Why I ditched “obligatory” marketing to follow my truer self—from federal-acquisition firefights to relaunching The Last Page Before Dawn
Ever since I first belted out the Indigo Girls’ chorus in “Closer to Fine,” I’ve known the quest isn’t for a true self—it’s for a forever-evolving truer self. Every step I take, I’m trying to get closer to that version. I say “truer” rather than “true” because I’m not sure we ever get quite close enough to the true self.
I don’t know if it’s the noise and polarity of the moment or my own spiritual progression—or just something that happens to everyone as they get older—but I’m done with even the remotest attempt to fit expectations and obligations that aren’t mine. I’ve always railed against the “you have to do it this way,” but I’m not even railing anymore. Now I’m just turning up my nose and walking away from it.
Maybe I won’t always be able to walk away so easily. I know that I haven’t always had that option, financially, and it was definitely more necessary to fit my square-peg self into a round hole when I had to pretend to fit in just to pay the bills. I learned something about myself this spring—about what’s really important to me and what parts of me I can’t undo, like my drive to help others even when there’s a public and personal cost.
I had lots of plans for this spring, including finishing up several manuscripts that were ready for publication pending minor revisions and edits. Then the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a short-lived political task force—barreled in with their literal and figurative chainsaws and overnight destroyed much of my life’s work as well as a lucrative stream of income in teaching rapid acquisition techniques to people who are no longer working for the Government. I watched brilliant, dedicated former colleagues endure bullying and uncertainty while they still tried to continue the public service they were committed to.
During the first seven weeks of those conflicting Executive Orders, my 18-hour days looked like this:
1. Matched ≈ 30 stellar federal professionals with new employers.
2. Helped Feds get access to regulations and guides when the only digital versions were removed from official websites and they still needed access to do their jobs.
3. Published content to help Feds understand the laws and regs that apply to civil service protections and decide whether to resign, retire early, or take a chance on being fired or laid off.
4. Briefed New York Times and other journalists on how to read federal contract data, IDIQ contracts, and fiscal-law nuances.
5. Assessed the DOGE website, documenting misleading “fraud, waste, and abuse” claims that betrayed basic ethical federal acquisition principles.
Not a single paragraph of fiction got written.
I could have said, I no longer work for DoD, so this doesn’t affect me. I could have said, I got mine, so who cares? But using my voice to defend ethical federal acquisition mattered more than polishing a new novel about shifting timelines and magical capers.
Many of my former colleagues were silenced or threatened into silence. They were terrified to question what we knew wasn’t legal because they couldn’t afford to be fired. I, on the other hand, could afford to question inefficient and destructive new procedures and point out how much more money they were costing me as a taxpayer, based on understanding the contracts on the list. So that’s what I did. It’s what was important to me. More important than finishing a new book or making money off my words.
And that insight is another step closer to my truer self: realizing that how I use my writing to help others is more important than following every “best practice” in email funnels or “write-to-market” formulas. Leading practices aren’t always best practices, as I learned in my acquisition career.
My hallmark in federal acquisition was constant experimentation and innovation—sometimes applauded, sometimes villainized. It hasn’t been as lucrative in my writing career (I’ve never met a genre I couldn’t cross two or three times), yet I’m at my best when I color outside the lines—no constraints, no apologies.
So yes, I’m rebelling. Email marketing works, but an overflowing inbox doesn’t spark joy for me or my readers. I’m weary of platforms—and even other authors—dictating what I “should” do and which tools I can or can’t use, especially when I have AI tools take care of mundane stuff so I can spend my time writing. Instead, I’m returning to what does bring joy: content marketing vs email, author career pivots, and the raw immediacy of blogging.
I started daily blogging back in 1999, hand-coding “web log” pages and giving away 70,000 copies of my first ebook collection of posts. To me, it’s still the most natural way to let words flow about what’s raw and profound in the moment.
So my next step is to move all my non-acquisition essays back to my legacy site, The Spiritual Eclectic, which is getting a facelift and a new section called The Last Page Before Dawn Blog. Just thinking about it makes me very, VERY happy.
Have you felt the pull toward your own truer self? Share your story in the comments, or pass this along to someone on that same journey.
A Southern witch returns home. Secrets won’t stay buried. A chance to confront and heal—or face the consequences.
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