I’ve been thinking about Swift’s “The Prophecy” a lot. She found artistic success early and struggled to find a relationship she could feel safe and happy in where she could build a family, even though she spent all those years looking.
I found my spouse early and had two kids…
I spent the whole time raising my kids continuing to write and strive to make the connections I needed to get people to read my work.
I wrote stories while watching Blue’s Clues on the other half of my computer screen. I’ve thumb-typed stories in my phone while my kids played.
I’ve written so many books. I have an extensive back catalog. My fiction has been published in top magazines and won awards.
But because I wouldn’t shut up about loving AI, I’ve been boxed out of most of the places where I was making any real headway on finding readers.
But seriously, as a sci-fi writer, what the hell? How can you have any integrity as an author of optimistic sci-fi and simply dismiss AI? How can you have any intellectual integrity at all and pretend it’s as limited as a “plagiarism machine”?
Don’t answer that. Really don’t.
Anyway, here I am with a life’s work’s worth of optimistic, idea-heavy, fun-to-read speculative fiction…
And barely any audience.
And I’m so grateful for my spouse and kids, but I want to be able to connect with people through my work. I want to rewrite the prophecy.
Taylor Swift got married yesterday. She rewrote the prophecy, and she finally has both the creative success and the love she was seeking.
Now that my kids are older, I have a little more time and energy. I’m pouring everything I can into rewriting my own prophecy.
I’m selling books at multiple conventions this summer. I’m writing as fast as I ever have, making progress on finally having a long series, since I know that can help. And my spouse is talking to Fable, the single smartest thing on the planet right now, about marketing better.
I’ve made a career’s worth of music to accompany and complement my books using Suno, and maybe that’s just for me. But I think it’s good.
Soon I’ll expand into video. All while continuing to write, always adding to my empty empire of fiction, just waiting for readers to come.
But I just can’t stop thinking about rewriting “The Prophecy.”
And the bare nakedness of her voice as she faces the fact that she may never find what she’s looking for, what she craves, the other side of that coin.
And she found it.
But maybe I never will.