Earlier this week, my husband asked me what our plans were for 2018. It was a serious question, not a casual one. It had been a tough few years, with life looking like we’d been walking on a tight wire fifty feet off the ground. I can’t even pinpoint the exact moment when it all became a hot mess. Was it back in high school when my abusive brother-in-law would throw harmful lies about us left and right, making it all but impossible to do normal things like plan for the future because my husband’s family turned hostile to our relationship? Which made my family turn hostile to him in return? Our attempt to escape the toxicity led to us making life decisions 17-year-olds really shouldn’t have to make, which had a domino effect–one challenge rolling into the next until it felt like we were just getting slammed every time we got up.
But all the hardship hardened us. Taught us the value of hard work, of doing more than what was needed especially when the world refuses to give you opportunities. The years rolled into a life that is, if you think about it, pretty damn amazing considering we live about an hour out of one of the most expensive cities in North America and we had to overcome so many obstacles just to get here. We have our own home–it’s not too big and we had to build it ourselves, but it’s home. Despite not having the opportunity for college–he took a trade certificate that he paid for, while working in the evenings when I was pregnant with our first child–my husband managed to pick up some impressive skills that resulted in a job that keeps us fed. Which meant that when I lost my job, we could afford to think about our options for a while. We reasoned that if I returned to work, we wouldn’t save that much more anyway–childcare leaves very little out of my paycheck every month, and the past few years I’d just been plowing through work, saving what was left and not really enjoying life all that much. We could try to meet that gap, we reasoned–that less than a thousand dollars I was saving at work could be found elsewhere.
The whole of last year, we were busy working at our individual projects–his industrial maintenance business for him, my writing for mine. His endeavour yielded more results–more clients, actual money. Mine yielded the beginnings of a platform–people who supported me and happily shared my work, when it was just dead silence the years before that–which meant organic sales that pay off my ads and three new novels. Nothing groundbreaking, but lots of positive, encouraging signs. Signs are okay, I guess, when you’re looking at a dwindling bank account. (Net positive income would be even better, but maybe we’ll see that come tax return time…at least, before property tax takes it all away again).
So when he asked me that question, the only thing I could tell him is, “We endure.”
All the past few years, we had persisted. Had banged our heads against the impossible to find that chink in the armour that would let us get through. We were blind to people telling us that plans don’t always work out, that the things we want seem like a pipe dream. Nothing came easy–we crawled our way to today.
And now? I had always wanted to be a writer; he had always wanted his own business. We fought for this opportunity–the logical choice is to fight even harder. Which is easy to say, but kind of actually really tough when you’re looking back at years of doing nothing but that. Sleep off the exhaustion…tomorrow is another day. Next week, I’m back on the grind. I’ve got a short story anthology that I’ve been editing over the break, and I still need to finish two stories for that before I can offer it to people. Once that’s done (shouldn’t take more than a couple of days), I’m off to finish a trilogy. The Wolf of Oren-yaro has been receiving some very positive comments so far and it’s not even out yet, and I owe it to all those readers–but most importantly, to myself–to finish this on a high note. I suppose it helps a lot that I love this craft more than words can say.
So every time I come across an article that says, for example, how much more difficult it is to sell books when you’re a PoC writer…how drawing people to your world or getting some readers to connect to your characters can be a lot harder because it isn’t the typical, and how you’ll lose readers just by nature of being diverse even though being diverse is your default and you can’t help it…I just have to remind myself that the challenges don’t go away just because I want them to. Endure. What else can I do? Bitching only really helps to get you through the day, but afterwards you have to get up and try a little harder.
Is five book releases–one anthology, four epic novels–“trying hard” enough for you, 2018?
