Well, I sent the writing sample and a cover letter (I am not good at cover letters. Please, God – let the read the sample before the cover letter) to Level Four Publishing and we’ll see what happens from there. If I get rejected – then nothing changes for me, really. I continue with The Deadly Barrows and try to get that going. If I am accepted, then everything changes for me. I’ll be under contract and making money for a change doing this (even more if they sell!). Might even be enough to get away from working for a living to writing. I figure they want 100,000 words every three months. With a five thousand advance, and if I just break even – that’s $20,000 a year. Enough to cover my expenses if I do nothing else but write.

If Level Four doesn’t drop me after one book.

That’s a possibility. I could be a New York Times bestseller. I could be a flop. At least I didn’t quit.

And that’s the one thing: it has never occurred to me that I should quit this. Sure – I’ll get roundly abused (‘more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war’ is how I look at it) by my writing group, but I’ve never thought about chucking everything in the air and saying “fuck it”. I look at the lack of sales, but I’ve never felt deep failure. I just need to find a better way to get my stuff out there. Is it stubbornness when I can’t conceptualize another option?

Look at this blog. I think I only have two steady readers (Hi!) but churn it out as often as I can. I might take a “sabbatical”, but I don’t quit it completely.

So, I say to you all (all two of you, so pay attention) and I know it sounds trite and hackneyed but Do Not Give Up. Follow the advice of poet Charles Bukowski: “Find what you love and let it slowly kill you.”

Die for love, my darlings.