Book worries

Here are some of the things I'm thinking and feeling at the moment - mostly in the form of questions.

I feel impatient for the book to be completely, completely finished - edited and proofed and everything, with a publisher and a release date, so that it can get out there into the world and I can say what I want to say.

I am worried about my next projects. I wrote this book with so much of my heart and so much urgency - I feel like it really needed to be written. I don't want to write books without that sort of passion. Will I be able to find another project that I can give the same kind of intensity to? And am I going to be able to write about anything other than Zimbabwe? Do I want to?

How will people react to the book? I am so worried that it won't be as ... important, for want of a better word, as I want it to be. I worry about writing as a white Zimbabwean, and being misunderstood. It is so much harder to be a black Zimbabwean, and their suffering is so many million times what the white suffering is - I know that. But my perspective is a white one, necessarily.

How is my family going to react? They appear in the book in various forms, as amalgams with other people or as transformed or tweaked versions of themselves. Am I going to stir up yet more trouble, particularly with my dad (who I was estranged from for a long time)?

Do I know enough about my subject? Have I learned enough about the history and the politics to stand up under hard questioning?

And, of course, what will be the Zimbabwean government's reaction to this? Will it put any of my friends or family who are still there in any sort of danger? Will I ever be able to go back? Do I want to?