Every single day is that one day I hope for the “big one.” My fellows in the author community know what I mean. Every day is a win and a loss. Every day is outward joy and hidden agony. Every day is filled with the potential of every person becoming a new friend, until they’re not. Every day is filled with words that want to gush with a hopeful continuous ebb.

Every day is a burst of energy and ultimate fatigue. Every day is one where a helping hand may come as often as facing a tundra of radio silence from those you ache to not only reach but impress. Every day your heroes inspire you and at times befuddle you. They’re human too. Every day I face a white emptiness and give praise to the divine when I fill it with black icons, cutting and editing as needed. Sieving my lifeblood from a proverbial vein and feeling incredible release only lovemaking provides better.

Every day I show my soul with some guardedness while wanting to stand upon the highest summit and scream. Every day I network in some fashion, the same way I rose as a music journalist, having the wherewithal to cold contact heritage artists for private conversations that led to where I am now. A-list knocked back down to base in the same long upward march. Every day I remember the thrill when the ether of obtuseness blows into my nostrils.

Every day I seethe with jealousy just as much as I cheer on, support and push my fellow writers. My brothers and sisters know that which I speak. It’s the highest form of ecstasy to earn a publication, to sell a book from your table, to make a new contact with someone who gives a damn about your journey. It’s lonely no matter what level of success you are as an author, unless you’re fortunate like I am to have another author as your mate and biggest advocate. Every day I see the best of myself in my woman, a fellow warrior of the word, and every day I fight that much harder.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.