Bike Odyssey 2014 – Day 22 (June 7) – Standing easy

Today a big day for me: my new novel, all 700 pages of it, is published today. 3 fellow-writers have praised it in terms that are the highest any book could hope for. Are they right? They also say it’s my best, but I’ve no idea. You write in a certain exaltation, not really imagining that the work is definitely worth anything, but with delusions of adequacy. Looking back at it, you read passages with some satisfaction. But why would you imagine this has any validity? It’s all the more wonderful to be told it’s good, to have readers chortling (it’s a comedy) as they read it in their garden. The world at large has as yet no interest in my work, and if I sell a hundred copies it’s a decent tally. (And think of painters, selling work to a single buyer to take home and keep private!) One or other of my books might achieve a ‘breakthrough.’ But they remain, each of them, what they are, the children of your heart and soul, and mind (one reader in particular praises this new one for its information on erudite matters). If anyone at all looks on them as lovely – what bliss!

Meanwhile I’m girding my loins for the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway, with its interminable little bends, and the ocean below (don’t look – focus on the road!). Joe has been visiting his old friend Joey, I my old friend Ian, once famous as ‘The Saint’ on TV, veteran of many plays and films and now a successful author too, of plays and children’s books. We reminisce: schooldays 60 years ago!! He phones another old friend, and we reminisce about schooldays 55 years ago. He has emphysema; I remind him that with this disease you live forever and die in your sleep. How strange to be older (as all older people have always felt) – when you feel so young inside, and when the old days seem so fresh in mind. Fresher every day, as if calling you home.

Tonight another Los Angeles party, this one in Eric’s honor, given by the super-rocker Jeff Lynne. Will there be musicians? I hope I manage to recognize their names. It was easier last night with actors, recognizable by sight. My mind will be mostly on the road already, visualizing the trip up to the lovely town of San Luis Obispo. And I’ll be raising a secret toast to my book and my wonderful editor, John Keller. The novel is also available on Kindle – I hope a few people will download the e-book version. It comes in three separate volumes. I must go and iron my shirt for tonight.