Life Is Built in Chapters, Not in Endings📖🏗️🔚

Published: Thu, 08/14/25

Updated: Thu, 08/14/25

Your perspective will either become your prison or your passport.

– Steven Furtick

One of the quickest ways to break your own spirit is to try to map out your whole life in one sitting.
I’ve done it. Sat there with a head full of “what ifs,” flipping through all the bad endings my imagination could conjure. I wasn’t planning — I was panicking.
It was a train wreck, gentle reader.

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Perspective is Everything.

Speculative fiction authors like me live in the land of “what could happen.” We can spin a whole alternate reality from a single sentence. That’s a gift when I’m building a novel. It’s a curse when I turn that same skill inward. Because my mind can create 101 ways things could go wrong — and each one feels real enough to steal my peace.
It’s like dragging the entire future into the present and then wondering why it feels heavy.

👗 Afrofuturist Fashion Design Challenge: Style the Future 👟

Where tradition meets technology. Where fabric becomes future.

Africa has always been a hub of bold design, color, and symbolism. From Kente to Shweshwe, Ankara to Maasai beadwork, fashion has told stories of lineage, culture, and power.

But what happens when solar textiles replace silk? When 3D-printed headdresses store ancestral memories? When clothing itself becomes interactive, intelligent, and alive?

🎯 In this challenge, you are invited to reimagine African fashion in the year 2125—through artwork, design, or storytelling.

✨ How to Enter:

Choose one or combine both formats below:

🎨 Visual Submission:
Submit a sketch, digital artwork, or AI-generated image of a futuristic African outfit. Your design should:

Blend traditional African styles (cuts, symbols, fabrics) with sci-fi or high-tech elements.

Consider functionality: What does the outfit do in the future? Is it adaptive, climate-smart, healing?

📝 Fashion Concept Description (Max 400 words):
Write a piece that explains:

The cultural roots of your design

The materials and technology used

How this fashion fits into a futuristic African society (e.g. ritual wear, urban streetwear, spacefaring regalia)

🧵 Inspiration Sparks:

*A Fulani cloak that shifts colors based on emotion

*Beadwork that functions as wearable data storage

*Gele that projects ancestral holograms

*Sand-proof desert gear powered by solar embroidery

*Rain-responsive mudcloth that cools or heats the body

🏆 Judging Criteria:

Afrofuturist Fusion: Does it blend traditional culture with forward-thinking tech?

Creativity & Concept Depth: Is it original, well-thought-out, and meaningful?

Visual or Descriptive Impact: Whether it's an image or a write-up, is it striking and memorable?

Storytelling Power: How well does the design reflect its wearer and their world?

🎁 Prizes:

🥇 First Place: $50 gift card + full feature in our newsletter + pro image mockup of your design

🥈 Second Place: $25 gift card + feature

🥉 Third Place: $10 gift card + honourable mention

📬 How to Submit:

Send your entry to marksmanstudios1@gmail.com
Subject line: "Afrofuturist Fashion Design Submission"
Attach your image and/or paste your write-up into the email.

📅 Deadline: 14th September 2025

👘 The future wears your imagination. What will Africa look like when tradition upgrades its wardrobe?

Marcus Aurelius — a Roman emperor who spent his life surrounded by wars, betrayals, and plagues — warned against this. He said, “Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once. Ask instead, in each present circumstance: ‘What is there about this that is unendurable and unbearable?’ You will be embarrassed to answer.”

Translation: Don’t try to lift the whole mountain. Just move the rock in front of you.

In the first week of August 2025, Headhunters—my electrifying new supernatural thriller will be available. Early insiders will receive a digital copy of the novel before launch, along with exclusive lore-packed extras that won’t be available anywhere else. CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE & JOIN ME.

When I was younger in Jamaica, if I wasn’t riding, I’d be walking. You didn’t think about the whole journey all at once. You just kept your eyes on the next bend in the road. If you looked too far ahead, it felt endless. But if you focused on putting one foot down, then the other, you’d look up and realise you’d already covered miles.

That’s how I’ve learned to navigate my life now — as an author, as a man, as someone who’s trying to balance ambition with sanity.

The truth is, most of what we fear is bearable in the moment. Even the heavy stuff. You just can’t load it all onto your shoulders at once. Cancer patients don’t imagine a whole year of treatment in one gulp — they survive the next appointment. Parents don’t raise a child all at once — they get through the day.

Here’s what’s counterintuitive:

Worry feels like preparation, but it’s actually procrastination. It’s you borrowing trouble from a future that hasn’t even happened yet.

When I catch myself spinning out of control, I shrink the timeline. Can I handle this week? If that feels too big, can I handle today? If that’s still too much, I go smaller. Can I handle the next 10 minutes? Almost always, the answer is yes. And the thing about a “yes” is that it gets you moving.

Movement is the antidote to mental overload.

As an Urban Fantastic author, I’ve built entire worlds in my head — but I didn’t do it in one giant burst. I built them detail by detail, character by character. Life works the same way. You can’t design the ending until you’ve written the chapter you’re in.

So here’s the practice I use:

Name what’s real right now. Separate it from the fear-story you’re telling yourself.
Break it down. Write the problem on paper — it will look smaller than it feels in your head.
Act small. Do one thing that moves you forward today. Not tomorrow. Not “in the future.” Now.

Stop trying to figure out your entire future. It doesn’t exist yet. What does exist is the hour you’re in. Win that hour. Then the next. Stack enough won hours, and one day you’ll look back and realise you’ve built a life.

Not by carrying the mountain.

By moving the rock in front of you.

One at a time.

Peace, love and power.