I just feel that no matter what comes in a career - and mine has been all over the map - you must stay at the table, pick up the cards you're dealt and play them.
As far as I'm concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.
If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.