Tuesday, March 10th, 2026, might have been the lowest point of my fantasy career.
At 5:30 p.m., I checked my sales dashboard. I had made some money from pen names in other genres, nice passive income, but nothing from fantasy. I got in my car with a strong sense of dread; I hadn't slept well the night before, tossing and turning with anxiety for what was to come, and between getting a workout in and caring for my child, I didn't have time for a nap. I drove through terrible traffic, arrived at Quail Ridge Books, and stepped inside.
There, a crowd of what had to be over a hundred people--a significant crowd for a small bookstore, even if it was a major author tour--gathered, buzzing with excitement. A very polite worker scanned my QR ticket and handed me the paperback I had prepaid for with a customized slip jacket, created (as far as I'm aware) only for those who bought tickets for the book tour. I hadn't really wanted to go to this, anticipating the envy and dread I felt, but since it was a tax writeoff and one quick evening away, I figured the upside might as well be worth it.
I found an empty seat in the back and looked at the incredibly beautiful slip jacket. I could have drowned in everything I was feeling, but there was no denying the professionalism, quality, and augustness of the limited edition cover. I thought about my prior book covers and how--while not necessarily ugly or bad--they paled in comparison to this. I thought about how in the world of running, the A- runners are closer to the D runners than they are to the A+ runners, and how even if I gave my books every benefit of the doubt, the same was true here.
And then the author event began, hosted by Chris Ruocchio and Ryan Cahill, and the bubbling thought that I'd tried so hard to pretend didn't exist burst to the top of my consciousness, as unavoidable as the beauty of this purple Of Blood and Fire cover.
That should be me.
Except, I realized as both authors spoke, no, it shouldn't be.
My work wasn't good enough.
***
One of the hardest parts about being an author is how easy it is to lie to yourself, and moreover, how hard it is to tell when you are lying to yourself. "I'm making a simple epic fantasy series without the ten thousand names and two dozen cities everyone has to remember so that they can focus on a few memorable characters," I told myself when I wrote War of the Magi.
Was that true? Or was it true that I just didn't have the writing skill to pull that off?
"I'll write a space fantasy where the magic system is colorful and memorable, but not well defined so the reader can fill in the blanks themselves," I said when writing The Kastori Chronicles.
Was that true? Or was it true that I didn't give the magic system the thought it deserved, allowing hints of a deeper, unwritten system to be gleaned upon careful read through?
You might think from the way I'm writing this that I'm saying, here in 2026, "actually, those books sucked, and I wasn't a good writer then." I do think it's true that I'm a better writer now than I was then, if only because 10 years of writing on a near-daily basis will do that. But it's also hard to say that those answers I told myself are definitively wrong. The whole debate of hard magic versus soft magic systems was the eternal question I took a side on in The Kastori Chronicles. Beta readers and reviewers emailed me with appreciation that they didn't have to remember five different nations and ten different family names. Epic fantasy does not have to be Game of Thrones to be good.
And yet.
You can still have a simple story that is incredibly eloquent and poignant (Mistborn). You can still have a soft magic system grounded in well-developed characters with enormous stakes (Harry Potter). You can still "kill your darlings" to the point that only a single darling remains, and yet have that darling be the most memorable darling of all (The Farseer trilogy).
As I listened to Ryan and Chris talk, it had become extremely apparent that I had not done that.
***
"I promise myself I will not fail because I did not try hard enough."
Ryan had many great bars, but this one punched me in the mouth when I first heard it. Left unsaid when he wrote this note to himself in 2020, before his first book came out, was that he might fail because the market didn't like his books; he might fail because someone else eclipsed his release; he might fail because the algorithm didn't boost his book; or he might fail for any number of reasons outside his control.
But he would not fail because he did not try hard enough.
If that meant learning to draw a map himself? If that meant developing an entire language himself? If that meant creating payoffs that would not appear to the reader until one million words and two-thousand-plus pages later? If that meant going through more drafts than the average indie author?
Then he would do that, because he refused to fail because he did not try hard enough.
I thought about what I had done with the Kastori Chronicles and the War of the Magi series. I had tried, yes. But had I tried hard enough? Had I created a full profile of all my characters, of their motivations, of the worlds they had come from, such that I could tell you what each character might have for breakfast? Had I created a history of each world and how said history was seen by those in the present? Had I defined my magic well enough that it didn't become an escalator of deus ex machina?
No, I had not.
When I think about the defining word of the last decade of writing, it's "fear." I feared diving deep into fantasy--what if it doesn't sell? What if people judge me as a person?
What if I'm not good enough?
Well, if I write these other genres under these other pen names, who gives a damn if it averages below 4 stars on Amazon? If I turn my attention to physical fitness, I might be pushing my body, but no one could see my soul! Let me focus on helping kids get into college--I'll care deeply about their success, but it won't really affect me if a kid doesn't get into Harvard.
Fear drove how deep I went into my true calling in the past decade.
Fear prevented me from committing not just to the writing, but to the worldbuilding, to the granular details of types of stone in a palace, to the hours spent where not a single word of a novel appeared but dozens of pages of notes were formed. Fear prevented me from committing the financial backing I know I have to get not just a pretty good cover but a "holy shit" cover. Fear prevented me from pursuing my dreams--because I might not be good enough.
Tuesday, whatever lies I told myself about how "that should be me" crumbled when it became evident what real hard work meant. It became apparent I wasn't good enough to be in Ryan Cahill's shoes or to sit on stage with Chris Ruocchio.
But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way.
***
Even knowing everything I did, even being aware enough to acknowledge all that I felt, fear still badly affected me at the event.
On the way, I had one question in mind I wanted to ask Ryan and Chris: "how did you get your first 1,000 true fans?" I came in with an awareness I needed to work harder on the fantasy creation, but that jump from support of just family and friends to diehards I might never meet in person was a question I have grappled with for a decade. It's easy to say "let the work do the talking" but I'm not so sure what's easy to say is easy to passively let work in the real world.
I could not have asked for a better setup. After maybe--maybe--five minutes of Ryan and Chris riffing about Ryan's disgusting travel schedule (something like Montana -> California -> NC -> Seattle, all in four days), they opened the event up to an hour-long Q&A. If the Q&A had been 15 minutes, sure, maybe it's understandable that I wouldn't get my question in. But an hour! Ryan and Chris had given us--and by extension, me--a gift.
I didn't take it.
I could give you a million excuses, but they'd be lies. I'm not that afraid of public speaking. Ryan and Chris are fantastic writers, but I can't say I was starstruck. I just... well, I was afraid of being vulnerable and asking a question to someone I envied.
It was of great credit to the other audience members that many questions were still asked about their writing journeys, questions that I took great insight from (how Ryan and Chris integrate seemingly minor characters who take on major roles later on; how different POVs than what is presented in a chapter help the drafting process; how pressure only increases as you get more successful, to name a few). It was and is a great credit to Ryan and Chris that I never felt like I was getting a PC or obscured answer; the only time this even came up was when Ryan acknowledged he had some product spinoffs (think board games, cards, etc.) that he couldn't get into, but that's a question for me in five years, not five months. Still, I can't help but look at the evening and wonder what if.
But I also look at the evening with hope for what the cold dose of reality provided.
***
No, my work today is not good enough to stand on stage with Ryan Cahill and Chris Ruocchio.
No, I did not work hard enough in the last decade to say my failure to be in their shoes has nothing to do with the amount of hard work I put in.
But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way.
Because, amusingly enough, it was the author that I had not come to see that gave me the most hope.
Epic fantasy is my jam, but if I have a second jam, the jelly to my peanut butter, it would be space fantasy, or perhaps space opera if I was forced to pick a more commonly defined genre. In that regard, I feel almost silly for having never read any of Chris' work; I feel even sillier now knowing he lives in the Raleigh-Durham area. It's not that I think I can just cold message him and expect to get coffee tomorrow; it's just that this is a huge name in one of my favorite genres, living metaphorically down the road, and I never thought to pick up his stuff.
In any case, I won't do this story justice (and I may get some details wrong, though the gist will be true), but Chris talked about how he started out with a trad deal for his "Sun Eater" series that went well at first. But then, somewhere around the fourth book, the publisher noticed stagnating sales, to the point that it was selling either 20 copies a week or 20 copies a day--either way, nothing that would be supported by any traditional publisher. Chris was warned--get sales up, or we're dropping the series.
If you're expecting this to be the part where Chris said he went on a major book tour, saved his series, and became even more popular... you'd be wrong. Because the series was, in fact, dropped by the publisher.
The details for how the series was picked back up, remarketed, and rediscovered in the mainstream were not covered by Chris--understandably so, as this event was Ryan's--but it was perhaps the most profound moment for me. This was not an up-and-comer whom Ryan was doing a favor for--this was someone who had initially made it, whose sales were not good enough, who was in fact dropped by the publisher, but who then remade it.
Failure in a publishing journey need not mark the end of that journey or even a sign there will never be a higher peak ahead.
I will never claim that my first two series are what either Chris or Ryan wrote. I do not believe there is some magic relaunch campaign I can do for either series to get them in the same conversation as "The Bound and the Broken" or "Sun Eater." At best, I hope when future readers consume my better work, they'll give my first two series a shot to see where I started.
But it is wonderful to know just because it hasn't been good enough doesn't mean it won't always be.
And so, back to work I go, throwing myself at the world and my work as hard as I can, with a single promise to myself.
I will not fail because I did not try hard enough.