Bounce!

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Years ago, at one of the darkest moments, a friend in the Austen fandom gave me a motto in a quote from George S. Paton. The quote is: Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.

It’s one of the things I had pinned to my board, and which kept me going when it seemed like I’d hit the bottom, and then there was another bottom underneath.

I wasn’t sure I believed it. Or at least I didn’t believe there could be bouncing, and there could be success. Look, after a while you lose sight of where you hoped to go. After a while things get lost in the shuffle.

But it turns out it was right, anyway.

It was only after losing my career, my beloved home state, the familiar places, the things I loved and all my certainties about the world and life in general (in 2020) that I had the courage to write the book I’d been avoiding for the last … forty plus years.

And it worked. How high will it bounce? I don’t know. Jury still out. But it did give me a bounce anyway. It gave me hope back.

Perhaps the country too needed to hit bottom. Which we did in the four years of autopen. Let’s hope we bounce all the way to the stars.

My friend Charlie Martin says “You can’t recover for someone else.” And that’s of course, true. Whatever is holding you back, whether real or not, whether self-inflicted or not, you have to fight it on your own. I can’t fight it for you. No one can.

What I can do is give you hope. People have hit bottom before, and then bounced really high. And maybe it will happen again. Maybe it will happen for you.

You won’t know till you hit bottom. And start bouncing.

This coming year: remember to bounce. Bounce to the stars!

50 thoughts on “Bounce!”

  2. Hoping we bounce our way completely out of the socialist mess created by leftist politics and into a bright new future. The last year has been interesting, definitely taking steps away from the past despite the resistance of the entrenched political class and their media allies. I have hope for the future and for my children and grandchildren to have the universe open to them.

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  3. While I seriously dislike all the bad things you have gone through these last few years, I am so happy you decided finally write the Chronicles of Lost Elly.

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  5. All I could envision reading this, based on personal experience, is the cartoon character falling through floor after floor of a high rise with a surprised face after each floor collapsed but then bouncing off the trampoline in the basement and going right through all those floors again before heading skyward.

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  6. Bottom was Obama.

    Trump was the amazing comeback.

    Take notice that -Biden- was the response. Their play was “get as much graft out as we can while we still can.” That is the strategy of rats leaving a sinking ship. Harris/Walz was more of same and less competent.

    Take heart that they select such imbeciles. Newsome is probably their best bet for 2028, and he is at best a busted flush.

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    1. It’s way too early to say for 2028. I fear somebody who appears more sensible like Josh Shapiro could make a good run. This is no time to be complacent.

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      1. The Reader’s early prediction for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination is Abigail (Abby Normal) Spanberger. She is being groomed for it. There is a lot of ruin in a state, and Virginia will still look good after 3 years of Democratic misrule.

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      2. Shapiro is Jewish, and so won’t be permitted to have the nomination.

        Both Newsome and Harris are angling themselves for a run. Harris is already claming that the reason why she lost is that she didn’t have enough time to sell herself to the voters. But even if the base is inclined to vote for her again, I suspect the donor class wants nothing to do with her after she wasted an absurd amount of cash in her run last year (it’s hard to believe it’s only been just over a year).

        Newsome is trying to raise a national profile of himself as a disinterested moderate leftist. I know what conservatives think of that, but I don’t know what the moderates and mildly leftist types think of that in other parts of the country. There’s also the 2028 Olympics to consider. The 2028 Olympics will be held in Los Angeles. If they’re a mess, some of that could reflect back on Newsome. If they’re a success, some of that could also reflect on Newsome. However, the biggest thing might be the aftermath of the two fires last January. It’s well-known that not much has happened with that so far. Lots of eyes are going to be focused on Los Angeles in 2028. And if both Pacific Palisades and Altadena are still not rebuilt, that will definitely reflect badly on him if word gets out.

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  16. There are a lot of authors I’ve bought a lot of what they’ve written. Not one I’ve bought *everything they’ve written, yet (unless “all” is one series – Jean Auel**). Sarah’s work, and Galbaldon, are the closest I’ve come. Galbaldon’s work only because her work to date are Outlander and spinoffs. There are others that my library might appear I have, but I know I haven’t even touched work under their other prolific pseudonyms.

    (*) Okay. One series, Rogue Angel ebooks. But that doesn’t count because while listed under one single author, the series titles are written by multiple authors. (Ebooks VS the new format, which I will not buy.)

    (**) I finished Clan of Cave Bear series. But it was hard.

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  17. You can’t recover for someone else but I would like to express gratitude for folks I know that I’ve seen recovering. And returning from far off places and bad situations.

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    1. All I’ve been able to do is provide an example. I “hit bottom” in ’81-’82. Meant a career change. I originally thought that could take the form of motherhood. Um. No. Oh, it happened but took 7 more years. Sitting at home playing homemaker is not in my DNA (still isn’t in retirement, I keep busy). So new career. Which I then spent 30+ years doing (plus motherhood). Was I stellar? Not a chance. Just very, very, good. Also, lucky. I was able to find work when others, probably better than I, couldn’t, ever.

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  19. One thing I learned during a long business career, nothing ever gets done until there is a crisis. That led me to my theory of crisis design engineering. The idea is to force the crisis to occur before it becomes a catastrophe. You force the crisis to occur by making it so obvious that things will never work out unless drastic change is made.

    DOGE, the organized crime of welfare piracy, the recognition of the illegality and stupidity of DEI, the naked craziness of transgenderism, the exposure of the mendacity of institutions of mass media and education–these are all signaling the recognition of the crisis. Yes, the few, the insightful, have always recognized this, but now it is being made apparent to the humble citizen heretofore too busy putting food on the table to take action.

    I have hope, “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

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  20. The past three weeks have been, I hope, the start of a bounce. I’ve been able to write, and I got time away (that was not very intense professional development without rest before or after) from home and Day Job. This week I’ve gotten done a lot of physical labor as well as mental stuff, and that helped clear the decks for other things.

    Sanity is overrated, but oh, I can understand the lure of stability, even at the expense of freedoms and prosperity. It is deceptive, and blocks the bounce, but I understand it in a visceral way now. Wish I didn’t, but life happens.

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  22. Even if nobody else can bounce for someone, often that person still needs other people’s help to bounce, given that it often involves selling something — which means needing a buyer. Which means that not everyone who failed to bounce didn’t try — they can try their hearts out, but if all they get is turned-up noses, they’re going to fail.

    I know I’m coming from a really bad place right now, after an absolutely awful year. But one of the biggest things you can do to help a creative who’s down to bounce is to buy their stuff. And of course increase their discoverability by reviewing it and telling other people about it. Because there are few things more dispiriting than putting your stuff out and wondering whether you’re being rejected in the market or simply not being found.

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  24. Happy New Year everyone. 2025 was a much better year than 2024 and it looks as though 26 is coming in with a bang. God looks after children, drunks, and the United States of America!

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    1. Yes. Just think of where we were this time 2023? We were looking at another year of Biden & democratic buddies fraud. We were looking at more voter fraud as they tried to put candidate Trump behind bars and kill him. Okay New Year’s Eve 2023 might have been a bit early for trying to put him behind bars, let alone killing him, but the plans were 100% in place and being tweaked. A year ago, 2024, we were sighing in relief, and debating what he could get accomplished, even as he was getting things accomplished without even taking the oath of office. We still didn’t know if President Trump was fighting the fight on his own. He isn’t. His appointees are paying attention and marching lockstep to the same drummer. God does look out for the United States of America.

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  26. Please let 2026 be better than the chain of catastrophes I’ve had this year….

    I have most of the rough draft of White Cat’s Bluff written. Hoping to finish that by the end of January! And then, while that’s sitting for the obligatory “spend time away from the draft so I can see how to fix it”… well, going to try for the book after The Words of the Night, and who knows what else. Going to see if I can get three books out for 2026 – no idea if I can, but I will try!

    *Knocks on wood!*

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  27. And, regarding “Bounce to the stars!”– there’s a little story to that one, already.

    In the early history of Space X, there came a point where the Falcon 1 rocket was basically down to its last try. If that flight hadn’t successfully made orbit and “unlocked” the NASA money for further development, even Elon Musk didn’t have the means to fund a next attempt after that one.

    But it worked. And the money came, and bigger rockets followed…as we all know by now. This is being transmitted to you through a path-breaking constellation of thousands of “Netsats” (as one of my characters put it once upon a time) — all built and launched by Space X, to make true global connectivity a reality.

    Bounce to the stars, or at least very foreseeably now the planets, indeed.

    The sky is no longer a limit. Refuse the psy-op, even if it’s just your own little fears mis-whispering.

    Happy, and different and better, new 2026 to all!

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    1. Further west than you. We’ve got another ~2 1/2 hours to midnight. I won’t make it that long. Haven’t in years. Son and hubby will because they are night owls anyway.

      Cats hiding under the beds. Dog in hiding in interior bathroom or behind couch. Booms already going off. Booms will be going off every night through Sunday night, starting last night.

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