David Shafer - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

He did object when he heard that they intended to give his book the inane title Bringing the Inside Out, but on that point also he was ignored into submission. It was only when he learned that the book would have a subtitle “suggested” by James Straw — now it was to be called Bringing the Inside Out: Toward a New Operating System —that Mark discovered SineCo owned something called the Conch Group.

But Blinc wasn’t kidding around; when the book came out, it was everywhere. She had first-rate news outlets running copy about Mark that she had written. She got him in Seventeen and Esquire and the Observer in one week, so that even if you had no intention of ever buying or reading his book, you probably knew who he was. And then Blinc leveraged that name recognition into more exposure, and on it went, for about six months, until it didn’t anymore, until he could see his little blip leaving the screen.

This second book could be Mark’s second chance. Or his third, or his ninth, or his millionth — what man could say how many he’d been given? But the dense, drunken drivel he’d found on the pad this morning — that wasn’t going to do it.

Mark felt a little less wretched when he finished in the bathroom. He showered and shaved. He did his sit-ups and push-ups — half the usual, because he thought he might puke.

He had to get a grip on this hangover before it chewed up his whole day. Do what’s right — right in front of you. That was one of the lines he used at the executive-optimization workshops he led.

Mark was one of Conch Shell Media’s featured speakers. The fame that his book had brought him left a sort of residue that made him valuable in that line of work. And he was good at it. He had the gift. Maybe something from his father, who at birthday parties had been known to hold a den or patio in thrall, the children and the adults rapt, with his charm and tricks and eyebrows. Blinc had given Mark a message shaper and a room coach and voice teacher. He took all they had to give in a few days. He was no retired software CEO trying to make extra money amusing Republicans over rubber chicken; he was Mark Deveraux, and he liked being in front of a room.

But his star seemed to be fading in this arena as well. Blinc still booked him, but he was definitely getting down-venued. A year ago, it was Abu Dhabi and Basel; now it was Cleveland and Leeds. Once, he had been paid thirty-five thousand dollars for an hour-long talk. Now it was five grand, sometimes ten. And it wasn’t just talking; he had to lead workshops or be on panels.

Mark drank his scalding coffee like he was slapping himself across the face; he coaxed down some of the worthy muesli. He was due at Straw’s office at four. He had the rest of the day to write. You could do this blindfolded, he told himself. You just need to crank out some really good stuff about Increasing Agency through Self-Investigation; about the Excellent Self that lives within all of us; the steely hero of our souls, etc.

He sat down. He opened his computer.

Okay. Ten Steps to Committed Living. Let’s see.

One: Quit Being Such a Scattered, Drunk Loser.

No. That was putting rather too fine a point on it.

The cursor blinked at him like a satellite.

Oh, he was longing again for Try Again Tomorrow, the book he wanted to write, the one he had meant to write. That book would be himself laid bare. But not the vain, lonely, hollow, fraud version of himself he had somehow ended up selling. The himself laid bare in Try Again Tomorrow would be the brave, witty, wise Mark, the one who had always been able to see the truth and describe it more cleverly than others; the one who had stepped up when his dad split and had always helped his mom around the house and who had seen her one really bad boyfriend for the nasty snake that he was and run him off, at some physical risk to himself.

But that wasn’t the kind of book he was contractually obligated to deliver inside of six weeks. Try Again Tomorrow would spill out at all its edges, ragged and bloody and loud. Ten Steps to Committed Living was a book that would need to pretend to be about taking risks and failing better and all that but would in fact have every edge sewn up tight and every doubt banished before the start.

Step One, he made himself type, Take Risks and Do Not Be Afraid of Failure. But then he didn’t know what to type next, because most of the risks he’d taken had led to dead ends, and he was terribly, viscerally afraid of the failure that loomed before him now.

Could he write them both? This Ten Steps shit and Try Again Tomorrow ? The latter for later publication, as a non-bullshit companion work, a shadow volume, an apostasy? With it, he would rescue his reputation, reclaim the place that “Motivation in an Unjust World” had briefly let him hold. He would tell the truth about life: that you have to stop thinking that you’re the able captain of a ship called You, with a wheel, or a rudder, or a tiller, or whatever. You have to realize that you are instead a leaf in a stream. And he would tell the truth about himself: that he was a vain, depressive, selfish drug addict who had become, by accident, a briefly, wildly successful self-help author. That alone was interesting. He just had to be honest about it.

But how honest was always the question, wasn’t it? No one likes an oversharer. And such a book would most likely be contrary to Blinc’s plan. Blinc was not someone you wanted to piss off unless you were very sure of your position. If he got Straw really on his side, though, he could probably risk crossing Blinc.

Oh Christ — there is no way a man can write when he is this wound up. Mark stood and did a quick, nervous circuit of the fancy flat, as if the walk would do him any good. SineCo used this flat for short-term executive tenancy. It was furnished in sterile posh. The books on the shelves were set dressing; the food in the kitchen was delivered once a week. What was Mark’s he’d brought in two duffels. So it was an addict’s conceit to pretend he didn’t know what he was looking for.

Mark would have preferred pot to hash. But he didn’t know anyone in London and had to score his drugs by seedier means than he was accustomed to, and from a more limited menu. On the black granite countertops of the kitchen, he went through the tedious process of rolling a few hash-laced cigarettes. It was ten o’clock in the morning.

The situation was definitely worrying. It wasn’t just the Blinc problem. If it were just that, he could at least imagine some post-Blinc situation. But was he even a writer at all? Not long ago, he had been so sure of it.

He certainly felt like a writer. He dressed and comported himself in a way that he thought writerly. And in his own swirling dome, he could still do a good job of putting abstract ideas into words. And he was willing to say what others thought it was risky or impolite to say. So, no, his wasn’t an idle, druggie sort of drug use. It was a means to a desperately needed end.

The problem was, though, that these days, when he felt he needed to write, when he felt like he was getting a handle on an idea, it turned out he just wanted to drink or smoke or get fucked up, alone. The pen would lie limp in his hand, the typewriter would hum patiently, the cursor would blip accusingly, and he’d set upon the alcohol in the minibar or the pantry or he’d find a dark bar on a bright street.

And something was changing in his drinking. The lucid, potentially productive patch was shrinking to minutes, and the descent into the slur and fug of drunk was becoming steeper. A month ago, he’d made a few phone calls he could not remember making. That was — for forty-eight hours — a sobering experience. Since that night, he had had to put in place certain rules limiting interaction with nonstrangers after six p.m. Because by that time he was almost certainly stoned and drunk and casting off to drift alone in a sea of memories and impressions, hoping to return to shore with something useful. But lately what he found flopping at the bottom of the dinghy in the morning was too small to keep.