UnNamed is in review...

Well, campaign is closed for voting for UnNamed on Kindle Scout. It will be under review 'im the next few days' so I cross my fingers and wait. Now, normally I work from a place of hope. Work and creativity are something I can apply optimism to and I'm usually very happy with the outcome.

Yet after the stress of knocking out some huge milestones, I've developed a rather cynical approach to how much I let potential rejection get to me. I expect it and plan for it. I don't even make the proverbial basket you count those chicken eggs in. It isn't that my confidence has been destroyed. I wouldn't still be hacking away on another book if that were true. I still take those disappointments and find positives lessons. Some people might call it a thicker skin or putting up a wall when it's not quite the same. I need a window into humanity to be a creator. Placing barriers might keep things from getting in but it also stops anything from getting out. Yeah, I've been there too. To express myself I was breaking walls then wasting time building them up again.

So no walls. Guarded gates, perhaps. Just like you don't put everything precious to you and brick it shut. Protecting things too much means you don't really get to enjoy it either. Again, been there. My stories were too precious, my ideas too vulnerable, lock them all up. No, that's not where you want to be. So where do you want to be when waiting to see if someone else thinks you've got what it takes?

Don't wait. In my case, I might have imagined positive and negative outcomes but until a thing happens, the emotions-- no matter how overwhelming-- are superficial. Much like empathy, no matter how strong, it's secondhand. I've lost my mother but I still have absolutely no clue how you feel even if you did too. I don't know how every conversation with her triggered all the things that make you you, nor if you were on good terms, nor how you grieved. The same goes for stressing yourself out about something that hasn't happened yet, even when you have a pretty good idea what might. You might be the sort of person brave enough to fight fires but the first time you walk into someones house and their pet ferret runs across your feet, you're shrieking for dear life. Thing is, most of us have no actual clue how we'll react to a situation until it's here.

Personal anecdote time! (I need to make a graphic for these.) When I was in sixth grade, I started to get bullied. In elementary school, I never had problems with anyone so it was a lot to take in and it lined right up with my mom and dad separating. Mom wasn't there and Dad was in pain; I was scared of being another problem so I kept myself alone with the pain more often than not. My best friend at the time starting shadowing a more popular girl but I was starting a friendship with another girl who was not only also bullied, but unfortunately much longer than I was. (I adore that girl to this day-- my nephews and her daughters go to the same school.) On top of this, the city decided I didn't need my best friends living at the end of the street as much as we needed another highway (how my young brain saw it). I considered myself pretty weak and an easy target with all the blows life had dealt.

One day, I had gone down the street, just to sit in the woods before they went and tore them down too. Rather than getting to feel sorry for myself, I thought life handed me another cruelty as a girl who enjoyed verbally abusing me came out of the woods carrying a big stick. Everything in me wanted to run but I froze to the spot. I can't remember what shitty things she said but the usual fear had flickered from rage to something cold, something alien to me then. She tried to hit me in the face with the stick and my arm shot up. I caught it and smacked her right in the side of her own head with it. Then that urge to flee I and wanted in the first place came to my aid. Guess which bitch didn't bully me anymore?

I wish I could say all of my run-ins with bullies went that well. Yes, I liked the taste of that victory and yes, I've found that cold satisfying reactionary place more than once. I'm sorry I can't say the bullying had ended and every confrontation gave me superpowers. It took a lot of standing up for myself until by high school, being 'weird' was my new successful bully repellant. I learned that most bravado fell flat and I was far more brilliant using logic and humor to avoid resorting to punching sense into people. Violence was never my first instinct but a frantic reaction to getting people out of my personal space.

Okay, slice of life served, let me reiterate: we are not chained to everything we think we are capable of, good or bad. It's never as simple as knowing yourself. The state I am in while waiting-not-waiting to see how this campaign goes comes down to this. It won't be my first letdown and won't be my last. It won't be the sort of victory I can retire on and quit for a life of luxury and ennui. It could change my life for the better or I keep going and work to release it anyway, another slower climb to the top. I've been through the most likely scenarios. I have no actual idea how I'm going to feel about rejection or success here. I have a book I'm drafting and that's my primary focus, the thing I'm doing regardless of the outcome. I'm focused there.

If you voted for me, let me personally thank you for that. The system doesn't show how many votes I get. (refreshing, if you ask me. I don't like fixating on numbers.) However, it does warm me that people want to see me succeed in my oddly humble goal to just get by on my own hard work. Not wealth, not fame, just a living doing what I love. I hope I have a little something for everyone eventually (just not all in one book because those books are for no one). Being an ecclectic sort, I plan on staying genre-curious. Fantasy will always be my main playground but I've got a lot of angles brewing.

Keep writing. Or reading. Mostly keep a sense of humor. Best armor ever.