How Your Invisible Rule Book is Killing Your Relationships and Freelance Hustle

Sunday morning, I headed down to one of my favorite spots in Nashville’s Gulch to grab coffee and breakfast. The restaurant has a covered patio and seating that provides an endless stream of people to watch. I, like most authors, try to imagine the stories behind the passersby. This Lord’s day the pedestrian foot traffic wasn’t hard to read. The world Pokemon tournament was in town, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what the guy sporting a Bulbasaur tattoo was up to.

As I sipped my coffee, I started feeling both vulnerable and emboldened simultaneously. The sea of people passing me by without seeing me felt like an allegory for my life. Being the author of the unnoticed Steinbeck: Citizen Spy and a ghostwriter of nine books I had felt invisible as an author and literally made myself disappear in plain sight. Those who had to “catch ’em all” took no notice of me and the old feeling came back. I had to hide. I’m not good enough to put my name on a book. No one believed that John Steinbeck was a CIA asset, despite the documentation I presented. All the bad chemicals, as Vonnegut described mental funks in Breakfast of Champions, sloshed around my head.

After what I’ve come to call the Event, I’m starting to call bullshit on myself more often, but it’s still a process. I decided after…