Breaking the Fourth Wall of Writing

I feel so pathetic today. I wish I could say I have a thick skin. I don't. Maybe I should have spent the rest of my life writing in deep obscurity. I shouldn't have to worry about relative obscurity. I'm there.

As a writer, I feel ridiculous.

So, I got onto Twitter and posted a bunch of shit this morning. That was supposed to make me feel better, but now that my phone's battery is dead, I don't feel much better.

Yesterday, someone who read my book, Angry Housewife Fights Tyranny, my reaction to Trump's election, told me she thought it was repetitive. Of course it was repetitive. The news was repetitive. I didn't tell her that. Instead, I wondered if I should try to fix it. Someone I don't know also wrote that it was pathetic in my Amazon review when the book first came out and that word has stuck in my craw for months now. How do you fix pathetic? Never mind all of the encouragement my friends and a few strangers have given me. Why can't I blot out the hate? Because of this book, someone called me promiscuous. He didn't know a thing about me. He just said it because I support Planned Parenthood and wrote that they had helped me when I was young. His words didn't make sense with regard to who I am, but they still hurt.

The day before yesterday, Mike said I needed to get a job. He's said this before so I thought we were really hurting for money but then yesterday he suggested that we fly to Las Vegas for spring break. I've been making my espressos at home for months now because I thought we were broke. I'd been thinking I was causing trouble in our house because I didn't bring in cash to the equation. Then, he says we're going to Las Vegas on vacation, hotels, shows, and gambling? Does he think that walking away from my dream of making a living as a writer and getting a 'real' job is going to make me feel better?

I know he's not trying to be mean. I know he thinks I'll feel better if I earn a paycheck for a while. He may be right about that since my royalties are a joke. But there's a part of me that wants to keep trying, to keep marketing, to keep editing, to keep writing until I get somewhere. I feel some kind of compulsion to do this job even if it is hard, even if I am ridiculous for continuing to try when I'm obviously not succeeding. I'm pretty sure that Mike will never understand my passion for these projects. I'm not completely sure I understand it myself.

Three days ago, the agent who was interested said that my wild kitten book, Dirty and Afraid, was warm and funny, but also languid so she couldn't sell it. Since when should a book about a kitten keep you on the edge of your seat? The problem is that she doesn't think she can sell it. Can't sell it. CAN'T SELL IT.

Those words keep going around and around in my head.

What now?

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Here's the plan I keep telling myself to implement:

• edit the kitten book for its pacing,
• send queries for the kitten book to other agents,
• casually continue to market my Tyranny book,
• protest to protect our country-I'm probably missing a Seattle DACA protest right now, and
• edit my next book. 

But there's this rotten little worm that keeps boring through good wood. Why bother? What if all the silence means I'm not a good writer instead of one who doesn't know how to manage search engine optimization? Does the devil work in this way, selling doubt as truth, diminishing the light of joy that comes from creating something for the world?

This is not the type of thing I want to write in a blog, but it's what's on my mind.

I feel broken, so I'm breaking all my rules about the fourth wall. Here I am staring into the camera at you. I admit that I'm a writer. I always will be. Yet, I'm a writer who's broken. It's hard to put it all out there, to stand naked on the stage speaking the lines. It's hard to put my whole heart into my work only to think the audience might stand up, pick up their coats, and leave the room. This isn't an easy path.

Thank you for listening, jb