Writing Is Hard So I'm Starting a Cult

Lessons from the orgy tent at Burning Man, why my new novel is being rejected, and how I'm turning a setback into creative momentum, and you can, too —>

Dec 10, 2025

CONFESSION

I was unlike anyone else in the orgy tent.

I was the only one fully clothed. And I was the only one with my arms up after coating them in the tent’s complimentary hand sanitizer which turned out to be lube.

“Wanna put those hands to good use?” asked one of the many naked men wandering past.

“Oh! You’re very sweet,” I said, stumbling, keeping strict eye contact as he tugged his nipple ring. “No, thank you. I’m not here for sex. I’m here for enlightenment.”

I’d been on an existential scavenger hunt my whole life, looking for meaning in church, school, career. Something always seemed missing.

Maybe it was the heat, the hunger, the dehydration, but I thought the high-functioning hippies of Burning Man had a clue. Maybe in the neon-drenched gay orgy tent.

I promised myself I’d stay five minutes.

At least I could say I did it.

Inside, red fabric draped toward a dim chandelier, mattresses were spaced along the dirt floor as if to the strict regulations of an orgy HOA, and—

⚠️ This is a threshold.

On the paid side is the rest of this story and *your* story. This isn’t just about Burning Man. It’s about all of us feeling exposed sometimes. That great things can come from being brave, and being rejected.
On the other side, I share the moment that changed me, and how you can test that shift for yourself.
If you’re already a paid subscriber, keep reading…

Inside, red fabric draped toward a dim chandelier, mattresses were spaced along the dirt floor as if to the strict regulations of an orgy HOA, and a naked man in the corner painted watercolor portraits of others having sex. When their panting stopped, he’d give them the paintings as souvenirs. Four minutes left.

I already visited The Temple at Burning Man, where burners mourned lost friends or pets or parents.

I visited The Man, the effigy that will eventually burn at the hands of the very revelers who came together in his name.

I stayed up late once, took a pill. It promised ecstasy but only made my legs stop working.

What’s the point of all this? I wondered.

Three minutes left.

Friends sat naked under the chandelier, talking. Others jostled like ferrets in a hollow log. I’d occasionally make eye contact, nod, “Hello, hello. Good day, good day.”

I made my way to the back of the tent to several sofas, the kind usually found on street curbs.

Two men on a once respectable sectional were trying to use a syringe to remove a clear liquid from a vial and squirt it into a shot glass.

“Do you guys have a moist towelette?” I asked. “I have all this lube on my hands.”

“No,” one of them said, very long testicles. “But we’ve got acid, mushrooms, anything that starts with the letters K, E, or L.”

“Careful,” the other man snapped, nodding at the syringe. “Don’t fill past the line. You trying to kill us?”

“Which line? The one in Sharpie or pen?”

“I think, Sharpie.”

They both shrugged, said together, “Safety third,” a Burning Man motto.

Shouldn’t enlightenment be easy to find on that lakebed that hasn’t held water since the dinosaurs? Amongst giant banana sculptures or lectures on quantum physics? Or broadcast regularly over Burning Man Information Radio, hosted by voices of Batman and Yoda? Or from the woman in a tie-dye dress who licked her fingers, held them up to a breeze and flushed with worry, as if she could feel a storm coming?

(“Don’t believe the rumors,” Batman had said.)

(“Fools, meteorologists are,” Yoda had said.)

But in a city built entirely from scratch by eighty thousand fascinating people, spaghetti burritos or glow-in-the-dark cotton candy on every corner, my hunt for meaning robbed me of it.

I saw a guy run through a dust devil. How brave, present, open. How to be him?

One minute left.

A nearby couple moaned on their mattress.

I leaned toward them. “You guys know if I’m allowed to eat in here? Just a Clif Bar, nothing crazy.”

They didn’t.

Maybe this isn’t Nirvana, I thought. But, maybe this is a book.

The naked watercolor artist ripped another piece of parchment off his pad, handed it to another couple still breathing heavily.

Could have been the heat, the hunger, the dehydration again, but I imagined him painting me. A soggy swath. A sad swirl.

“Hey,” one of the syringe guys nearby said, drinking his shot, nodding to the naked watercolor artist. “Be careful or he’ll get you.”

I shook my head. “He doesn’t want to paint the only guy in here wearing clothes.”

The man laughed at me. “You’re the most naked one of all.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as the man and his pal walked away.

I went to take a bite of my chocolate chip Clif Bar but it slid between my lubricated fingers, landed on the ancient, dusty ground, spent.

Time’s up.

Outside the tent, with each step, dust swirled like a ghost around my feet, waist, chest and then whispered in my ear: They all see right through you.

I looked up. The woman in the tie-dye was right. The storm arrived.

REVELATION

Back home, I re-visited Burning Man every day, hammering out a novel about friendship and family, surviving a storm and finding meaning between orgy tents and porta-potties.

Three weeks ago, my agent started sending my manuscript to the first round of publishers.

To date, they’ve been rejecting it.

They all say almost the exact same thing: “I just didn’t fall in love.”

I cry easily, when the printer won’t work, watching a Pixar movie trailer, when the scaffolding of my scavenger hunt collapses and life looks meaningless.

I know it’s business. It’s timing. It’s luck or fate or differing tastes.

I still believe the Burning Man novel will find a home and the right publisher is out there. I’ll keep you posted.

Meantime, what to do about the broken heart, the shame, the rejection?

I was sitting on a purple bench with my friend Jason, spiraling. He looked at me the way good friends do, and said, “You forgot you used to be a journalist.”

I stared at him the way you look into one of those magnifying mirrors at a hotel. Shock.

Yes. What if I “reported” on my real life, the grittiness of creating, the stories behind the stories? I felt sick, panic, urgency. And that usually means I’ve gotta do it.

Maybe I need to get naked in a place even scarier than the orgy tent.

At home, I opened a new document on my computer and typed:

Writing is hard so I’m starting a cult.

PRACTICE

The broken heart is the book rejection. The art is Byrontology, a newsletter disguised as a cult, something fun and creative, a place I can connect and reach out to you. I promise I washed the lube off my hands!

Here’s a practice that helped me:

I followed my curiosity. I’m learning to take the trip, send the email, walk into the tent. It’s foraging for ingredients. Output requires input.
I asked someone I trust to tell me what they actually see in me. Not praise, but a truth I might be too close to notice. Sometimes we need to excavate the artist before the art.
I listened to what landed. Not all advice is the right fit, but sometimes I hear something that hits me in the gut, a feeling like I better do it before someone else does it. That feeling is fuel.
I wanted to bail, but didn’t. Nerves and dread can be good. Sometimes, it’s right to run. Sometimes, it’s okay to be scared. People wiser than me have said: Be scared, but do it anyway.
I marked the moment. I try to find a touchstone I can revisit when going gets tough, like a note at the top of my journal or a Post-It on my car dashboard. Or, when the moment feels groundbreaking, like the start of something really special, I take a selfie. 💛