Wild Lands

JOURNAL ENTRY #3

I have been walking for days. The way of my choosing is now quite narrow. In some places, I cannot even see a path and must navigate these forests by intuition alone. Indeed, the wide road did not remain so for long.

Artisanal publishing, it appears, is not a well-worn path. Many travellers have by now diverted their passage to a small but growing village that borders the Five Kingdoms. This village is known as Great Haste. It appears to have grown from the ashes of an older village called Vanity.

As appealing as these villages may be to a travelling writer, I cannot divert from the goal I have set. To publish is one thing, but to publish well, is something entirely different. And so I must press on. Through the forests of perfection, the valleys of production and over the difficult mountain passes of publicity. I cannot stop until I have learned what I must. I cannot rest until I master each process.

Yet for every mountain I conquer, a new one lays before me, connected by ever-deepening valleys of darker forests. What’s more, I have begun hearing distant roars in the night. Deep unsettling roars. I know I am not alone out here. I suspect that ambition is no longer key to survival beyond the borders of the wild lands. No, ambition must quickly give way to skill, lest the traveling writer succumb to one of its many perils.