some thoughts on writing, burnout, monetization of hobbies, aitnists, and a private eye
So... I have always liked to write. My parents tell me that I was writing (and apparently performing!) stories before I even entered preschool. It's a creative outlet that I adore and one that has brought me a lot of peace over the years.
When I got to middle school I started to transition to writing fanfiction, partially because I loved this new way to interact with the books that I loved and partially because I really loved the sense of community I found through doing that. My original fiction kind of fell by the wayside in high school and college.
I ended up writing the occasional original story in the last couple years of college but... idk I really did miss the community aspects of it.
Throughout all that, as you can probably guess, I had to field questions from a lot of people in my life about writing for money. I grew up... let's say adjacent to the publishing world, to keep things vague. I know several people who write professionally, so I have seen how professional publishing affects different kinds of people. Some people approach it like any other job, but other people are prone to stress and burnout. It can be very difficult when your primary paycheck relies on your ability to do consistent creative work.
And... I know what I am. If you follow my tumblr, you probably know what I am, too. I am extremely prone towards stress, burnout, and general neuroticism. Writing has always been my way to destress, so the idea of potentially connecting it to a career was always troubling to me. Losing that outlet would be really bad for me.
So writing professionally was never really something I was interested in pursuing. For a long time, I kept telling myself that my work simply wasn't good enough to publish. I also kept reminding myself that the world of publishing is a game of luck and I hate gambling.
(Like many things, it simply stresses me the fuck out.)
But... I entered a writing contest on a lark several years ago. And I did really, really well. Won some money. Got some notoriety. Nearly had a panic attack or two. And at that point, I had to come to terms with the fact that a. I am good at writing, and b. I really might not have the temperament for the job.
Right after that, I wrote for a few midsize fandoms under a couple different pseuds and had a few experiences meeting fans of my work IRL that felt kind of dizzying, in retrospect. It's one thing to see comments stack up but something very different to have people IRL talking to me like... what? Like I'm one of those published authors I know?
It felt weird but also kind of thrilling.
And then I wrote AITNISTS. I know not everyone who likes my writing enjoyed it, and that's fine. But I enjoyed it. It was one of the longest and most complete things I've ever written and I adored the characters. I felt accomplished. I felt like I'd done something big.
I felt like... I don't know. I felt like I owed Asterion more.
So I decided to dip my toe very gingerly into monetizing my work. I'd still post on AO3, both for the fans who've followed me all this time and for the community interaction. But I'd also make a Patreon for all the silly, indulgent stuff that didn't suit AO3. Essays about history and character design and writing choices. Extra stories that didn't quite fit into the rest of the narrative. Fun stuff.
People started reading it. They started subscribing. I was thrilled but also mildly terrified. Money was involved now, and that meant Expectations. People started asking for ebooks and hard copies. That was very fun, but also. I mean. It's work.
I said okay. I mean, I've done almost every part of the editing process at this point in my career, so I knew I could do it. I knew how to format books. I knew how to edit them. I knew how to proofread.
Okay. I can do this. It won't even take me very long. I know how long it takes me to edit a book.
But then I got sick. The election came and went and the world felt like it went up in flames. I suddenly got a very, very heavy workload in my day job. And... what I'd been most worried about came to pass. I got too stressed out, had a mild breakdown, and got terribly burned out. I could barely even look at the manuscript for over a year without having a panic attack.
More importantly... though I was still writing, I didn't really feel any satisfaction with what I wrote for well over a year. After a while, I stopped even having many ideas. My brain, dragged down by panic and the weight of expectations I had agreed to, had slowed to a stop.
Life moves on, though. Eventually, things started to move again. Some friends did some handholding and I had some medication changes and I finally managed to edit AITNISTS for e. I'm in the process of self-publishing through Ingram now, so hopefully hard copies will arrive this fall.
And I got some new ideas. I have something new that really excites me and really makes me want to write.
So now I sit here like... was this a failed experiment? I did write a whole-ass book. It's a good book. I'm proud of it. And I made some money. Not a lot, but enough to pay for things like web hosting, research materials, and ISBNs. That's more than some beginner authors make, and I'm not dismissing that.
Moreover... I made a lot of people happy, I think. People send me AITNISTS fanart periodically. I get happy comments and emails and DMs. I think doing this the way I did helped me to get a larger audience than I would've if I'd just posted it to AO3 and tumblr like I usually do. On AO3 alone, the main story has over 8k hits. That's certainly not nothing. We're not talking Marvel or even WWDITS numbers, but it's a damn sight better than most of my original stories on there.
But I also almost destroyed myself and my hobby. Would that have happened if I hadn't had that spate of bad luck?
What will I do if I have another?
I'm reminded a bit of that episode of Bojack Horseman when Diane wanted to write something Important, but as she struggled with improving her mental health, she found that she just wanted to write fun stories about a little girl who solved mysteries. A little girl an awful lot like she'd been growing up. And she agonized over that, that divide between what she wanted to be vs. what kind of writing actually fulfilled her.
Right now I find myself in a situation where I kind of want to set aside some of the grand plans for stories I've had on the back burner for a while. I also find myself contemplating a fun private eye, but mine will be a paranormal investigator during the age of Classic Hollywood, and she'll have exactly the kind of lesbian misadventures I desperately wanted to read about when I was a kid.
Will I do her justice? I don't know. Will things get done in a timely fashion? I don't know that, either. Will I ever manage a consistent yet high-quality writing schedule? Will I ever find a good balance between work and play?
Will I ever be a "real" writer?
What even is a real writer?
But I know that I'm having fun writing this right now and I think... idk. Charlie might be worth it all, too.
Maybe I just need to let myself love these characters more than I fear the world. Or maybe these things will never pan out like I'd like.
At any rate, I think I'll just take things one day at a time and try not to be too hard on myself. I'm still not quite a professional author, but idk if I consider myself entirely amateur either.
Except in the etymological sense of the word, maybe. I sure do love writing.
