the underwear drawer

entitled

So I think I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that the title on my book will not be my first choice, nor will it likely be my second or third or even fourth choice. I understand that there is such thing as people who are in charge of sales and marketing, and that it obviously behooves me (whether the choice is mine or not) to cede such decisions that have to do with sales and marketing to the experts. I also understand that the point of book publishing is to sell books, not just to write books in some hermetic bunker like J.D. Salinger is rumored to and stash the manuscripts (each increasingly more obscure and inscrutable than the last--did you read "Hapworth 16, 1924"?) in some safe deposit box somewhere in Cornish, New Hampshire. It is an honor and a priveledge to know that my book is going to be published soon--actually published, and distributed, like, in bookstores--and that regardless of what the title is, it doesn't change the words or story inside.

However, I will also say that knowing that someone else is going to be putting the title on your book feels not unlike letting someone else name your baby. "What do you mean you think he looks like a 'David'? He looks nothing like a 'David'! Where the hell did you come up with the name 'David' anyway? DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BABIES?"

Well, anyway. The lessons of life, learned during medical training through widely generalizable, as as follows. Forget your ego. Play ball. What will be, will be. To do be able to do this kind of work is an honor. So there you are.

I am glad everyone is liking the new comics, by the way. I will keep running a panel a day, with the complete, six-panel version of this week's comic, How to Annoy a Resident, to be posted on Sunday.