How Cool Does this Make Me?
I don’t know how much we ever leave the concept of being “cool” behind. I think it just changes shape into other manifestations of the same metric that all mean “is the impression I’m leaving behind worth what I’m putting in.” And I don’t mean the smart assessments that every author should be making as needed, like, “Can I afford this conference?” or “Can I afford these bookmarks?” and figuring out not just whether you have the money but how and whether they’ll pay off, and how much something is an investment in your career, and all that stuff I’m sure I’ll talk about another day.
I mean when you’re a parent leaving your child behind for a three-day conference and you’re wondering, “When they’re older, are they gonna get why I did this? Are they gonna be awed enough by the sight of my name on a book cover that they won’t care they didn’t see me for three days?”
(Let’s be real: depending on the age, they probably won’t even remember, but that’s somehow never the point.)
I mean when you’re putting a work project on hold because you’re going to a three-day conference, and you’re wondering, “Do they think this is of equal importance to what I’m putting off? Do they get that they’re both jobs? And even if they don’t, do they think this is kinda awesome and so no one’s secretly a little mad about that I’m bailing at a bad time?”
(It’s always a bad time, it feels like, with the ways jobs shift and change. Or maybe that’s because I don’t have an assistant and everything was restructured such that not a single other editor at any other level works on my books and wouldn’t really be able to do a thing in my absence, and I’m pretty sure this is becoming increasingly common.)
I mean when you are calculating that thing that cannot really be calculated. That thing that might be esteem. That thing that might be awe. That thing that might be derision. Who knows, really.
“Is it worth it?” we have to wonder all the damn time.
“Am I worth it?” sneaks in a little bit maybe, because impostor syndrome is for real.
“How do I know?”
You can’t, really. Because as you’re growing as any of these things - an employee, a parent, an author - it is so, so hard to see the long game. (Did I just mix a metaphor? I think I did. You know what I mean, though, I think.) It’s been some time since the world felt stable enough to count on being able to “know” the effect on five years from now, if it ever did.
You kinda just need to remind yourself over and over again that you think it’s really damn cool, and that’s not nothing. That you are really damn cool for pursuing your dream, especially when life hasn’t made it easy. You are in fact a person you need to impress, a person you need to answer to, even when the wonky financials of publishing make you feel like a drain.
And that’s just what I’m gonna keep telling myself. Feel free to tell it to yourself too.