The Best Thing You’ve Never Done
My third novel is about to release. The question that I get asked all of the time goes something like this: Is this your best novel? Is this the best thing you’ve ever done or did you peak a couple of books back?
This is such a very difficult question to answer. Usually, the newest novel is the closest to me. I’ve just written it and the thoughts and the feelings in it are fresh. The cover is the most interesting to look at. With Homemade Haunting I think it’s funny and scary and thought provoking in ways that my other novels couldn’t be. But ultimately time is the judge of all art and how this novel will stand up against the other two (or something I haven’t even written yet) is not up to me.
But I wonder if other people look at their lives like this. Do you look at where you are and what you’re doing right now as the most important work of your life or are you like Barton Fink thinking that distinction lies in the past or future?
Or do you even think like that?
Is this just something that afflicts those who create novels and films and music and other art that we look at like bugs frozen in amber? Or is this something that we all deal with?
