Finding Mr. Write: An author's long-term relationship with her manuscript

"Ever thought about writing a book?"

There they were, those six little words I'd dreamed of ever since I was a little girl practicing my author signature all over the front of a beat-up yellow Pee-Chee. It was a subject line that could make even the most cynical heart go pitter-pat.

It had to be a joke, right? The handiwork of some smart-aleck friend teasing me over my "Dating Blues" stories in these very pages. Peering at the return address, though, I realized the e-mail was from an honest-to-goodness publisher. They were looking for someone to write a dating manual for the 21st century, the note read, a guidebook geared for everybody — men and women, gay and straight — a book that would be "humorous, playful and fun." Was I, perchance, interested?

I decided to play it cool, waiting at least 13 seconds before sending the editor a reply (350 words, which essentially amounted to the word "Duh!"), and a whirlwind of e-mails and meetings followed. Before long, I was in the throes of a deeply committed relationship (with the legally binding paperwork to prove it), the kind of relationship I'd fantasized about for years. And I soon found my publishing LTR was no different from any other love affair.

Ah, young love

Like everyone else in the honeymoon stages of a relationship, I immediately became insufferable, repeatedly dropping the name of my editor or publisher or some potential new title for my "how to date" book.

Whenever prompted ("How's your crab cake?"), I waxed poetic about different bits I wanted to include. Dating nightmares from singles! Interviews with experts! A psycho-chick checklist! I was giddy, I was gleeful; I was a 14-year-old girl going steady for the first time.

"Did I mention that I just got a book deal?" I'd casually let slip while out with friends.

"Uh, that's nice," the waitress would respond. "Here's the tartar sauce you asked for."

After a while, though, I began to realize there was something missing from my book — I believe they call it writing.

A tiny little obsession

And so I entered the second phase of my relationship — the cocoon stage.

For days, weeks, months, I holed up in my office, my fingers caressing the keyboard, my eyes gazing into my own personal window into the dating world. I uncovered the latest trends, eyeballed the newest surveys, pumped any and all who came within my reach for their take on the dating scene — singles, sociologists, etiquette experts, the FedEx guy.

Within a few weeks, my book had turned me into a total slut ... for research, that is. Sure, there were those who assumed my "research" amounted to tripping about town with a bevy of handsome young swains, but they were way off (all right, they were a little off).

But I wasn't just after dates; I was after data, and I pursued it with a fatal-attraction fervor that would have made Glenn Close proud.

I struck up conversations with strangers, seducing them out of the details of their last breakup, their friends-with-benefits arrangements. I haunted the bookstores, picking up every dating tome that reared its perky head.

So what if all the booksellers in town thought I was pathologically obsessed with finding a man? Or that every single in my neighborhood ducked for cover whenever I approached? I was ready to sacrifice anything, everything. Who wouldn't, in the name of love?

"We're worried about you," my friends wrote, after three months of unanswered phone messages and ignored invites. "You're becoming obsessed. You need a break."

The e-mails from my editor weren't quite as warm and fuzzy.

"We're nearing our deadline," he wrote. "I need to see your manuscript ASAP."

Commitment phobia!

And that's when it hit me.

My relationship had become suffocating, stifling, completely one-sided. I'd only been involved with this book for a few months, and somehow I'd allowed it to take over my entire life.

Sure, it had all been sort of a lark at first, but now things were starting to get overwhelming. I felt as if I were simply going through the motions, churning out page after page in order to reach a deadline that loomed like some lavish wedding.

Had I jumped into this whole publishing thing too soon? Could it be that I just wasn't ready for this kind of commitment?

I began seeking out smaller writing assignments — a book review here, an anthology essay there — none of which were even remotely related to the topic of dating. Sure, I felt a little disloyal — unfaithful, even — but I needed my space, my freedom.

Unfortunately, my editor needed a finished manuscript.

"I wanted to check in on the progress of that last section," he wrote. "Please update me when you get a chance."

The long haul

I don't remember what it was that got me and my beloved book back together. Maybe it was the story about the woman who went out with the guy with the giant head knot, maybe it was the simple fact that deep down, I wanted to make things work. Whatever the case, I fell head over heels again.

Plunging back down the writing rabbit hole, I spent three weeks at the keyboard, hammering out the last section, the conclusion, the intro and a dozen or more sidebars. I sent the package off to my editor and spent the next two days basking in a post-climactic glow.

Which was soon cut short by a terse e-mail. My editor wanted to get together "to talk." Uh-oh, I thought.

The three of us met downtown at the Virginia Inn — my editor, my manuscript and me. We ordered beers (the manuscript, as always, stayed dry); we chatted about one thing or another. And then, we got down to cases.

I don't remember much from that meeting except that some painful things were said that didn't seem to make sense at the time. Looking back, I guess they were all for the best. The bottom line was simple: I'd become so obsessed, so googly-eyed with book lust, that I'd been blind to the basics, like keeping to the agreed-upon word count. An entire chapter and a handful of sidebars were going to have to be chopped.

And you know what they say — the first cut is the deepest.

Moving on

That was a year ago, and I'm happy to report that even though we've been through some rough patches, the book and I have managed to stay good friends. Such is the way of all relationships — you fall in love, you get hurt, you move on. I certainly have. Over the last few months, I've even taken on a handful of new assignments, nothing that could ever consume my entire creative life and leave me as spent as those 25 toner cartridges I went through writing "How to Date in a Post-Dating World." But fun, light-hearted stuff — literary hookups, I guess you could call them.

Although I do have to admit, I've been thinking a lot about getting involved again. With a new publishing LTR, I mean.

I've come to realize that committing to a book is very much like committing to a marriage. And call me old-fashioned, but I sort of like waking up each day, going to bed each night with the same old familiar body of work.

Especially one that proudly bears my name.

Diane Mapes is a frequent contributor to The Seattle Times and author of "How to Date in a Post-Dating World," Sasquatch Books, 2006; $15.95. www.howtodatebook.com.