Fail Again; Fail Better

Here's what I know.

In the last 6 years, I've had 36 stories picked up for publication in various art and literary magazines/journals.

That's six stories published a year.
That's one every two months for 72 months.

Many of them have been included in my first two short story collections. Others are going into the upcoming collection to be released a long, long, long time from now.

But this productivity, this level of personal success, is not something I expected. If you'd asked me ten years ago where I'd be at this point, "writing short stories" would not have been my answer by any stretch of the imagination. I was working on full-length books; novels.

And so I'm crazy thankful to have this kind of progress to look back on. I get to see the trail of completed and published stories in the wake I leave behind, and it's pretty awesome.

But I have a very small inkling of how many of them have been read. I doubt I'm at the top of anyone's "to read" pile in any immediate and serious way; this would require me to be known more in the literary community. I have a few friends who gladly read whatever I send their way, and I'm always thankful for their commentary. They are good readers and they are honest with their opinions.

They are MY readers. And every writer should have some in his or her corner to help put them back on the ride when the writer seems to have gotten off-track. These people are essential in helping the creative forces remain steady in producing narratives.

A huge problem with self-publishing one's work, regardless of whether it's been published elsewhere first or not, is that building an audience is fucking hard. It's not just hard, it's fucking hard. Like any other creative endeavor, you've got to get out and hustle your own work. You've got to convince people that you're worth reading, even if they see you putting in the time day in and day out. Even if they see you getting published on the regular, you have to give them something they'll want to never put down, something they'll want to tell their friends about.

And so it came time to put out my most recent book, "The Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories." While the stories in my first book were important, I also wanted to treat their writing as if it were a jungle gym or a playground; how much could I stretch out and play with narrative structures while still retaining stories that would captivate an audience?

But with "MotH:LS," I focused entirely on creating dense stories that were less playful and were meant to take heavy, emotional tolls on the readers. I was requiring a different level of work with this book than I asked of the readers from the first one.

And while Rob, my friend/cover artist/creative cohort, and I finally figured out how to raise the bar on this release and really get people engaged with the book, he turned and asked me an important question.

"What if no one ever engages with these little easter eggs that you've put in here?"

I shrugged. Put simply, we had created something fun and interesting, but, with all due respect, fuck'em if they weren't gonna come along for the ride. It wasn't my job to handhold the readers to lead them to the extra bits.

Nearly two months out, however, and almost no one's coming along for the ride. The question is no longer "what if no one engages with the easter eggs?" Instead, the question has become "what if no one reads the book?"

And so, my dear friend Shauna, a great devourer of books in general (and who also lent her audio talents to the first enhanced story in the collection) has lit a fire under my ass to do readings around town and outside of town.

And so we hustle. And even after all this work, if no one buys another copy of either of my books, and after we've done a few readings across the midwest and tried a little digital marketing to get copies in front of people outside our friend groups...well, we'll still have created something pretty great and interesting and that's really all anyone can want at the end of the day.

I'm still looking to blow a few extra minds here and there, however. I hope they're out there and ready for me.

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