Make It

My last book was published four years ago today.

That was one amazing summer. This Body's first edition and the Meddling Kids paperback came out in the same month. The photographic evidence of that period on my phone is a stream of hotel rooms, bookstores, comic cons, and Kimrean cosplayers. I had the time of my life.

And then.

There is a pervasive habit of discussing a writer's success, or any artist's, by saying that they "made it". I always bridle at questions using that phrasing. First, because "making it" conveys that there is some sort of bar to be cleared separating hopefuls from achievers. That's false: like most things once believed to be binaries, success is a spectrum. And second, "making it" seems to imply that it can't be unmade. But it can. One underperforming book, a couple bad decisions, a sprinkle of bad luck, and a recession to top, and you're all the way back to struggling artist. Juggling jobs, rent, and scrambling for people's attention. In four years, I've gone back to my 25. Eat my ass, Estée Lauder.

We talk about art like it's a race. We encourage each other to never give up, never relent, until we reach some goal, but there is no goal. Summer 2018 was not my goal; it was just an extraordinarily good thing that happened to me, all the better because I got it by doing something that I would've done anyway. I still do it: I write what I like. 

Forget about "making it": art is the purpose, not the means. If your purpose is to get rich, just eat richer people.