Discussing how easy it is for Daniel to gain money, respect, & followers as a computer scientist compared to how hard it is for fiction writers…
Him: “It’s broken.”
Me: “Yeah, but it’s not broken like a chair in the corner. It’s broken like the leg I have to walk on.”
I am so tired of living in a world that treats my entire career like some game I play for fun.
I’ve never actually made enough money for my “career” to really function differently than a game or hobby. That doesn’t make it okay.
It is quite literally heartbreaking. I’ve been so stressed about the book launch this week that it’s making me physically sick. And I’m starting to wonder if there’s any way to survive this other than to find a way to choose a different life path.
I wouldn’t be able to stop writing . But maybe it would hurt less if I chose not to share it with the world… instead of watching the world actively not care.
I mean, I’m supported by a spouse. I don’t have to sell at all, and I was never in this for the money. But with the way things are done, money is generally used as a measure of success and a stand-in for respect. And… I just don’t know how much more I can handle trying to be all “yay! look at all my successful books!” while knowing how little they all sell.
My new book has very possibly sold more in a week than any of my books have ever sold at all before. And… I feel like I’m supposed to be happy about that. But I also feel like it just shines a light on how much my whole career is a tin toy so far, and I’m not at all sure what I’m supposed to expect going forward. I’ve watched the 20BooksTo50k group long enough to know that the model my publisher is using is one that’s very much about pulp fiction pumped out regularly. And books like that come out all the time. So… maybe I make a small chunk of change and then what? It gets forgotten at the bottom of the ever-growing pile of pulp fiction? And will that chunk of change even be enough to make a real difference in my life? I have no idea. At least with the furry books, it feels like being part of a community. Maybe it’ll all seem less awful when the pandemic’s over and we can have fur cons again… it’s just so hard to picture that ever happening.
When the response to “writing is undervalued” is “maybe writers don’t work hard enough,” you have to start wondering if it’s worth working at writing at all.
How many brilliant voices do we lose because we make writing this hard?
If we had UBI and valued people for more than the money they make, it’d be different. But in this society… being a fiction writer is utterly heartbreaking, and so we only hear the voices of dandelions hardy enough to grow through concrete.
I want to hear the voices of orchids.