Forsaken Elves & Failure: Part 1
Nicole Piar
When scrutinizing my scheme for getting the Spirit Cats Oracle Deck into the world, this image impelled me into cloudy-headed confusion and pushing-against-a-wall resistance:
A towering mountain of unsold Spirit Cats Decks transforming my home into an impassable maze with a sadly-diminished bank account to boot. Yup, I would be surrounded by the relics of my failure in the form of cute magical kitties gathering dust.
Which is why I am so thrilled, like spinning-in-circles-and-doing-a-happy-dance thrilled, that my Spirit Cats are flying out the door. So much so, that I am ordering even more decks so I don’t run out before the holidays.
That vision of failure, though, definitely stalked me like a mountain lion at twilight. After all, I had been down that road before.
In 2008, I illustrated a line of holiday cards featuring quirky elves playing with cozy flames and topping pine trees with sparkling stars. I printed a bunch of them and excitedly posted them in my new Etsy shop.
My grand opening!!!! And……. Nothing. No one bought a single card.
I lugged those heavy boxes with me as I moved from house to house, doling out the unwanted cards as gifts. These cute elves with their sideways smiles hurt my heart and made me feel like a novice ballerina stumbling through her pirouettes.
How exactly did this happen?
Well, consider this... I have always been an artist and writer and while I love science and even math, business instinctively repelled me.
Business equalled greedy, grey-suited men who saw people as marks and nature as our honeypot. Adversarial, arrogant, manipulative, and lacking in humanity.
Yes, it was a pretty dark view.
Yet, my mostly-hermit and hidden method of creating just didn’t seem to be working. No one was receiving the messages I was sending out in the form of cute elves and other magic.
I was virtually invisible.
Tune in to Part 2 to find out just how I escaped from the Land of Forsaken Elves to arrive in the abundant world of my Spirit Cats.
With love,
Nicole