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- [DIGEST] Would it be so bad if the world owed us something?
[DIGEST] Would it be so bad if the world owed us something?
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Hi friends,
I grew up believing the world owed us nothing, but the older I get the more I think that’s not true. The universe might not give us anything, but being given and being owed are two different things. I have friends who have owed me money for years but have never given it back to me.
Lack of repayment even after decades does not cancel out those debts. We are not the federal student loan program, which can be luffed off until the debt washes away after 20-25 years. We can forgive that debt if we so choose, but we are not required to forgive it by any means. I know plenty of old people still bitter at long-dead friends for slights they committed 50+ years ago.
I try to be more enlightened than that, but at the end of the day, I am (and we all are) little more than a 6-lb blobo of fat that somehow grew sentience between the ears of a meat robot they have no idea how to operate. My blobo has been randomly pushing buttons for decades to understand how to operate the body it was trapped inside. Along the way, they’ve been able to parse out basic controls through trial and error, but they still aren’t a very good pilot. Certainly not good enough to become "enlightened” in any but the most perfunctory manner.
When it comes down to brass tacks, I never asked to be born. More days than not I range somewhere between ambivalent and resigned to the burden of existence, and I have merciful few days where I regret, rue, or lament the debt bestowed on me. Getting my blobo from wanting to jump off a bridge most days to being pretty neutral about its existence has been the work of a lifetime.
The fact that I overcame those 40 years of constant mental struggle through a combination of tricking my body into behaving and a concoction of drugs that numb the little blobo of fat between my ears doesn’t absolve the debtor, nor at any point was I ever presented with a dowry, or even so much as a Starbucks coupon, for my troubles.
Why are no ambulance-chasing lawyers offering me compensation for such a slight? I demand to see the contract I signed that foisted life onto me. In lieu of that, the world does owe me something. The universe is in my debt and the debt of us all.
I am here through no fault of my own, and whether the universe is a sentient being or not, something aside from me is responsible for my being here. The debt of my existence is tallied somewhere, and that debt has never been forgiven or repaid. Like a deadbeat parent, I don’t expect the universe to settle that debt, but failure to remit payment does not absolve it, either.
Without seeing the receipts, the only person assuredly not responsible for me being here is me. It would be like being kidnapped and told your kidnapper didn’t owe you anything. I was not asked to be kidnapped. I was dragged here against my will. At the very least the universe owes setting me free and making me whole.
Maybe the world wouldn’t be so close to burning down every moment if the universe paid its debts. If the world doesn’t owe me anything, I would like to speak to the world’s manager, because somebody carries my life debt and I at least want a jumbo butter pecan waffle cone in compensation.
I guess the universe did give us weird art like the type found in Luna Luna, the first (and only, as far as I know) carnival where the rides were created by world-class artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Salvador Dali, and more. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, and my special kink is things that shouldn’t exist but do, so I was in heaven last week when we went for my friend’s birthday.
Okay, universe, maybe I will hold off sending a cease and desist for one more week, but you are on notice. I expect my pound of flesh for forcing me into this 180-lbs of flesh.
If you want to share how you are doing this week, then there are two ways to interact with this post.
1 - If you don’t want to say anything, or bristle at identifying yourself, then you can reply with this nifty poll.
2 - If you’re feeling very brave, then reply below and tell us how you are doing right now on a scale from 1-5.
I did too much this week and my body is punishing me. When we started selling this live course, I didn’t realize I had long COVID, and the combination of running it, our monthly membership call, and a webinar destroyed my body. I sat on the couch laying down for four hours and my heart rate was still racing at the end of it. 1.5
LAST WEEKEND: Do you adore fairy tales? Are you obsessed with mythology? Do you flip for portal fantasy?
Fairy tales are real.
Rose Briar is a diabetic college student without insurance. She’s been scraping by through a combination of maxing out credit cards and relying upon the kindness of strangers.
Unfortunately, she’s spent every dollar at her disposal. There’s no money left to buy her life-saving insulin.
Without her medication, Rose falls into a diabetic coma. She tumbles into a deep slumber and wakes up in a fantastical place called the Dream Realm, where fairy tales and legends of old are still very much alive.
She has one chance to wake up.
She must trek across the world, visit the most powerful object in the land, the Obsidian Spindle, and entreat the fates; the only beings powerful enough to send her soul back to Earth.
But evil forces don’t want her to leave. They will stop at nothing to capture her and make sure she never goes home again.
Now, with the help of her half-gorgon girlfriend and a mysterious red rider, Rose must race across the land fighting dragons, monsters, and the forces of the Wicked Witch, Nimue, in order to reach the Obsidian Spindle before her body dies on Earth and she’s trapped in the Dream Realm forever.
Will she be able to wake up? Can she survive? That is the genesis of the Obsidian Spindle Saga (simplified sometimes as TOSS below), and the first book The Sleeping Beauty.
These are NOT retellings, but a new interpretation inspired by them.
WHAT WE WROTE ON SUBSTACK: This week, I wrote about one of my favorite author growth tactics, The Bullseye Method. Plus, teaches lessons in chemistry, wrote about growth, (online) engagement, and the diamond ring.
The address inside Marcus’s folder led me to a big house on the hill overlooking Cape Town. A squad of demons patrolled the perimeter and roof of the walled building. It wasn’t abnormal for complexes in South Africa to have their own security, but it was unusual for that security to be demons.
Demons were the most expensive monsters to hire, and they were rare, so it was uncommon to find more than one on a payroll, let alone the ten I counted patrolling the complex, and likely more inside. I had only ever seen that many demons once before—at the demon complex in the Hollywood Hills during my botched attack, which made it a good bet that Et’atal was hidden inside this place right now. Poor Marcus might have stumbled on something real this time and died for it.
I cased the place for three weeks, looking for weaknesses, and was quite upset that I didn’t find a single one. It would take an army to storm the building, and the last time I did something like that, I ended up nearly burnt by Hellfire. No, I would have to take a more subtle tact than when I attacked Et’atal’s Los Angeles house.
Luckily, he left every day at 11 am, like clockwork, in a black stretch limo flanked by motorcycles, to meet up one of his many mistresses around the city.
All chapters of The Godsverse Chronicles are now free for all subscribers. You can read the whole series from the beginning right here.
You still only get access to a bunch of free books and stories from my back catalog by becoming a paid member. You can start your membership with a 7-day free trial.
UPCOMING ARTICLE: Next week, we’re exploring subscriptions for every ecosystem. I’ve been writing this Author Ecosystems series for about six months and I’m about done with my part of it. I just have a few more to launch, but they are already written.
Building subscriptions into your business is one of the most important ways you can create stability as a writer. Kickstarter launches are great to infuse quick cash into your business, but in order to make long-term plans, it’s important to know how much money you have coming into your business predictably every month.
Even though I am very, very, very good at predicting the arc of a Kickstarter campaign, my estimates fall within a range of a few thousand dollars. When you get subscriptions working inside your business, you can start knowing exactly how much money is flowing through your business. More than anything else, this is the best way to combat the feelings of uncertainty that plague almost all writers.
In publishing, I see two types of subscription programs working well right now; publication and association.
In the publication model, customers pay to access the complete archive of a publisher’s content. This includes any previously released work and any paid content created specifically for paid members.
ROUNDUP: Here are some of my favorite articles of the week.
Business-y:
embraces the challenges of easy success, notices who they are, crafts a thoughtful brand, and learned valuable lessons from putting their dog on Instagram.
stops ignoring the politics in personal finance, provides lifestyle pricing, and strategizes tactics to meet goals.
goes from seven failures to 10x growth, avoids incepting negative ideas, and benchmarks the quality of their benchmarks.
gives each social media post a job, causes correlation to Poor Things, and tries to save the open web with Google’s new APIs.
doesn’t fear something going wrong, picks apart stress layers, and engineers money out of thin air.
vacillates between financial binging and financial anorexia while dissects the five categories of AI filmmaking before talking to about interviewing dead people with AI.
Publishing-like:
needs authors to leave the mystery out of pitches, gives good data on why 2024 is the year you should start a Substack, gets creative about AI-produced writing, and became their own hero (post)1.
owns their writing year, had no idea what her memoir was about until they wrote the last line, chides a Taylor Swift pseudonym for tricking fans, and gives their one, all-encompassing media prediction.
breaks down what a developmental editor does, recounts the secret history of self-publishing comics, and becomes a writing nomad.
explores “you” in five ways, wonders if writer’s block exists, and tries habit stacking.
finds two kinds of students, becomes a late bloomer in 2024, and won their 10-year battle with procrastination.
thrives in the long tail of media, makes the case for more AI in publishing, and is still (kinda) on a perpetual book tour, but aren’t we all in the end?
breaks down their cover strategy, wants to make money on Substack, and corrects common misperceptions about publishing.
grew their Substack audience by 1,400 subscribers in under two months, defines story, and bores of best practices.
Culture-ish:
flutters in the endless now, is 40 years on from buying their first Mac with Douglas Adams, hates surprises, and benefits from the Curb Cut Effect.
tries to get the magic working again, journals to capture everyday magic, and blesses their heart.
salves a common burn, reads 100 books a year, and creates masterpieces on the cheap.
tries to keep going, permits people to still say “women”, and swears off gratitude.
defends the Nickelback of months against capitalism, can’t let go of Verizon because of capitalism, and thinks AI might support human consciousness thanks to capitalism.
weave our roots through the newness of our lives, find unexpected joy in the “Old Age” filter, and waits 22 years before tying the knot.
is good at saying things are not bad, doesn’t know what they don’t know, and changes their personality with help from science.
pledges allegiance to Texas, recovers from being whitewashed, and fails a lot.
Find anything you loved enough to swoon over or hated enough to make your blood boil? Let me know.
If you like what I’m doing around here and want to check out the archives, you can do that with a 7-day free trial, or simply go straight to being a paid subscriber. You also get access to my fantasy novel, Anna and the Dark Place.
Anna cannot escape death. It follows her everywhere. First with her aunt, then her father, and now her best friend Katie has died after a long battle with cancer.
With her best friend gone, Anna is falling apart. So, when Katie’s ghost returns from beyond the pale talking about a tear in the barrier between the living of the dead, Anna is sure she’s gone crazy.
She denies Katie at first. However, eventually, Katie turns Anna to her side and convinces her to help. Now, together they must learn a spell that will save the world before the dead invade and destroy everything.
Join Anna and Katie on a fantastical quest that introduces them to trolls, gnomes, dragons, and much more as they discover that death is stranger than they ever imagined.
Paid subscribers can access the entire archive of this series from the beginning, along with other series and every article I’ve ever written.
If you are not a paid member, you can read everything with a 7-day free trial, or give us a one-time tip.