Salutations, Friends!

I am never gonna be a successful author and the there are a solid number of reasons why.

First let’s define success.

In the world/country that I live in, I would define success as “making enough income to pay my bills”.

Because this shit is hard when you’re working another job. Especially when I have a job that triggers a lot of my health issues, but would never be able to get a different job that pays as much and isn’t worse.

The reason why I will never achieve this success.

#1 Capitalism

Like not even kind of joking
(Which reminds me, I should really check out this “Tiktok is making publishing fast fashion” thing that’s been going around. I’ve seen some info about it, but I really should read the whole thing.)

But anyways

#1. 5

Part of me is inclined to say that quitting social media is gonna have a negative impact, but I think that pulling back the focus that I was splitting for the sake of posting is gonna help with my actual creation… ness.
Plus I’ve actually been seeing a lot of creatives encouraging shifts to physical marketing because of low odds, increasingly hostile algorithms, and community members that are boldly fighting against changing systemic issues they benefit from.

Speaking of which

#2 I’m Done With Beta Readers

So a super fun aspect of being multi-marginalized is that it would probably be impossible to find another Autistic, Afro-latina, with Mental health problems, coming from an abusive home, etc… And because of that, every single time I’ve had a group of beta readers, at least one says something deeply, painfully ignorant. With my most recent book, Imani and Aaliyah’s Fashion Bible, I literally could not so much as pick up that book without having a traumatic episode. That book was supposed to have been fully published ages ago, but I went months without looking at it because I just couldn’t do it.
And if you’ve read my actual post on me quitting social media, you’ll know that my little heart really just can’t afford this being just “a part of the job”. I just can’t handle constantly facing bigotry in my most important spaces. And if your suggestion is to just make some good book friends, I recommend you check out that social media post again for the answer to that one.
This is a really big decision. And honestly, I hate myself for it.
I feel weak. I feel like a pathetic little bitch. I feel like a cry baby that can’t suck it up. I feel like I am giving up on myself and my dreams. But the fact of the matter is, if I don’t make a change, I won’t be writing long enough to chase those dreams anyway.
And while it may sound depressing, the only way I’ve been able to reconcile this in my own head is to loose hope. To be “cynical” in thinking that none of this was going to go anywhere anyway, so I might as well not break myself along the way.
And this post is kind of part of that. Part of me thinks this will scare people away and ensure that I don’t accidentally get a little too hopeful. So this’ll nip it in the bud before I set myself up for more heartbreak.

(Though I will admit that me writing and feeling this while white authors continue to actively behave in bigoted ways and then get coddled after does fill me with a lot of fury.)

And the last reason why I’m not gonna be a successful author. (At least that I’m gonna be talking about here)

#3 I’m Back to Embracing My Inner Jack of All Trades

When I was in high school, I was in at least 8 different extracurriculars at a time. And I was well decorated in a lot of them (Not a brag. A side effect of being a multi-talented black girl in a white area is that Grown Ass Adults that did not know the full Jack of All Trades quote used to Fully Bully Me about being in more than one club and the trauma lingers.)
But I wasn’t just in those clubs and such for the way they’d look on my college apps. I just am passionate about a lot of things. And if we’re being really really realistic, all of these are genuinely building blocks to other things I wanted to do. The conditioning I built up in cheer and ROTC (#ACAB) did wonders for my breath support in choir. Choir helped me learn to count music which helped me run cheer routines. The list literally goes on and on.

I’ve also always been really good at learning and the way different passions provide me with different perspectives to view something at is extremely key to that.

And as someone who has shark brain (literally if I’m not actively working of some part of a project I feel like my brain just shuts down and it’s super hard to regain momentum with it again) I think this is probably a good route for me to be going.

Final thoughts

I do think I’ll be better off this way. I just don’t think this is a world I fit and if I can’t even make connections close to me there’s no reason to think that I could have reach either. And I think that with what time I have left, I should spend it chasing what feeds me instead of trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.

Until next time

Valedictions, friends.