It is never nothing to be alive and on this planet and able to make words. It is never nothing to have survived pain, to have kept yourself going, to be this tough thing who is a miracle. I am saying this to you. I’ve had to say it to myself. You are something.
Catalog
Maria Dahvana Headley
Maria Dahvana Headley (born June 21, 1977 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American novelist, memoirist, editor, and playwright. She is a New York Times-bestselling author as well as editor. Her work includes the young-adult space-fantasy novel Magonia and Queen of Kings, an alternate-history fantasy novel about Cleopatra. Her short story "Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream", originally published in Lightspeed magazine in July 2012, was a 2012 Nebula Award nominee, in the short story category. Her short story "The Traditional" was a finalist for the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award. 2Early life Maria Dahvana Headley was born June 21, 1977 in Estacada, Oregon. After graduating from Vallivue High School in Caldwell, Idaho, in 1995, she attended New York University, where she studied dramatic writing at the Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program. 2Career 3The Mere Wife In October, 2015, Farrar, Straus and Girouxg editor Sean McDonald acquired The Mere Wife at auction. "Best-selling Magonia author, Maria Dahvana Headley’s THE MERE WIFE, a ferocious, sexy, and politically topical literary adaptation of Beowulf set in present-day New York, to Sean McDonald at FSG at auction by Stephanie Cabot at The Gernert Company (NA)." 3Magonia In 2014, HarperCollins acquired the young adult novel Magonia and a sequel. Magonia, the story of a 16-year-old girl with a mysterious breathing disease who finds herself on a sky ship in the historical kingdom of Magonia, was published in April 201
But you don’t know what you can do until you try it. And trying is the reason you’re here.
The first yes, though, is the one you tell yourself. That one’s huge. It’s when you say, I will do this anyway. I will do it because it matters to me to make this attempt at the summit. You will not be perfect. No one is perfect. It will be hard. Everything is hard.
I apply to things all the time and I don’t always get them. Whenever I get a no, I apply to another, and off it goes. It’s not personal. It’s just that there are lots of people and the world is full of no. You don’t need every yes. You need one, and then the next.
This is just slow build and big ambition, and some luck. Not everyone gets everything they want. I don’t have everything I want. But when something goes right, even in the wrong direction, I try to celebrate that shit.
You can do it. You can be completely daunted and scared, and still, if you do the work to learn how to write, and do the work of writing, you can make stories people will read. You can change myths people think they’ve committed to memory. You can rock this place.
People will tell you things about the world, ways in which they think you might fail. Some of the things they tell you might be right. Failure can be survived. Keep making a list of your best version, and keep ticking items off. Keep learning. Write your world.
You can make yourself into the person you wish you were. It takes work and small steps and brave goals. Set those brave impossible goals. Tell yourself you are on the right path. Don’t die today. Live. Stay alive. Keep pushing yourself into your best case.
All this is to say: it is not to late to show up for your life. You can be an activist and revolutionary and writer all at once. You can have love. You can give the world the most you have in you. You can start now.
Life is hard for the living, but damn, it's good to be alive and changing and working. The only way to keep doing that is to keep feeding yourself, and keep treating yourself like someone who matters. You matter. Be kind.