Back when, back then, when I was a young man with some worrying habits, I left Africa for London with a backpack, two manuscripts, and a dream. In less than a year, my dream was about to be fulfilled when I was invited to write a short story for Picador’s “young writers to watch” series.

Did I mention the worrying habits? They were the trigger. The fuel for the impending explosion? My ego along with fantastic insecurity and a hunchback-sized chip. Combustible!

Net result? It all went kapow in the most excellent of ways. I failed to submit anything—of course I didn’t—and by the time I woke up a decade later, I found myself a washed-up writer in Manhattan living my new American Dream.

Manhattan at the turn of the century was kind to this Italian-African immigrant. The dollars were easy enough to come by and, eventually, almost twenty years after I’d deep-sixed my dream of a writing career, I finally got around to writing another novel (which was published in 2014).

By then, I’d discovered a few truths about myself and my writing journey.

The biggest lesson?

I’m what happens when you choose not to listen to advice. Things that I never listened to? Get a network. Get contacts in the industry. Work your contacts. And whatever you do, don’t ever imagine you’ll get more than one big break in this industry. Talent isn’t that rare.

Here’s the thing: You can’t really do this on your own. Not if you’re wanting to make this into a career that pays the rent.

Net result? Failure.

Failure, yes … but …

But … there’s failure and failure.

In the end, what I learnt was this: your relationship to your art is your own. If you want to write that bestseller, chances are you need to find a mainstream publisher who will pump the marketing budget to match your dreams.

Me? I owe no one anything. And that means I get to be true to my vision and my stories. Do I self-publish? Christ, no, that would require all sorts of business acumen! Have I turned down mainstream publishers when their vision for my book didn’t match my vision? Sure … well, twice anyway!

Is there a downside to staying true to the authenticity of your own art? More than you can ever imagine. Is the life of an artist who wants to stay true to their vision one of petty humiliations and toxic anger? Only on Tuesdays!

The worst is when I finish a novel and know that I’m going to have to start from nothing … again. No agent, no publisher, and these days, no access to the mainstream press.

But you know, that’s the journey, too. The rejections and the acceptance, the ability to stamp your vision on your book, that beautiful moment when you know your work will be published close to the way you conceived it. That matters if you’re in this game for your art and not a pay check.

You may find the emotions and the prose in my books at odds with a literary world that seems to devote a lot of time publishing words that have no artistry, and voices that have no emotion. It’s taken decades of work and experimentation and living to get to where my art is now. My words are what they are, my stories what they are, and that, for me, is what success means.

In my misspent youth, I wound up studying Adorno for my MA in Lit et Phil (hey, don’t scoff, that got me a lucrative gig on Wall Street as an editor!). I was inspired by what he wrote about the authenticity of art. “Every authentic artwork is internally revolutionary”. It’s true. These days, genuine human emotion and a love of prose seem to run counter to the current tastes of our mainstream literary world. And that’s okay, because I’m not in this game for the ego or the pay check.

I’m in this because I love words, and I’m insane enough to imagine that somewhere out there, someone will give a damn about my novels and the stories I have to tell.

I hope that’s you.

If it is, thank you.