Imagining Success with Tananarive Due

And so that Prince quote is really interesting because it's like one of the questions is when you achieve success.

great things, things that other authors, things that you thought you wanted at the beginning of your career and you actually get them and you look around and then it's kind of like, okay, what is the next step? What do I do after this? You know,

this is great quote.

I don't want to take it to a, to a, I'm trying to struggle with the word because I want to say dark, but I don't like the use of the term dark as a negative.

So I'm going to say pale, the pale underbelly.

I, you know, I had James Baldwin said that the price one pays for pursuing any calling a profession is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Right.

And I don't want to make it sound, you know, too diabolical, but it's true.

Right.

It's true.

So you, you reach the pinnacle.

You're you're you've sold a book.

Oh my God.

You've sold a book.

Maybe you even got a decent advance.

When I sold my first book, It was for $50,000.

Wow.

Now they offer 30.

And I would have taken that in a heartbeat, but my agent was like, oh, no, no, we're going to do better.

I was not making that a year as a reporter.

So it was very surreal.

It was, you know, the money seems surreal.

The experience seems surreal.

And even if your advance isn't that big, like any writer, you're just happy that someone wants to publish you.

It could be a small indie press.