894 Days Ago: A Call to Adventure

June 17, 2022. That’s the day I stumbled across the “Book Aid for Ukraine” auction. The idea was simple: donate money, win 30 minutes with a literary agent. I scrolled through the agents like a kid browsing a toy catalog at Christmas.

So I bid. Won. And landed a Zoom call with a literary agent.

734 Days Ago: First Contact

July 24, 2022. There I was on Zoom, watching the agent's face as he dissected the first 30 pages of my manuscript.

“It’s good,” he said. “The concept is strong. But the writing isn’t tight enough.”

I nodded like a student in a college lecture, trying not to let my stomach drop out of my body.

The feedback was fair, but still … brutal.

“Can I resubmit after I tighten it up?” I asked, trying not to sound desperate.

“Sure. Do it.” It sounded like a dare.

A few days later, I was working on my first 30 pages, and I decided to poke around online a little bit, researching this agent who dared me to resubmit my material to him. I had an idea, and in an impulsive strike of idiotic optimism, I took the gambit and sent him an email.

“You represent authors and their books. I run a marketing agency that specializes in Amazon ads. We’re a premier Amazon partner—which means we have access to something called ‘sponsored ad dollars’ directly from Amazon. These dollars don’t come out of your pocket; they’re basically Amazon’s way of helping top-tier agencies promote excellent books. I’d love to run a campaign for some of your clients.”

The next morning, I woke up to an email with a subject line that just said, “RE: Amazon Ads.” My heart did that thing where it speeds up, slows down, and then parks itself somewhere in your throat.

And just like that, I had somehow talked myself into running an ad campaign for an agent I hardly knew.

820 Days ago: The Campaign

August 2022. Campaigns launched.

Within days, the rankings of the books I was promoting started climbing. #10,000. #1,000. By August 4th, it hit #646.

By August 6th, we’d cracked the top 200. Over 9,000 copies sold in a matter of weeks.

“Would you like help editing your manuscript?” the agent asked one day.

Would I? Absolutely. I would have sold my soul for this.

739 Days Ago, September 2022: A Breakthrough

For two weeks, I ate, slept, and bled edits. Comments weren’t just suggestions—they were commandments. My desk was a war zone of printouts, coffee cups, and despair, and I was the poor bastard soldier crawling through the trenches, clutching every word as if my life depended on it. Because, in a way, it did.

Tighten this section (you meander), clarify this plot point (you’re confusing), cut this description (you’re boring).

McKee says, “Stories are equipment for living.” But when you’re stuck in the guts of a rewrite, the story isn’t living; it’s dying on the operating table, and you’re holding the scalpel, praying you can stitch it back together before it flatlines.

Somewhere in the chaos, though, a voice crept in. Keep going.

When the email came in, I didn’t even breathe as I opened it. And there it was:

“This is world’s better. WHAT a difference. Congratulations!”

Congratulations. It wasn’t a word I’d heard often on this journey. Not when I started this book 5,388 days ago. Not when I was chasing agents who wouldn’t even respond to a query. Not when I was sitting in a Starbucks, writing scenes that no one would ever read. But now?

Now is a different story.

And then came the sentence that changed everything:

“Once it’s ready, I’ll send this to publishers.”

I think it was the second-most exhilarating moment of my entire working career. Vogler talks about the return with the elixir—the moment when the hero comes back from their trials, transformed and carrying the key to a new world. That email felt like my elixir. A promise that the journey, for all its pain and doubt, had not been in vain.

I floated out of that email and directly into a celebratory bottle of bourbon. I poured a glass, raised it to the universe, and whispered, “To proving the bastards wrong.”

And for the first time in years, I felt like I was.

499 Days Ago: The Final Push

I spent the next 240 days rewriting the manuscript. For every chapter you fix, three more problems pop up. By the summer of 2023, I was finally done. I sent the final chapters in on July 27th.

It was perfect. Tight. Polished. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that punching above your weight isn’t about winning. It’s about proving to yourself that you can take the hit. It’s about looking at someone—a literary heavyweight—and saying, I belong here too.

The future was a glittering road of possibility and opportunity. Until it wasn’t.