I recently blew up everything.
In August I decided to just do what I would do if I could not fail.
- I finished and submitted True Blue Lies. (A mystery/romance)
- I finished a full-on Teachable class on Journaling and set up the elaborate promotion system to sell the class for the month of September.
- I finished and submitted wild and crazy poems to 15 journals.
- I got my first tattoo.

And by September 30 the results were in!
The only thing that worked was the tattoo. Pretty happy with it.
Every other project failed in a very big, very public, very spectacular way.
The response and the results came to exactly zero.
It is said that the only things we regret are the things we never tried. Had I not tried the online class, I would have always wondered, what if? If I hadn’t submitted the manuscript, I would have wondered, what if? If I hadn’t submitted the poetry . . . You get the idea. I would love to always win, always be successful, wouldn’t we all? But how much emptier life would be if we never tried in the first place. We must keep trying and practice not only our art but our resilience. The big win is learning that it is not the response to your slam poem, it’s the win of standing up to read, and not dying in the attempt. It’s learning that you become a better writer every time (and I really mean every time) you run through another edit of your book. The win is knowing that organizing new ways to promote your art is exciting rather than debilitating.
To that end, I’m giving my blog a break.
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Thank you.