A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-And-Five

I often encounter people who think that telling me to pursue self-publishing is a reasonable thing to do, but it is very far from what I am pursuing, and, if I am honest, feels like accepting failure to me.  If I need to pursue self-publishing, it is because I have failed at my chosen career path, and self-publishing would be nothing of meaning as a result.  Unless I could self-publish a book in a way that could receive identical reception, in theory, to a book from a publisher, including eligibility for all the same awards and similar opportunities for legitimate news coverage and reviews, it is not at all the same thing, and is not what I am pursuing.  I do not mean to say that I expect to get those things, only that being part of that conversation and community is a major aspect of what being published involves for me.  It is not merely having the object, but also the apparatus of legitimacy associated with the publishing process that matters.  I recognize, of course, that this is not a real thing, that the legitimacy I am discussing is a construction of the establishment, but I am within this framework and haven't the capacity to fight it in that way.  I've been on a path for my whole adult life, and I was set on this path by others I trusted, who made it clear to me I would have the support necessary to create success, and that is the only kind of success that I am interested in, professionally.  Anything else would be less than a second choice, would be an acceptance of things that I can't accept without self-destruction.  It is not a rational position, I know.  It is not reasonable, and I am not going to pretend that it is, but it is how things are.  I don't have any option but to succeed on these terms, and anyone who suggests I should try something else is telling me, from my perspective, to give up on what matters to me.

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