As it turned out, Hawke, never wrote that prose poem, and a nation sighs in relief. What he did write was an endearing, if slight, first novel called The Hottest State (208 pages. Little, Brown. $26.95). “State” concerns William Harding, a horny young actor, and Sarah Wingfield, an unhorny young singer who messes with his head, big time. It’s a pleasantly honest book, ardent about love and New York, cynical about acting and sex (“I only had sex with her once. She lightly patted my back the whole time, continuously whispering, ‘Good boy’ “). Hawke’s resume may seem a little much: he has also cofounded Manhattan’s Malaparte Theater Co., directed a short film and a music video and rasped a tune on the “Reality Bites” soundtrack. But “The Hottest State” turns out to be one of the least pretentious things ever written by someone with a goatee.

Hawke finished a first draft of the novel in 1994. He gave it to a friend, who gave it to a friend and so on. Suddenly, Random House was on the phone with an offer. Hawke knew the manuscript needed work, and felt the publisher was in too much of a hurry to cash in on his name. “I knew they were trying to take advantage of me because they didn’t s want me to do a rewrite,” he says. Before Hawke signed a contract, some overheated sentences were mysteriously leaked and ridiculed in the press–“She makes me crazy like crazy insane crazy”–and he withdrew the novel. “It was humiliating,” says Hawke. “I was so embarrassed that I put the book in a drawer. But then I went, ‘What the f— am I scared of?.’ Publishing this novel forces me not to care what people say. It’s a problem with a lot of actors: there’s this great susceptibility to what other people think: Its why actors are the least emotionally prepared people in the world to be famous.”

Hawke stopped making movies and rewrote his novel for 18 months. He then sold the book to Little, Brown for a reported $300,000. The leaked passages are gone: there are bad sentences in “State,” but only a handful are bad like bad horrible bad. Despite advance sniping, the novel is a credible debut and writing it ultimately helped the actor’s self-image. Hawke’s hero is embarrassed by the emptiness of acting, and Hawke himself wants more. “I grew up in a household that encouraged the jack-of-all-trades mentality,” says the actor, who was raised in New Jersey. “My stepfather is a painter, a sculptor and a musician. He’s a big believer in having a full life.”

Hawke has now returned to his day job as a movie star, making the sci-fi thriller “Gattia” and playing Pip in a modernized “Great Expectations.” (He met Uma Thurman on the “Gattica” set. He hedges when asked if they’re dating, then blurts, “I’m crazy about her. She’s definitely one of the most spectacular women I’ve ever met in my whole life.”) Hawke would like to write another book. In truth, he’d like to take a shot at everything. “I can’t sleep,” he explains. “And I can’t sit still:”