One of the toughest days will be the day you drive east. 

When I was barely cutting my wisdom teeth, I wrote my first adult short story, about a young woman who invents a better egg carton. The story is far from subtle and the writing is worse. Our hero, Jess, has an abusive mother and a younger brother she is determined to both protect and liberate. 

I reread the story today and imagine what I was attempting to communicate. The dialogue is trite and the imagery glares at the reader with amateur dread. I was at the beginning; I was a fool. Jess is an inventor, a scientist, a student of egg physics. Her invention is undoubtedly superior. But she has almost nowhere to go where her creation will be valued. 

The story is the story of every invention, every creation, and the likelihood that each of them will struggle to be meaningful in the context of market forces and product adoption. Each one will struggle to be seen, to be shared. Thus, the artist will inevitably fail to be seen as innovative because the existing hierarchies depend on the upholding of the status quo. 

Jess knows that eggs cannot be crushed when pressure is placed evenly on their pudgy sides; they are most vulnerable on their ends. She describes her product, called NEST (Nodular Egg Storage and Transport) as such: 

“The rubber, mushroom-shaped nodules equalize pressure while holding up to 36 eggs securely in place. NEST can float, invert without dropping a single fragile oval, stack higher than the inside of a warehouse, and is completely reusable. After weighing and handling, NEST protects the eggs while they are washed and oiled. I run my hand across its bulbous, contained surface, pressing the nodules into the base. They are firm and push back, a bed of insulated nails.”

The suffering, the breakthrough, the hope of a brighter future is contained in the idea of her younger brother. Named Eppe, he is her personal epiphany, her calling, her hatchling. He collects marbles and wears a leather headband with a feather because Jess has given him a fictional origin and an imaginary Native American father. 

Bringing stories to life is easy; protecting them and transporting then in a world that has heard a million stories before and is frankly, unimpressed, is a more treacherous enterprise. A short-sighted dairy distributor at a state fair yields unjust power, much like an editor, or an ill-timed act of cruelty from anyone in a position of power. You must keep creating, protecting, and transporting ideas. You must not be your cruelest audience. And you must do or not do anything you must. 

Please remember that you’re allowed to create. Anything that diminishes that act is simply not true. 

Only love, 

Nicole