What the Death Card Revealed About My Writing Career
Four months after my first novel debuted, I attended the birthday party of a friend who had graciously enlisted a woman to give everyone tarot card readings. We could each ask only one burning question.
(How California’s Super Bloom Influenced My Debut Novel.)
I considered asking whether I should invest in Bitcoin or if she could tell me where my kid had hidden the remote (and then forgot). Instead, I asked: What’s my future as an author? I was deep into writing my second novel, this one under contract, a new experience with looming deadlines (ack!) and editor guidance (yay!).
She shuffled the cards. I leaned closer, holding my breath, hoping she’d pull the card that somehow communicated I would be the next Reese pick.
When she flipped the card down with a flourish, snapping the corner, I did not see a petite blonde movie star holding a book. It was a skeleton clutching a sickle.
I reared back, horrified. I’m no tarot expert, but I knew instantly that it was the death card. Could I ask for a worse sign about my writing prospects—other than weak pre-order numbers?
“Can I have a do-over?” I asked, my face drained of color. I really did want to find that remote.
“It’s not what you think,” the tarot card reader insisted. “In fact, it could be positive.”
“I’m not sure how you can spin this one,” I replied, teary, imagining my publisher tearing up the contract for my second novel. “We were wrong about you,” they’d say. The skeleton on the card looked almost jaunty, as if it was already dancing a jig on the grave of my writerly aspirations.
“Maybe,” said the tarot card reader thoughtfully, “it means something about the way you approached your last book is dying. That you need to find a new way to approach your next book in order to keep going.”
By a “new approach,” she didn’t mean swapping Microsoft Word for Scrivener, or ditching my “pantser” ways to become a detailed “plotter.” She was pointing to a deeper shift having to do with my mindset.
I sat back, hand tucked under my chin, absolutely floored. Because I’ll be honest: Publishing my debut novel threw me for a mental loop—one that I was scared would happen again with my second book.
Vanquish the Old Way
My dream of being published had finally come true, yet most weeks I was in tears, undone by a Goodreads review from a stranger who claimed I was “dead to her” because of a fart joke two-thirds of the way through my book or by a non-crowd of three at one of my book events or even by a fellow author’s good fortune. All of it made me feel awful about myself—especially the ugly emotion of envy.
When a friend texted me a photo of my book in a bookstore, my first thought was: “Oh shit, there’s a lot of copies left.”
On the outside, and certainly on social media, I looked like I was having the best time—and make no mistake, I had a lot of pinch-me moments, and I was so grateful to my publisher, to the bookstores who took a chance on me, and to the readers who bought and read my book. But on the inside, I was spiraling, flattened by every slight (or perceived slight).
Ultimately, it wasn’t a negative review or a small crowd that was causing me such pain. It was that I interpreted them to be indicative of my lack of worth. And this is strange, but the good reviews and the gushing friends felt nearly as bad, because I realized that the quality of my day was tethered to other people’s opinions of me. It was alarming and embarrassing how easily I could abandon my belief in myself based on meaningless markers—especially because I had spent a long time building a foundation of self-acceptance and self-kindness.
That foundation washed away as if it’d been constructed out of sugar, and I began to genuinely contemplate whether I had the chops to make it in this industry.
And I don’t mean writing skills.
I mean the ability to be both sensitive as a writer and tough-skinned as a public-facing author. There would be no longevity for me in publishing if my confidence tanked each time someone tagged me in a two-star review (also, readers, for the love of god, stop doing that).
The death card revealed what I already knew deep in my bones: My old approach had to die, or I was in for more mental anguish. And it was the mental anguish that would ultimately kill my career.
“Tell me more,” I said to the tarot reader, now fully invested. I scooched my chair forward. “Isn’t this terrifying looking tool in the skeleton’s hand saying something about my future being hacked into bits?”
She chuckled wisely. “That’s a sickle—” she tapped on the card “—and it’s actually an agriculture tool. It means you have to cut down all the old stuff that didn’t work to make room for fertile soil, for new plants to grow.”
I told her about the list I’d made at home, a manifestation for my second novel. The bestseller lists and the accolades and the jaw-dropping sales numbers and the movie option and the foreign rights deals.
All of it, I realized in that moment, outside my control.
All of it primed to disappoint me, to reinforce the growing narrative in my mind that I was not good enough. All of it leading to more mental anguish.
How could I hold onto my ambition without losing my mind? How could I try to manifest big things without shitting on myself when those things didn’t pan out?
“Well, you have to figure out what you want to plant instead,” the tarot reader said. “What goes in your fertile ground?”
I thanked the woman and ceded the hot seat to another friend, my thoughts on this question all the way home. If I had to vanquish the old way, what was the new way?
What’s in My Control
I’m not the only author struggling with mental health. When I compare notes with my other author friends, I see that so many of us are riddled with anxieties—and of course we are. The publishing industry is bonkers! Every Tuesday, new books are released like salmon in a salmon run, all of us authors slamming into each other, desperately trying not only to survive, but to break through in a major way.
Only a few really do.
Before publication, I remember scoffing at this stat: Over 90% of authors sell less than 5,000 copies of their books. That won’t be me, I merrily skipped along. Reality check: It’s so hard to move books—they’re expensive, and not a lot of people buy them—even some of my good friends didn’t buy or read my debut. The stress and pressure to catapult yourself into literary stardom causes some authors to do some truly bizarre things. And, most authors aren’t entering this world with the tools to navigate the ups and downs.
It is a lot. And—I love writing so much that I really, really want to keep doing it.
If the industry’s not going to change, I must. I could hope for the awards and the sales numbers, but I couldn’t pin my worth on them. So, what was in my control? What could I plant instead?
At home, I scrapped my manifestation list, instead writing the title: Scaffolding. I had to hold myself better, and I wanted to commit to new habits that would protect my mental health. Here’s what I included:
- Clear Morning Mind—Tend to my own thoughts first thing in the morning as if I’m stoking a fire to warm up my house. My mind and heart are more important than email. No checking my phone in bed, no looking at Instagram first thing in the morning.
- Gratitude Practice—Reclaim my deep gratitude for this journey and opportunity. Meditate every morning—even for five minutes!—to set the intention for my day. Tap into deeper self-acceptance and inner peace, releasing bitterness and resentments.
- Celebrate Others—Lift up other writers and creatives, understanding the vulnerability of producing work for public consumption.
- Stay Inner—Connect to what I love most about my own work, what fills me with pride. Never read Goodreads. Leave phone behind on outings and hikes to avoid the temptation to refresh email and scroll social media.
- Stop Writing—Not completely, but do something non-book/writing related every week to connect to and nurture other parts of myself, a reminder that my writing life is only a small sliver of who I am.
- Pull Friends Near—Don’t isolate. Plan friend dates surrounding publication date, and be honest about the support I need. Be goofy, silly, move my body.
And guess what? It’s working.
I’m not saying I don’t have hard days, that I don’t grumble as I drag my butt to my meditation cushion, that I’m now miraculously immune to comparing myself to others on social media, or that I don’t feel the stabs of envy or dread. But this time around, I’ve got other components in place—my scaffolding—to prop me up, keep me centered.
The best part: I’m already having more fun, which was one of my biggest goals. I want to enjoy the *@#% out of this experience. It only took a jaunty little skeleton to spark the change. Pulling the death card brought me back from the brink.
Check out Megan Tady’s Bluebird Day here:
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