when I sat down in peace and quiet with a notebook; funny I never felt the same way when I spent twice as much time in front of the TV wrapped in its warm cocoon of lazy passiveness.

Once a history teacher I had sat me down when I was writing this paper on Rousseau.  I wanted to say something original and I was afraid I couldn't and I felt this enormous sense of guilt -- not because I was afraid the paper wouldn't live up to my expectations, but because it was beyond me and therefore a waste of time.

I wasn't really interested in Rousseau, but I had to write the paper and I didn't want to give up but I thought it was an enormous waste struggling with my own ideas instead of running off to the Peace Core or something.  She sat me down and told me it wasn't selfish and she used an example of a concert pianist.  She wasn't being selfish when she sat down at the piano everyday because that is what it took to make this beautiful music that wouldn't exist otherwise.

I have no doubt you will be successful, but that is not what you are being "graded upon"; it is evolving towards your own uniqueness and adding it to the world in IMO.  You write wonderfully; intricate ideas that dance on the page, which sometimes startle the reader. They are not only intellectual but wise with a fluidity and semi-casual ease that marks true internalization of a subject matter, that is to say they are original.  It would be a shame to think developing that voice further would be a waste of time.  

Let someone else save the world and while they are off doing it you can be writing down all the things that make it worth saving, and who knows that writing itself might end up saving the world, or even just one or more individual readers who may wander by chance or otherwise into the forest of words that is your book and come out changed.

No I don't think dabbling is a waste of time -- although I would hardly call what you do dabbling.

Kate

[Timbuktu1]

---

IlanaSimons wrote:

You always get it, Timbuktu.

That was the central concern: narcissism's trip or bridled social action.

My value system has changed since about 2001.  I think it's time for creative action to take root in social places--rather than in isolation.

This is odd for me.  After all, my heroes--the Modernists--did their great art between WW1 and WW2.  People say that it was precisely the political climate that prompted their art.  But I feel something opposite today (e.g. what in the world do the old art genres matter?).

---

Timbuktu1 wrote:

First, you are so hard on yourself!  In every way!

Second, I can't believe you wrote this today as I've been going through something very similar, if on a much smaller scale.  I've been feeling sort of... happy.  That may sound good to most people, but it makes me guility.   Narcissistic.  

Just today I was listening to a tape that contrasts the differences between Greek ideals and Biblical ideals.

The description of the Greek ideal, of "arete", of being able to throw the rock farther, run faster, kill more people, etc. sounded so... American.  I was thinking, while listening to it, that we've become pagans.  The biblical ideal, of doing good, of social justice, of caring for the weak, is something that is so often missing in the scheme of things.  Your blog sounds like the comparison.  Is there more glory in personal achievement and excelling or in doing for others?  

I just discussed this with my husband.  He's very achievement oriented.  He felt that by doing and achieving you are improving the world.  Made me think of Ayn Rand.   Of course the example he used was curing disease!  But I hear what you're saying and feel it in my heart.  Does it have to be a choice?  Is it possible to do both at once?  I haven't a clue.   

---

---

---

Didn't Faulkner say that life is a steeplechase to nowhere?   Not very inspirational.

 I'm thinking of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Ted Turner.  They ran their race and now they're giving the money away, looking for meaning.   

 

---

[nhbooklover]

In answers to your three questions at the end, I think that "books by dabblers" do matter. In my opinion, it's always nice to read something from a new fresh voice. While it's always nice to find an author that you love, and can always fall back on, if you read their entire catalog of books, by the end most of them tend all seem a little predictable. I know this isn't really a good example for this book club but, take Danielle Steele. She is a great author, and I enjoy reading her books every now and then but, once you've read one of her books you can pretty much predict what all the other books are going to be like about 50 pages in.

  When you have new fresh writes coming onto the scene, you're always kept on your toes, and tend to come back for more.

 I do think that there are too many books in the store. I know when I go into a B&N or another large bookstore, I feel a little overwhelmed at first. Like I don't quite know where to begin looking, and I walk out (no matter how long I've spent in the store) feeling like I've missed something that I would've found really interesting. If that makes any sense at all!

[Katelyn]

Illana, if you feel so inclined tell us more about the books...

[IlanaSimons]

I cried a little when I read this.  Please go to Guernsey and then still don't leave us. 

I want an ounce of the spirit that sent out one proposal and then found courage to live independently and creatively.

---

Sunltcloud wrote:

What I just read in your blog made me sad; it was like reading my daughter's mind. Once I asked her, "It's never enough, is it?" And she simply said, "No."

My daughter is a much more accomplished woman than I.

What I mean by "your blog made me sad" is the amount of work that I see going into this almost desperate search for meaning. And acceptance. Project upon project. Which, I guess, in our society, is so very important and largely expected.

It could be that your search simply makes me feel old. Slow. Out of touch. But wait. I'm happy. I know that some books make me happy. I know that writing makes me happy. I know that I am accepted as writer in my group of amateur writers. I know I am helping my peers with their writing, their concerns.

What makes me "dated" (sounds better than old) and "unconcered" (out of touch) is my lack of competitiveness. My dislike of writing fifty-page proposals. I only sent out one proposal, many years ago, and received a rejection slip.  I was relieved. From then on I wrote for fun only.

Yes, books by dabblers do matter. No, there are never enough books in the store; who knows, the next one might be important to me. I think I mentioned that I received a postcard from Guernsey, looked up Guernsey and was overwhelmed with google's attempt to sell me on "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." It worked. I have read the book, spent every night since then researching Guernsey, and will take a trip to Guernsey in October. I've picked out the coffee shop I will visit first; that's where I think I will write my journal pages. I've picked out museums, cliff walks, even a clothing store where they sell "Guernsey Jumpers." And I will probably not see everything I want to see, but will find something I had not thought of before. I'm blissfully happy. And I just smile at everybody who tells me "oh, you have to write about your experience, send it to the paper." Or, what's worse, "write to a magazine before you leave, maybe they'll pay for your trip." No thank you. I have taken all sorts of writing courses, including travel writing, and have no desire to jump into the "market."

I understand that we are all different, but I don't understand what "economical use of energy" means. Maybe because I have no place in my heart for the word "economical" in relationship to energy. Creativity comes from this bottomless pit. It doesn't matter whether you have saved up your energy for that moment when the gate opens, or if you have drained it on some other "important project." All you have to do is BE THERE. The rest unfolds. (There is a modern phrase I don't really like, probably because it is sometimes said with arrogance: "It is what it is." But that's how I see creativity.)

Wow, I have given you some very personal thoughts; I hope you don't mind. I usually don't repsond in such preachy manner. And I thank you for being so honest with us. That alone means more to me than seeing another book of yours in print though I hope you never give up "dabbling," no matter what you regard as your priorities.

---

[IlanaSimons]

This is a brilliant observation.  I do feel more guilty spending two concentrated, solitary hours at the computer than three mindless hours at the TV.  Women probably often feel guilty when pursuing "egoistic" projects they weren't formerly encouraged to pursue.

To you and Timbuktu and Sunltcloud and the whole board: these responses are so kind and smart--and making me look at my priorities in a different way.  Thank you.

---

Katelyn wrote:

...I also think women tend to worry about being selfish when they are involved with something that takes a lot of concentration.  When one thinks one is in some respects alone and there is always this anxiety that when one resurfaces something crucial may have changed or an opportunity will have slipped by.  I used to worry horribly about everyone I knew aging when I sat down in peace and quiet with a notebook; funny I never felt the same way when I spent twice as much time in front of the TV wrapped in its warm cocoon of lazy passiveness.

---

[IlanaSimons]

Thanks for joining the conversation.  I agree that quirky voices that first seem tangential can come to seem most interesting.

...And I also agree that there are too many books!

---

nhbooklover wrote:

In answers to your three questions at the end, I think that "books by dabblers" do matter. In my opinion, it's always nice to read something from a new fresh voice. While it's always nice to find an author that you love, and can always fall back on, if you read their entire catalog of books, by the end most of them tend all seem a little predictable. I know this isn't really a good example for this book club but, take Danielle Steele. She is a great author, and I enjoy reading her books every now and then but, once you've read one of her books you can pretty much predict what all the other books are going to be like about 50 pages in.

  When you have new fresh writes coming onto the scene, you're always kept on your toes, and tend to come back for more.

 I do think that there are too many books in the store. I know when I go into a B&N or another large bookstore, I feel a little overwhelmed at first. Like I don't quite know where to begin looking, and I walk out (no matter how long I've spent in the store) feeling like I've missed something that I would've found really interesting. If that makes any sense at all!

---

[KathyS]

Ilana, I'm not one to give you any more advice.  You know where my heart is.  There's always a fine line between the meaning of successes.  If you make enough money to put food on the table, and you have enough money for rent, do what your love dictates to you.  I can't even imagine this kid of rejection, that's probably why I never pursued the things I really loved in my life.  It hurts too much.

I did tell Tim about your writing, and how much I wanted to read it, and knew of your rejections.  He asked me if I'd ever asked you to read what you wrote.  I may have asked you, once.  He said I should.  I told him your writing means more to you than your painting, and it wasn't something that you wanted to share, and be even remotely criticized for.  He said I should ask you to read your work.  I can't ask.

I've talked to people about writing, and it seems that there is a big need for self help books, and those that write other types of literature are not looked at seriously.  Everything has to have a gimmick these days, unfortunately.  Everything has to have an edge to it that makes it stand out as more different than anything that is on the market, today.  But you also have to have agents, promoters who see that vision.

I have no idea how your books read.  I have no idea what they look like.  Is it the presentation, the look of the cover, the pages, the dialogue you want to convey that has to say something to people....it is beyond me that what you write can't be seen as anything but wonderful.

But maybe it is time for you to look into that novel, or at least that part of you that sees life around you, and how you relate to it.  I've seen all of what you've given, and also all of what you've taken from this board.  Yes, I do feel it all.  It's hurt to some degree to feel it all.  But I'm not one to give up on someone who means something more to me than anything I can explain, here.  I've wondered about how long you can sustain your weekly blogs.  I've wondered about what would happen to you, and to those of us who have participated and stuck with you, for this long...hoping you wouldn't throw up your hands, give it all up, and walk away.  I've cried with these thought in mind.  You've come so far.

But who am I to say these things to you.  You know me better than most. 

[Melissa_W Moderator]

But look at your Virginia Woolf book - it's wonderful! 

Meaningful books matter and they matter to those of us who really think about and treasure what we read.  For instance, let's use the "queen" of culture direction, Oprah.  I've been trying to handsell The Story of Edgar Sawtelle for about the last several months (I think it's on week 13 on the NYTimes bestseller list) and occasionally I would get a bite but you wouldn't believe the excuses for not looking at the book: it's too long, it looks boring, I don't want to read Hamlet, and (my personal favorite) I'm not smart enough to read that book.  Then all of a sudden Oprah picks it for her book group and, wham!, every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to read ES.  These are the same people who blindly picked up The Road and A New Earth not realizing that one was extremely dark and post-apocalyptic and the other is a new age self-help guide.  However, the readers who read ES months ago, or The Seamstress, or any other well-written, well-thought-out book will always be looking for something else to read.  We just don't have the market share.

Maybe instead of writing a "proposal" just write (great advice, says the writer who hasn't shown anyone any work since high school creative writing).  Maybe you'll write a novel.  Maybe it will be just a series of essays (look at Sloane Crosley's I was told there'd be cake - it's just random reflections about her life).  Maybe it will be poems.  And maybe at the end you'll want to shop it around.  Or maybe you'll just keep it for your own heart.

Or....maybe you could do a deal with B&N's imprint or Sterling to write a book about us

---

IlanaSimons wrote:

Time for a totally personal blog.

  

Here’s my dilemma: I don’t know how much energy to spend on books.  Do they make a difference?  Or: If I’m going to spend a lot of energy in this life, is energy better spent on tangible social projects like public education and civil advocacy?

 

Because the publishing industry is so conservative in its investments and because books are increasingly unimportant in our culture, I don’t know where to put my energy.  Over the past year, I followed a love of writing I’d grown up with—and I spent loads of energy in somewhat narcissistic isolation, dreaming up and sending out three book proposals. 

 

My projects ranged from seemingly marketable topics I didn’t care a lot about to projects I liked.  The first was Conversations with Jane: How Jane Eyre Models a Well-Lived Life (which was self-help bologna I pumped out because I thought it would sell).  The second was The Myth of Happiness (in which I ambitiously tried to be a social critic, judging all sorts of trends like Dr. Phil and the search for a female Viagra).  The last was one I actually cared about, called On Conversation: The Dream of Intimacy from Socrates through Freud to Woody Allen.  It used this book club (with your names disguised) as a jumping-off point for discussing the challenges and rewards of intimacy.  All three projects went through NYC agents to 50 publishing houses.  Each book proposal was rejected everywhere. 

 

Doing a nonfiction book proposal takes a lot of work.  You have to write a 50-or-so page proposal that describes the book and its marketing plan and offers a sample chapter.  Each proposal took me about 6 months of isolation, heavy drinking, nasty mood swings, and general social pissiness to write.

 

So now I’m sitting still—and don’t know what to do: to throw my head into a new proposal, which again might not produce any real product, or to shift my energy elsewhere.

 

People who love me have offered me sweetisms: You’re a writer!  The market is simply tough these days.  Wait, and stay calm, and write!

 

But the political side of me—and the side that’s engaged in clinical therapy (face-to-face, clearly meaningful activity)—says something different: All that isolated work isn’t so important today.  If I were to spend five years on some half-baked self-help book as opposed to five years seeing hundreds of people in some social services clinic, I’d affect and learn far more in the latter.

So this is a very loose and personal blog: Do books by dabblers matter?  Are there too many books in the stores today?  And: Is it a more economical use of energy to work directly with individual people rather than on that mass production of ink-spilled paper?

---

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Heck yeah!

---

Timbuktu1 wrote:
BTW, any book that has Socrates, Freud and Woody Allen in the title would be on my shelf in a flash!

---

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Addendum, because I forgot a point or two.

Dabblers often bring a new perspective.  I knit and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has kept me in stitches (haha, yarn joke) with her little books about knitting, and problems with knitting, and happiness with knitting, and too much yarn.  Sometimes ad nauseum, but they're still wonderful.  She started out with a little book of bon mots and that grew from her dabbling on her website. 

And, yes, there seems to be too many books these days.  Anyone who can string three words into a sentence can self-publish, publish on the web, etc. regardless of taste, quality, or need.  I think it is sad that "self-help" is the new market - it makes me think that modern culture is creating a world of drones unable to pause and reflect on their own lives without a guru (and the "guru-ness" of the author is sometimes tenuous).  Someone once asked if I read some self-help book (insert title here, because I can't remember which one it was).  When I said no, she asked why I didn't want to be enlightened.  I replied that I was already enlightened because I didn't need anyone to tell me I was special or to think positive or to visualize my goals.  I read novels to be enlightened.

[Timbuktu1]

How can there be too many books?

[Timbuktu1]

---

IlanaSimons wrote:

This is a brilliant observation.  I do feel more guilty spending two concentrated, solitary hours at the computer than three mindless hours at the TV.  Women probably often feel guilty when pursuing "egoistic" projects they weren't formerly encouraged to pursue.

To you and Timbuktu and Sunltcloud and the whole board: these responses are so kind and smart--and making me look at my priorities in a different way.  Thank you.

---

Katelyn wrote:

...I also think women tend to worry about being selfish when they are involved with something that takes a lot of concentration.  When one thinks one is in some respects alone and there is always this anxiety that when one resurfaces something crucial may have changed or an opportunity will have slipped by.  I used to worry horribly about everyone I knew aging when I sat down in peace and quiet with a notebook; funny I never felt the same way when I spent twice as much time in front of the TV wrapped in its warm cocoon of lazy passiveness.

---

---

I agree.  I can't put this idea out of my mind.   I thought I was the only one.  The whole concept of "flow", is that a male thing?  I wonder if they feel guilty?  Nah!  

---

---

---

[Melissa_W Moderator]

There's too much garbage; same as there is in the motion picture industry.  The most mindless dreck that sells to the lowest common denominator gets pumped out at an alarming rate (see MTV) but concepts that are well thought out or have a unique perspective are often rejected because they don't hold any market potential.  So we keep getting more and more books that either have misinformation, or are plagiarised, or (and this is a new thing) "packaged" which is the phenomenon where a financially sucessful book idea is promoted by a publisher and they find an author to write it; conversely, we have fewer books that are from a unique voice or have used good research and evidence to make their point.

Cf: Stephenie Meyer wrote a teen book called Twilight which sold very well (it's a nice book for teens with an interesting twist on the vampire genre).  All of a sudden, the market has been flooded with teenage vampire romances of varying quality (and appropriateness for teenagers) and some of them are very poorly written.   

This means there are too many books.

---

Timbuktu1 wrote:
How can there be too many books?

---

[Everyman]

My first response (of several) is, be thankful that you have this dilemma. 

There are very few people today who have the opportunity to dither about whether to write a book which might eventually help many people down the road or whether to engage in theraputic work more immediately toward the betterment of many individual lives.  When you're out shopping or walking the streets look around yourself and ask how many of the people you see realistically have very many options about what they can do with their lives.   In theory, sure.  In practice? My experience, at least with my client load, is very few.  Thoreau may have put it a bit wrong, but his basic thesis was right.

So as you dither, be grateful that you have the opportunity to.