If I Ever Become an Overnight Success

If I become an over night success

they will say “He just got lucky.”

That he’s a hack. That “My work

is 100 times better than his and

I’ve never been published.”

They will say all of this and worse

and much of it will be true. I know this

because I’ve muttered the same jealous

curses under my own breath.

But what they didn’t see and never

knew was that before I became an

over night success I was a 20 year

failure.

A 20 year frustrated hobbyist

ripping out tiny snippets of time to

pound away at short stories and novels

I knew would probably mummify

on my hard drive.

A 20 year tangled mess of anxiety and

fear all chocolate syrup coated in a deep

sense of untalented futility.

Over night successes blaze bright in the

public eye, but they rarely reveal the long

dark night of the soul they navigated through

to arrive at their super novas.