WE CONTINUE OUR JOURNEY INTO THE GUTTERS, all the stuff that happens between the amazing success stories people collect to make a highlight reel of their career so that it seems like their life is a series of powerfully compelling moments, but is, in fact, a false flag operation for how reality actually unfolds as you toil in obscurity before becoming worm poop. You know, life!
So while I could razzle-dazzle you with contract signings, short story sales, and novel revisions, let’s examine five things that were happening as I crawled from nowhere into being a published, but not professional, author. Because professionals get paid.
* * *
The Year was 2000. Y2K had failed to destroy Earth. Randy “Macho Man” Savage was still alive (praise be to him). And this was what yours truly was doing to make his stupid dreams come true.
As the kids say, that learned me! So I got righteous. No more working for free. If you were going to shit on my story with awful production, you’d need to “cross my palm with silver” as Harlan Ellison noted. I needed to get SOMETHING for my labor beyond default identity theft.
That argument rested, however, on a major presumption: paying markets would want my work. So far, there was ZERO evidence that they wanted anything from me, or ever would. I’d need to drill down, work hard, and up my game. But, as you may have noticed, I was already burning out . . .
So, how long until I sold anything else?
FIND OUT . . . NEXT MONTH! Same Ridler Time, Same Ridler Channel!
Until then, go buy Jay’s latest novel with a brand new cover, A TRIUMPH FOR SAKURA, which award-winning writer and editor Nancy Kilpatrick called “Hunger Games, Fight Club, and True Blood rolled into one bloody good novel.” BUY IT NOW, BE HAPPY FOREVER!
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