Nobody is going to find you

It’s exhausting. It’s time-consuming. Most days it feels like a waste of time. Many days it is a waste of time. And you have to do it for years and years, bashing your head against a wall over and over again. It’s physically painful and mentally taxing.

Nobody wants to do it. Almost everybody gives up. You need a will of iron to keep going. You have to be a little crazy to do it. You will look like a fool. People will laugh at you. You will feel like a failure. Most people won’t care, and it will rip out your heart. Those that do care will be too few and far between. But that is the truth. The brutal, honest truth of it all. Nobody is going to magically find you. You have to find them.

Then, you have to work your ass off to make them care about you. You have to make books that bedazzle them and intoxicate them. You have to be present for them and show you are worth something. And you have to do it over and over again for longer than you ever thought possible–until you bleed all over the floor–until you have nothing left. Then you have to fill yourself up and do it all over again. All the time, you have to keep writing. And writing. And writing.

That’s why your book isn’t selling. Because you didn’t do any of that. And if you are doing that, then just keep going, because one day it will come together in a beautiful way. Everything will start firing like magic, and all of that work will pay off.