How to Deal with Rejection and Setback?

Yesterday, I was rejected by a prospective freelance client.

Today, one of the platforms I use to promote my books – and interact with readers – changed its policies. This will force me to drastically change my book marketing plans for the year, and I’m still not sure how it will all work out.

Did it hurt?

Well, my first instinct is to say – Nope. I don’t care about a rejection. In my 5+ years of freelancing (and working full-time), I’ve faced hundreds of them. What’s one more to the pile?

The truth?

I had a nightmare this afternoon. The first one I’ve had in months.

I won’t bore you with the details. It was weird and incoherent, as dreams tend to be. You don’t want to go into the nitty-gritty of that. Trust me.

The point is, the rejection clearly had affected me, much as my ego would like you to believe otherwise.

Rejections usually do. But this wasn’t just any old rejection. This was different. Special.

Because I didn’t see it coming.

That’s not to say I can usually tell the future. But I’m naturally pessimistic. I never think things are going to work out until they actually do. I never assume I’ll get a job until the contract is signed and the first payment languishing safely in my bank account.

But this job was right up my alley. I had worked with similar clients before and received positive feedback from them all. The trial assignment was simple and straightforward. In my opinion, it had gone well.

For once, I was almost sure I had this one in the bag.

Well, the best-laid plans of mice, men, and freelancers…

That’s what I got for being overconfident. I was rejected – because my grammar wasn’t up to the mark. Salt to the wound? I’d say so.

And hardly had I gotten over that unpleasant surprise, when I was hit with a new one. Twice, in as many days.

I received a stern, slightly condescending – if politely worded – email from Goodreads. It warned me that I was engaging in ‘self-promotional activities’ on their site, which was now against their community guidelines.

For the uninitiated, Goodreads is the most popular social media site for book lovers. It allows users to rate, review, share, and catalogue the books they’ve read, while also keeping tabs on the books that their friends are reading. 

The self-promotional activities I was engaging in, for the record, involved requesting book reviews from readers.

Why that would be against the ‘community guidelines’ of a website solely dedicated to reading and reviewing books is anyone’s guess. But when on Goodreads, I guess we must do as the Goodreads gods command.

Which brings us to my current predicament. Down a client and a promotional platform, all within a span of 24 hours.

What Led Me Here?

Tired of hearing about my First World problems yet? Good. There’s more where that came from.

After all, it’s not every day you get to whine about your First World problems from a Third World country in the middle of a global pandemic. Imma milk this for all it’s worth.

Anyway, this year didn’t start out badly, professionally speaking. After working from home for more than six months, I quit my fulltime job in November of 2020. No sense in staying bound to one city when I was working entirely through the Internet. If I was going to spend all my time at home, one way or the other, why not explore greener pastures in other cities and countries?

It was perhaps the best decision of my life. Not only did it increase my income, fulltime freelancing also left me with enough free time to get caught up on my chores and write more fiction than I had in months.

Consequently, I completed the final draft of my fourth novel, A Call for Brighter Days, and hit publish. This is the second book in The Aeriel Chronicles, my campy urban fantasy series about a war between humans and angels.

I also made the first book, A Flight of Broken Wings, available for free on a bunch of online retailers and webnovel sites, including Amazon, B&N, and Wattpad. That’s a marketing technique I stole from more experienced authors, which has been paying rich dividends ever since.

As you can see, things were going pretty well. The early reviews coming in for Book 2 were better than I’d hoped for. Usually, I collect at least a couple of 1-star reviews almost a month after release day. This time, they were nowhere to be seen (although I’m sure I’m jinxing it just by typing this sentence).

Reviewers were happy. Clients were content. Life was good.

And that’s when I should’ve realized the other shoe was about to drop.

But then, hindsight’s always 20/20, isn’t it?

My biggest problem, 24 hours ago, was that the glowing reviews weren’t coming in fast enough (and that PayPal seemed to be raising its fee by the day).

A moment of silence for the lost innocence of that sweet summer child.

But I’m writing this post to remind myself that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Heck, this isn’t anywhere close to the biggest setback I’ve faced in recent years.

There are always more clients to be found (although it mightn’t feel like that when an unexpected rejection hits you in the face). And Goodreads might be an important platform, but it isn’t the only one.

In short, this too shall pass. I’ll find a way around it. I know, because I’ve done so many times in the past. But I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about rejections and setbacks. To reassure myself (and anyone else who might need it) that the dejection and self-doubt you’re feeling now are temporary. But your dreams and goals are not.

So take a break. Give yourself permission to wallow – in front of perfect strangers on the Internet, if you must. But don’t forget to pull yourself back up and take the next step forward.

What seems like an insurmountable hurdle now will look much less daunting after a good night’s sleep and a strong cup of coffee. Problems are permanent, but this one isn’t. Breathe. One day, today’s panic attack will be a funny story you tell your friends over dinner. Your job (and mine) is to make sure that day arrives as soon as possible.

How to Deal with Rejection?

It’s not really possible for me to answer this question objectively, at the moment. This blog post is very much a case of the blind leading the blind. So I apologize in advance for the absolute lack of any simple, step-by-step solutions to your problem.

What is the problem?

Well, it’s that rejection sucks. Hard. It plays havoc with your self-confidence and makes you want to quit. To crawl into a hole and never come out again. Or, at least, that’s what it does to me. I’m not projecting or anything.

But really, it’s the emotional fallout of rejection that’s the hardest to deal with. It’s not like losing one potential client will wreck me financially. Objectively, I know that. But, damn it, it was a good client. An interesting project. A project I’d hoped to be working on for the next few months. And that stings. Rejection always stings.

It also causes a lot of anxiety.

Am I really as good as I think I am? Have I been deluding myself all these years, telling myself I can write, when I clearly have no idea what I’m doing? Was all that positive feedback – every 5-star review – just people being polite? Taking pity, perhaps?

Will I ever really achieve the goals I’ve set for myself? Or were they just the delusional daydreams of a hapless, untalented hack?

Okay, I’m being melodramatic.

But, really, that’s my brain in a nutshell. Melodramatic.

Hindi soap opera writers have nothing on my brain. If a spoon falls off the counter, my brain immediately decides that it’s an earthquake and the ceiling’s about to cave in. If I get a single negative review…well, obviously, my writing career must be at an end.

Thankfully, these thoughts rarely last long. My brain is easily bribed with coke and nachos. A positive response from a client – or an enthusiastic email from a reader – also does the trick.

Nevertheless, these episodes of anxiety and self-doubt are distracting. I was supposed to be applying for freelance projects this evening. Instead, here I am, trying dubious self-therapy through this longwinded post.

Rejections – especially unexpected ones – will do that. Knock me off my stride for hours or days on end.

My brain keeps playing the rejection on loop – be it a bad review or some negative feedback – obliterating my ability to concentrate on anything else. At least for a little while.

Does that happen to you too? It sucks, doesn’t it?

But believe it or not, it does get better. It certainly did for me. If you think I’m a fragile snowflake now, you should have seen me five years ago. Or even three. That’s when I published A Flight of Broken Wings, Book 1 of The Aeriel Chronicles.

It wasn’t the first book I’d published, but it was the first one that I’d tried to market or promote in any way. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but my efforts did yield some sales and 100+ reviews on various platforms.

The first time I got a 1-star review, I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything for a whole day. I felt like I’d throw up if I tried, so I didn’t.

Bad reviews still faze me, but not for more than a couple of hours at a time. The last time I got one, the effects only lasted for the half hour it took the pizza delivery guy to reach my flat.

Yes, I bribe myself with food. And I’m only a little bit embarrassed about it.

I started looking for a fulltime job for the first time in 2017, after earning a post-graduate diploma in journalism. The prospect of talking on the phone with potential employers scared the shit out of me.

To the extent that I refused to apply for a job at any newspaper that required you to call them after you submitted the application. (Yeah, some of the older, more traditionalist newspapers in Kolkata still did that back in 2017. I’m looking at you, The Statesman.)

Now, I regularly give interviews and attend meetings on Skype, with clients from various parts of the country and the world. This would never be my preferred mode of communication. I will always prefer an email (or a DM) over a phone call. I didn’t become a writer for all the social interaction, after all.

But that instinctive fear of facing potential rejection head on is gone. My gut no longer clenches painfully at the thought of a difficult call with a client. Negative feedback no longer makes me want to crawl under the nearest rock and never come out.

And while that may just be ‘normal’ to most people – not much to write home about – I’ll take my wins where I can get them. To me, they’re precious. Achievements unlocked in the game of life after years upon years of dangerous missions and hard-fought battles.

Even if the only real danger was to my ego – my confidence and sense of self-worth.

Success Is the Slow Realization of a Worthy Ideal

I’m not sure where I first read it. But this quote’s stuck with me for the past year or so, because of how true it has been to my own experience.

When you first start doing something, it’s difficult. Painfully difficult. And despite all that difficulty, you’re not doing it very well. It’s easy to think that this is because you naturally suck at the thing.

And maybe you do. Ask somebody (or preferably, multiple people) who don’t give a shit about you, what they think of your skills. They wouldn’t have much reason to lie to you.

But even if you’re not an absolute hack, the first few times you do something, you probably will suck. Whether or not you realize it at the time. I can no longer read my earliest manuscripts without cringing constantly. Content writing is no different. There are sites on the Internet I avoid like the plague, for fear of coming across one of my old articles.

It’s a natural part of growth. But when you’re in the throes of sucking at something – of being rejected left, right, and center – it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. To even imagine that there is any light in the world. (See? My melodramatic brain is at it again!)

What I’m trying to say is that when you first start doing something – and doing it badly – progress can be slow. So slow, in fact, that you don’t even notice it. I never noticed my writing getting better from one day to the next. I didn’t notice myself becoming less anxious and nervous when dealing with clients.

The only reason I know that those things happened is that I have tangible proof.

I have articles and books that I wrote years ago, that I can compare to the ones I wrote more recently, in order to see the improvement.

I have screenshots of longwinded WhatsApp messages sent to friends – cribbing about how scared I was about this interview or that client call. Things I wouldn’t think twice about, today.

Through all that whining and panicking, I was making progress. It was just too slow for me to notice.

But the only reason I can talk about it today is that I stuck to it.

Despite knowing that I sucked. Despite facing rejection at every turn. Despite losing my appetite every time I received a negative review. And despite having no guarantee that things would ever get better. That I would ever get better.

Because there are no guarantees I can give you. Or myself.

You can make all the progress in the world, only for the market to shift right before you hit it big, so that you’re forced to learn a whole new way of doing things.

Or one of your articles/stories/songs/videos could go viral and change your life overnight.

There’s no way to predict the future. But I can tell you this. You’ll be better off for having tried. For having given it everything you had.

After all, twenty years from now, you’ll be twenty years older. Twenty years closer to death. You can’t change that.

But you can decide whether you will have spent those twenty years trying to make your dreams come true, or being so afraid of failure that you couldn’t even reach for success.

Because that’s the secret to success, insofar as there is a ‘secret’. Fail as many times – and as badly – as you can, without killing yourself.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Ten years down the line, you would still be failing. But when you look back, you’d be surprised at how far you’ve come. How easy it is to do the things that had once seemed impossible.

Ten years down the line, you will be failing spectacularly at things you never imagined you’d have a chance to do.

That’s the goal.

1-star reviews are terrible. Until I remember, there was a time (less than half a decade ago) when I never thought I’d get any reviews. When I would’ve given anything for someone – who wasn’t a friend or a relative – to read my stories and tell me what they thought. Even if they thought it was shit.

Yesterday, I was rejected – for the position of freelance script writer for a famous YouTube video essayist.

Two years ago, I would never have imagined that such a job was even a remote possibility for me.

Today, I have written scripts for two famous YouTube creators, one of whom was awesome enough to give me writing credits. Yesterday, I was rejected by the third such client, because my grammar wasn’t up to the mark.

You see? I just failed spectacularly at something I had never imagined I’d have a chance to do!

And really, that’s all there is to it. That’s the secret.

Just keep sucking at the thing until you suck at it a little less.

Keep getting rejected, until you’re getting rejected for projects you’d never have dared apply to, before.

You can never solve all problems and eliminate all setbacks. So why not aim for better problems? More interesting setbacks?

Being reprimanded by Goodreads – for asking readers to review my books – is super frustrating.

But it’s a better problem to have than the one I had five years ago – not having any books. Or three years ago – not having any readers.

I don’t know how I’ll get around this one, yet. But experience tells me that I will, eventually. The trick is to keep at it; keep trying different things until something clicks into place. It will happen, eventually. It always does.

And until that time comes, I’ll go drown my sorrows in coke and nachos.

See you around, the next time I have an existential crisis to work through.

What Motivates Me to Write?

Currently in the process of editing my first Sci-Fi novel, I’ve been knee-deep in random scientific blogs and trivia for a couple of months. And although my own story leans more towards political biopunk than psycho robotics, one of the topics that immediately grabbed my interest as I was doing my research was artificial intelligence (AI), and the ways in which it can affect the future of humanity.

When we think about AI going wrong, we usually imagine megalomaniac supercomputers with a God complex wanting to enslave (or eliminate) humanity. The idea of an AI trying to take over the world never really made much sense to me, though. I don’t claim to be an expert on AI, so I might well be wrong about this (as with everything else scientific).

But common sense tells me that if I was designing a machine meant to perform domestic cleaning duties, I wouldn’t want to give it a wide enough emotional range that it might one day feel the need to marry my partner and sleep on my bed.

An AI is, at the end of the day, a machine. It must originally have been designed for a particular purpose, like all machines. Why would you design a powerful machine (say for coal mining) that had — or could develop — human desires, such as power, love, validation, etc.? What purpose could that possibly serve?

The Paperclip Maximizer and the Mysteries of Motivation

While wondering about such nitty-gritties of common Sci-Fi tropes, I came upon a theoretical doomsday scenario known as the “Paperclip Maximizer”. For those of you who don’t know what that is, the Paperclip Maximizer is a hypothetical AI that was designed for the purpose of making paperclips and enhancing the efficiency of paperclip-making processes.

Over time, this AI would find ways to make more and more paperclips within shorter and shorter time periods. It would enhance the efficiency of paperclip manufacturing processes and learn/invent more ways to maximize the number of paperclips being made.

The Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment posits the possibility that the AI would eventually turn all matter in its surroundings (including life forms) into paperclips. Eventually, assuming the AI was strong enough, it would turn the entire world (or even the galaxy) into paperclips.

This idea fascinated me. For the first time, I was reading about an AI related doomsday scenario that didn’t rely on a random machine spontaneously developing the motivational structure of a generic movie super-villain.

The Paperclip Maximizer would probably kill us. Not because it hates us or wants to rule over us, but simply because we are made up of atoms and molecules that would be better utilized in the manufacturing of paperclips, which is the only thing that it is motivated to accomplish.

So this got me thinking — what is motivation? Where does it come from? Why are we so motivated to do certain things and not others? Why do some people have more motivation than others, and why would the same person have lots of motivation for one type of activity but very little for others?

Underneath it all, I guess I was really trying to figure out my own motivational patterns — to understand them and hopefully to get a better handle on them.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

I mean, there are of course certain extrinsic things that motivate us, the chief among them being money. We all want money and are willing to work for it, but the extent to which we are willing to do so varies widely.

What is it that we are looking for when we try to earn money, anyway? Not the paper currency, surely.

On a very basic level, money gives us access to other people’s time, energy, and talent. If you have money, you can ask someone else to look after your children, manage your finances, or wash your clothes.

Even when we buy a comb, a video game, or a refrigerator, we’re indirectly paying someone else to design and make those items for us. The more money we have, the more of other people’s time, talent, and energy we can buy, which in turn will make our own life easier and more entertaining.

That’s an understandable desire to have. And yet, we don’t all have it to the same extent. We all know of extraordinary people who serve others for free and even spend their own money to help those in need — with no expectations of reward. But those are not the types of people I’m talking about here.

Everything we do has an opportunity cost. Logically, assuming that money was the primary motivating factor for our actions, we’d plan every step with the goal of maximizing income.

And yet, people write novels in unpopular genres, start YouTube channels on niche subjects that’d never get them a million subscribers, and take up full-time jobs in industries that don’t pay well.

These are not selfless social workers whose only purpose is to serve others. Most of these people are working for some form of monetary reward, so why not work for the highest possible income or reward? Why settle for a genre that’d only allow you to sell a few thousand copies of your book, when you could instead write in one that has a far larger potential market? In fact, why write books at all? Why not use those same writing skills to write copy for brands (a far more lucrative market)?

So maybe extrinsic, reward-based motivation isn’t the only kind we need. After all, the hypothetical Paperclip Maximizer isn’t being paid to turn the entire galaxy into paperclips. So it must have a built-in reward system that makes the creation of paperclips intrinsically rewarding. To use a cliché, it’s something he’d do even if no one paid him to do it. (Yes, the Paperclip Maximizer is a guy now. Deal with it.)

So what internal reward system makes the creation of obscure books and videos, or the performance of low-paid administrative tasks, inherently rewarding for humans — so much so that they’re willing to forgo higher paying opportunities in a different domain?

A Case Study

Well, I’m something of a massive introvert. The last time I had an actual human interaction was in 1997.

So, I can’t speak for you guys. But there’s one case study I do feel comfortable exploring — my own.

I’m a writer. It’s taken me quite a few years to admit that (and that’s a blog post for another time), but now, here we are. I write. And I do so in a variety of ways, for a number of reasons, some more obvious than others.

But what motivates me to write? What do I get out of it? And would I turn the entire galaxy into tropey, angsty fiction if given the opportunity?

Well, that’s exactly what we’re here to discuss today, isn’t it?

I’m a professional copywriter/web content writer by day, freelance writer by night, and a novelist/poet/blogger by midnight. Needless to say, I write A LOT.

Why?

Well, that’s complicated. I have a 9–5 job because it pays the bills, a freelance side-gig because I like the extra money (and hope it’ll replace the 9–5 sometime in the future), and a creative writing hobby/career because I like expressing myself in words and hope to create a source of passive income a few decades down the line.

Realistically, I could earn more from a single job than I do from all the three combined, if I ditched this whole writing thing and got myself an MBA or something. So why don’t I, then? It’s certainly not because I don’t like money. Spoiler alert: I fucking love it!

So, what’s keeping me from ditching this hamster wheel for a “real job”?

Initially, I thought maybe it was because I just loved writing so much! You know, the old cliché about loving your job so much you’d do it for free? Yeah, I wouldn’t.

There are people out there who write high-quality, 100k word fanfics for fun (with no expectation of ever earning a penny out of it). I’m not one of them.

Which brings me to my next point. Writing isn’t always fun for me. Sometimes it is, but most of the time it’s difficult and tedious. It’s WORK. Given a choice, I’d much rather be reading somebody else’s book than writing my own.

I do, of course, have the hope of one day making a living from my fiction. But, at least for now, that’s all it is. A vague hope. I certainly don’t expect to make any significant amount of money from my novels in the near future. The same can be said of my poetry and this blog.

So if it’s not the sheer, intrinsic joy of writing or the guarantee of monetary payoff, what keeps me plugging away at the keyboard, day in and day out?

Well, the answer is that it’s a strange and complex combination of all of the above.

Am I passionate about writing? Yes. Do I want to make money out of it? Yes. Would I do it without one or the other? Maybe. Certainly not to the extent I’m doing it now.

What It Means to be a True Artist

There’s a pervasive myth in the arts (including writing and literature) that if you’re passionate about something, you’ll always like doing it. That if you’re a true artist, you’ll always enjoy the process of making art.

That’s a lie.

The truth is, passion can be a double edged sword. It can put the burden of perfectionism on you, where you get stressed out and anxious — not just about doing good work, but great work.

If I was just writing a diary to pass the time, or writing web copy just to earn a living, I wouldn’t agonize over every line of prose. I wouldn’t spend hours wondering if my message was clear enough, if my language was flawed or my presentation amateurish.

I wouldn’t constantly compare myself to other bloggers, novelists, and poets, only to find myself wanting every step of the way. If this was just a job, I wouldn’t care so much.

But I care with every fiber of my being whether what I write is good or bad. Whether I can connect with readers or not. Whether I can express myself with clarity or not. And this slows down the process of writing.

There was a time when the self-doubt was so overwhelming I couldn’t write a word for days. This is no longer the case, and I have overcome the problem to a great extent. But I daresay a lot of authors would permanently get rid of writer’s block if they could just get their passion (and the associated perfectionism) slightly under control.

I learned this mainly from my day job and freelance copywriting work. The deadlines with these are always tight, and there’s rarely enough time to agonize over the placement of every word and the structure of every sentence. You need to churn out a certain number of words every day and volume is oftentimes more important than perfection.

And yet, there are people reading these articles, typos and all, for the information that they provide and the value that they add. Realizing this gave me the confidence to start approaching my fiction in the same way–

Like I have something to say to my readers, and I’m going to try my best to say it well, but I don’t need to wait until my diction is perfect and my oratory world-class, before I can share my opinion or my story with the world.

The Different Types and Sources of Motivation

But despite all the learning and growing I’ve done over the past two years as a full-time writer, I still like ‘having written’ way more than the actual ‘process’ of writing.

Half the time, when I’m writing a book, I push through the most difficult scenes dreaming about what it’d look like as a finished product — on a bookshelf with a gorgeous cover, sitting next to the works of some of my favorite authors. (A girl can dream, right?)

The point is, motivations are complex and multi-faceted. They don’t spring from a single source, and they’re not always ‘pure’ and unidimensional. I don’t write just for the money, but I don’t write just for the love of it, either. The expectation of future income certainly plays an important part in motivating me to finish my manuscripts, approach publishers, write blog posts, etc.

I was super unmotivated as a student, and always saw myself as an inherently lazy individual. I wrote my first full-length manuscript in high-school. And after I failed to find any traction with it (receiving more than 30 rejections from various publishers), I lost all motivation and didn’t do much creative writing for the next 2–3 years.

Then, I graduated from college and got my first real office job. And BAM! It hit me like a train. This was it. This was my life now. This is what I would be doing for the next 40 years.

And frankly, it was quite underwhelming.

I’d spent the first 23 years of my life as a student. For as long as I could remember, there had always been something to look forward to, to prepare for and focus on. Either it was high-school or college or university or — the grand prize — a real job!

There was always something I was running towards, something just out of my reach that I was trying desperately to catch. Hence, it was easy to forget, to distract myself. To tell myself that there’s something better waiting for me just round the corner, and that this writing thing was just a distraction from the ‘real world’.

And then, real world came and hit me smack in the face. And it wasn’t bad. Just…kind of meh.

And it dawned on me that there was no pot of gold waiting for me at the end of this murky rainbow. I’d arrived at my destination, at the promised land of gainful employment that parents, teachers, and sundry relatives had all lectured me about for all these years.

There was nowhere else to go from here. But “here” wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be, forty years down the line.

The Urge to Escape Irrelevance

And so, I began writing in earnest. Not because I expected greater success than I’d had before, but simply because failing at this was better than staying stuck and unmoving, with little to look forward to other than the once-a-year vacations that rarely lasted more than a week.

Overnight, I went from being an unmotivated student who barely managed to secure a passing grade most of the time, to a highly motivated professional writer (albeit one who was still making very little money)! And exactly why that happened in the way that it did is still, to some degree, a mystery to me.

What I do know, however, is that writing regularly and calling myself a writer (if only in my own head) has changed my life in a way I’d never anticipated. It’s given me something to look forward to and feel excited about in my day-to-day life.

And that’s not because writing is easy (or even fun) most of the time. In fact, the most fun I have is during the brainstorming/outlining process. The actual writing is often stressful and always effing hard!

And yet, I’m happier and more confident than I’ve ever been before. I now have a general sense of satisfaction, purpose, and wellbeing that I’d never experienced in the first 23 years of my life. It’s not that I was particularly unhappy before. Far from it. I had a blast in college and made some fantastic friends; those will always be some of the most memorable years of my life!

A Reason to Get Out of Bed Every Morning

It’s just that, I have something now that I never did before — a reason to wake up and get out of bed every morning. I no longer have to wait for a vacation or a party to feel excited about my day. I always have something awesome or interesting to tell my readers, and that’s the best reason to get out of bed I’ve ever had!

And then, of course, there’s the more immediate monetary reward associated with my day job and freelance work. That’s a different kind of high, knowing that I’d get paid for every word I write. Sometimes, it’s a struggle not to let it eat into my creative writing time.

I suppose it’s not hard to tell where I get the motivation for that!

And the great thing about it? Freelancing as a web copywriter has taught me how to sell my writing — something no writer today can do without, no matter what their genre or format.

Is it easy trying to balance a full-time job with two side-hustles? Lol, no! And it’s not like I’m doing it that well anyway, which you can probably tell by the epic frequency of my blog posts!

But you know what? We’re all hanging out here anyway, creeping along on a tiny dust-ball suspended in space, waiting to die. Might as well throw ourselves against the wall of impossibility and give it everything we’ve got.

After all, what do we have to lose? Not like anyone’s getting out of this alive anyway, is it?