Over and over I still find myself at 3am whispering into the darkness, “But I don’t know what I’m doing.”

It’s been a little over a year since I launched and I have not yet reached a point of true confidence with the thing.

I have had a lot of advice from a lot of people, pieces of which was good.

I have also had criticism from a lot of people, most of which was mean. Occasionally it was relevant, but not often.

I have worked with many creative collaborators. Some disappeared at critical moments, and some stayed.

Many, many people felt entitled to my time. This is overwhelmingly been my experience. It is still wild to me that people simply email me their stories - expecting me to read them, or to publish them. Writers that I have published will also email me at random moments with certain ‘urgent’ demands (this happened about 20 minutes ago).

Folks love to tell me I should rest more, and do less. Community, on the other hand, will tell me to do better and adapt quicker. Community tells me in lots of different ways that what I am doing is critical, and therefore if I fail, it will impact us all.

Unfortunately is still mostly just me sitting on my bed, putting books into envelopes. Organising launches that I hope will pay for printing. Finding ways to walk my talk with my politics, uplifting writers that I know need to be heard. Working out high level demanding admin systems to distribute work and publish ideas. Finding new collaborators, explaining what I need, knowing I might not hear from them again at all.

Navigating my bipolar and dyscalculia, my full time day job, the rest of my life around a publishing idea that is now so much bigger than me. Sitting with my own fears of the dystopia, wishing I had more time to write myself.

I am watching the way that all the creatives I know are make Fundraising pages, and swapping them amongst ourselves, as if any of us had any money whatsoever to give to someone else. As if we are not counting the change in our own pockets to afford coffee. As if any of us could be saved from the algorithmic disasters that steer community away from us in permanent waves, meaning it’s incredibly hard to sell books or find audiences.

And yet, I am still here. Why is that?

I think it’s because when future generations ask me what I did when the world was falling apart, I genuinely want to say, I worked as hard as I could. I did my best. I brought my whole self to the work.

Is it enough? I still don’t really know.