Returning to Form

Of the times I have tried to return, this one feels the most honest. The other times I can say felt more like wanting to come back rather than being back, the precursor echoes of a day you know is coming but you are not really ready for. Today, I am ready, and I have returned.

The world has changed and changed again. I am hoping the current state of madness we find ourselves in passes soon, and life returns to a boring, everyday state where we are looking towards a better future more than we are crying about a tragic past.

The past shall always suck.

How are you going to avoid repeating those mistakes?

I have friends trying to hustle and make it in their own markets, and I see how hard it is for them. I know all my publishing data is out of date, yet still I shall try. I shall make a run of this and keep selling. The dream is simple, to live on what my books provide, and to provide readers what they wish to see.

I serve those who share the love. Always.

This is not the market I left. The one where you could put out thousands of 4,000 word shorts at 2.99 and make a living by riding the wave. I have also walked away and lost my audience. I have stopped reviewing. I am, for all intents and purposes, a nobody again.

Starting over.

I know the flash and appeal of new media, but those are markets where you are often spending as much as you make just to keep up. Video production, multimedia affairs, interactive entertainment, and even digital art is all very cost and time intensive for one person to keep up with, and I feel while flashy and high-visibility, they are just too much work to put out and risk being ignored or lost in the shuffle.

But I have a voice. I have some series that are well-loved. I have a foundation but the structure above was ripped off by the hurricane.

I can rebuild.

And to those who see a slab of concrete and some utility hookups and cry there is no house here anymore, I smile and say to them, imagine the house we shall build together here.

Those who visit will never know the old one was gone.

And the new one shall be so much better.