A Lesson in Failure: The Ups and Downs of being an Indie Author

Featured 35th Issue: The Time Grandma Jumped into a Lake and Transformed into a Kung Fu Warrior.

As you all know, I rep FIYAH hard! It’s literally been at the bottom of this newsletter since I started—my go-to spot for directing y’all to the best of Black Speculative Fiction. I’ve submitted to this mag twice. Rejected both times.

And FINALLY—finally—I was accepted into this issue.

Let’s talk about it.

Failure is a hell of a thing. It gets in your chest. Makes you question whether you’ve got it, whether you ever had it. Makes you look at your own reflection and wonder if you’re lying to yourself. If your dreams are bigger than your talent.

I’ve been there. Am there, sometimes.

But here’s the lesson:

I kept showing up. Even when I didn’t feel worthy. Even when I was embarrassed. Even when I thought I’d never get a “yes.” I studied. I revised. I rewrote. I cried a little (okay, a lot). Then I hit submit again.

Because the truth is—success isn’t always about talent. It’s about resilience. It’s about being willing to stand back up when the floor drops from under you. It’s about choosing to believe in yourself when it feels like nobody else does.

That’s what this moment means to me.

Not that I finally got into FIYAH (although, yes, scream with me!). But that I didn’t let failure define me. That I honored my growth. That I made room for my future self to win.

So if you’re in that place—tired, rejected, doubting—this is your nudge. This is your push. You are not done. You are not out. The dream is still yours.

Get back up. Do it again. Submit again. Write again.
Show up for yourself.

Every no is just making room for the right yes.

And trust me, when it hits—it hits.

That being said, what is this story about?

Let me tell ya!

The Time Grandma Jumped in the Lake and Transformed into a Kung Fu Warrior (and yes, that is the actual title) is basically exactly what it sounds like (lol). It’s a Black Isekai story—though I personally think of it more like portal fantasy.

I love anime, and I’ve watched a few Isekai, so I was familiar with the genre. Just like portal fantasy, it’s all about traveling from one world to another—where the rules are different, the adventure is real, and a lesson is always waiting. I combined all of those elements and got myself a Kung Fu-fighting grandmother.

In this story, we meet Ebony, our main character, who’s dealing with the grief of watching her grandmother slip away due to dementia.

I went this route because I currently have a grandmother going through something similar, and my great-grandmother just had a stroke this past Christmas.

I’m at that age where I’ve started to feel the weight of what it means to watch your pillars fade. I didn’t know how to process those emotions. I know it’s coming. I know they can’t live forever. But what is forever if I could just steal one more moment with the women who absolutely changed my life?

If it weren’t for my grandmothers, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today. And that’s a fact.

Knowing that one day I’ll call home and they won’t answer is a thought I refused to deal with—until it hit me head-on after my great-grandmother’s stroke.

So, I wrote.
I wrote to explore grief, loss, and the fear of death.
I wrote about being a coward. About being too paralyzed to pick up the phone. About avoiding bad news like silence could save me from it.

That’s where GKFW (Grandma Kung Fu Warrior) came from.

One of my favorite memories with my grandmothers is watching karate movies. IDK if it was just the time I grew up in or what, but if they weren’t watching their soaps, they were watching Kung Fu flicks.

(Side note: my granddad had me on cowboy movies. Anything Wild Wild West was his thing.)

To this day, I still joke with my Grandma Carolyn about it when I call. And honestly? If anime was as big back then as it is now, I’m convinced she would’ve been obsessed.

So—because this is getting far too long—

GKFW is a tribute to my grandmothers, Alberta & Carolyn.

Two tag-teaming grannies who raised me hand-in-hand.
They taught me how to speak up for myself. How to love. How to work hard. How to face fear and walk through it anyway.

I love them from the bottom of my heart.
And when the portal finally opens for them, I hope they’ll always remember.

I know I will.

Till next time,
E.A. Noble

FIYAH 35th issue: The Time Grandma Jumped into a Lake and Transformed into a Kung Fu Warrior!

Also, I want to shout out my beta readers. I had a limited time to write, revise, and edit this piece, and when I hit them up, they were just like… SEND IT! They got the feedback to me quickly—and even ahead of schedule.

They tore my manuscript up, looking under every rock, every boulder, every stone to find ways I could improve this piece. And it worked. My people came through.

Y’all know who y’all are. Just know I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart. I seriously could not have done this without you.

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