Over this past couple of weeks, I hit a couple of career setbacks in quick succession.
- My book Kickstarter failed.
- I put out a call for a cover designer explicitly stating I wanted to hire a traditional artist who didn’t use GenAI. I couldn’t find a single person. I plan to keep repeating the request until I find someone. But the silence on a request for originality and proper licensure was incredibly disheartening for me as a creator.
- I got another rejection on one of my books. I’ve gotten used to those and don’t take them at all personally or as a qualification of my skills. But this rejection was not a rejection based on lack of agent-writer fit or undesirable concept. It was solely because I don’t have more followers on social media. The merit of the book didn’t matter. Only whether I’m established online (so the publisher has a better chance of people buying) did. My heart broke not just for myself, but for every other fantastic author who is burned out trying to build a following and who just wants to write books.
- I held meetings with multiple individuals in hopes of conducting a social media marketing audit. The goal was to better understand how to connect with readers in a way that would build my following (see above point) and share my content in a clearer, more enticing way. Some individuals never followed up, while others spent most of the time trying to upsell to services I didn’t need.
To be clear, I don’t run from difficulty. Those who know me well know that I live by Yoda’s creed — do or do not; there is no try. That’s not because I leave no room for mistakes. Rather, it’s because I believe in sticking things out and finding a way when something truly matters.
But the hard lesson of all of these recent irritations, combined with a million other injustices and traumas that rest in my core, is that a person can work hard and still have systems or the decisions of others hold them back. They can be squeaky-clean self-accountable and make ridiculously difficult sacrifices and still not get the last $0.01 they need to make $1.
When I was younger, I believed that the world would support talent and beautiful things, so long as people did their part to contribute well. That’s the message capitalist America sends — everybody’s got a fair shot, so just work hard and win. But the points above are just the latest pieces to add to decades of evidence that suggests that the world can conspire against those it needs the most. It can be a quagmire of thieves, red tape, and poor logic that blocks what is best from human beings. Fairness often does not hold, and there is often no champion to defend those who are the most innocent and in needed of protection. The most recent slew of headlines around government program cuts that affect the elderly, poor, and sick epitomizes this.
This isn’t to say I have no hope or will quit. Rather, it’s to say that, in the quagmire, the surety of my values has become absolute. With every encounter, I have gained clarity on what needs to hold.
I will not pick up a dagger when now I know I need a sword.
Those who say they want fresh thinking and art, only to devour those who dare to challenge broken systems and norms, won’t fool me anymore. I know now what they look like and how they trick people.
Yet, I feel it.
The sadness in the idea that the sword is necessary. The fatigue of understanding that there will be no chance in the battle for me — or anyone else who is fighting — to catch a breath. The grief of knowing what I trusted was only illusion.
But I understand that
God did not make me captain over a shoddy ship. I am not here to show cowardice. Even in my sadness, fatigue, and grief, I will do and not try. Apathy overcomes nothing.
