It's all measured out in coffee and cigarettes

So the economy is in the toilet. The world is on fire. All over the internet, writers are sending you spam emails and private messages telling you to please please please, buy their books. Everybody is the next So-and-So, the next best seller, the next award winner. Then you find out that publishing is dead. No, wait, it's alive. No, wait, it's dead again. But in any event, ebooks are the answer. Ebooks are our saviors.  Except, well, nobody seems to know how much it costs to produce them or how much they should charge to buy them.

And traditional publishing is the Devil, the enemy of art and progression. But so is self-publishing, leading good writers from the righteous path to the slush pile. Or something. So I guess no matter what, we're all screwed.

Honestly, I have no idea. I'm just going to continue over here in my corner, writing what I write. Doing what I do. Either I'll make money or I won't, and I'll stick with day-jobs. It doesn't really make much difference to me. But every day I keep that quote in mind. I take a deep breath and tell myself as long as somebody reads my stories, and somebody likes them, and somebody wants to read more of them, then I never really lose the race. Maybe I don't end up the next So-and-So, but I don't go home empty-handed.

That's why, on my twenty-fifth birthday, when I'll full of piss and vinegar, fully entrenched in my quarter-life crisis, I'm going to get that tattooed on my arm. That way, no matter what, I can look down and remind myself of what matters to me. I write because I want to, and because I'm good at it, and I don't want to do anything else.

That's going to be my gift to me. You can leave yours at the door, if you like.

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