One for the saps.

Maybe you're like me.

You poor, sad sap.

I feel sorry for you.  I really do. Almost as sorry as I feel for myself.  We are only partially to blame.  We bought the lies.  We believed the hype we were fed almost as early as pablum.  It probably came in the form of some sort of slogan printed above the blackboard on a banner.  "Believe in the power of your dreams." Or, the particularly grating, "Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss.. blah, blah, blah."

It all amounts to the same thing.  We were sold a bill of goods that isn't exactly working out the way that we had hoped.  For me, it was writing.  (If you just dropped in on a blog named after punctuation, I'm guessing we might be kindred spirits.)  I had hopes of making a career out of being a writer.  Three years; a comic miniseries, a webcomic, a novel and 25 rejections later, I feel somewhat less bright-eyed than when I first began.  I have had one comic story accepted for publication.  Just one.  I've entered contests.  I've applied for a multiplicity of jobs and not received a single call.  Well, now I have a failed engagement on top of it all.  Forgive me if I write this from the bottom of a very large glass.

We're suckers.  It's okay to admit it.  But what do we do now?  We leveraged our futures because we wanted to be writers.  If we had known all the obstacles we would face, and how many tears it would wring from our eyes; likely, we would have run as far as we could have in the opposite direction--despite an ardent dislike for running.  But we didn't and here we are.  So, what do we do? I have no idea.  Initially, I wrote out a very short list of my plan for the way forward, but it looked a little too much like the whole "Keep Calm and Carry On" slogan that has been tattooed on every possible piece of merchandise lately.  I decided to spare you.

Instead, let's just see how it unfolds, shall we?