Nobody Does It Better

Bored during my last hour of work tonight, I visited all the sites I regularly haunt in search of something new. Then remembered I hadn't checked in on Jackie Collins in a while and so headed to her site. At first thought, after reading Jackie's December 2005 entry, it occurred to me that my idol leads a far, far, far more exciting life as a writer than I. Then came the obvious revelation: Jackie has been publishing books for about 35 years, and I only just published my first about 8 months ago.

This led to a more inspiring revelation, as I realized, doing the math, that Jackie was around my age when she was writing her first book to be published, The World is Full of Married Men. And it was then that I remembered when I, at the age of twelve (or maybe thirteen), after reading my first Jackie Collins book, Rock Star, thought to myself: "When I'm old enough, I'm going to write like this."

Now I'm old enough...and have spent the last month or so considering myself "finished" because I can't seem to do chick-lit right and actually, don't really want to...which makes me feel kind of icky and abnormal, considering that my one published book thus far can only be classified in the chick-lit category.

Anyway.

I don't deign to think that I could ever be as successful as Jackie Collins (and for those that would scoff and say, "Oh, please--Jackie Collins writes shallow trash," let's not be forgetting her 400 million books in print and have you ever allowed yourself to be so entertained?), I guess I'm just pleased to remember anew that she as a writer inspires me as a writer--always has, always will.

When I was in middle school, reading Rock Star--how Jackie inspired me was to show me a wild world beyond the quiet seclusion of my hometown, and beyond the frustrating trappings of my age.

How she inspires me tonight, with the thought that Jackie probably wasn't typing up The World is Full of Married Men while consumed by a paranoia that she was getting too old to make her mark, and by a worry that she couldn't possibly keep up with her contemporaries.

Well, it's been decades since her first book was published and she's only gotten better with time, and when you think about it (or at least when I think about it), Jackie Collins doesn't really have any contemporaries. She's just Jackie Collins.

Lovers and Players will be out in February.

I will be in the midst of a whole 'nother submission process.

Oh, Jackie. Thank you.