Life and Career Updates After Publication
So…book publication. Ha . . . ahaha . . . *gut wretchedly screams into the void*
Am I right?
It’s one of the best yet exhausting things I’ve ever done. It's funny how glorified everything is to us as children until we actually do it. Book publishing seemed so shiny and cool to me as a kid. I imagined fame, fortune, interviews, bestseller lists, movie deals, and lots of hand-clapping from strangers on the street. (I was a . . . optimistic child to say the least).
And though I have a decent platform with a handful of supporters and a few bucks earned from my book, publishing is insanity-inducing, costly, and I’m pretty sure I cried every other night during the process. On top of that, I had to learn to do a lot of things on my own since self-publishing is a one-man band-type thing. You gotta learn to do almost everything and it’s overwhelming. It’s an amazing accomplishment, don’t get me wrong, and I’m so happy I achieved my dream, but that sparkly publication day I dreamed of as a child was more of a “thank fucking god it’s over,” type of day. I slept in, left the house in the clothes I woke up in, got some food with my boyfriend (we also locked the keys in our vehicle so I had to sit outside baking in the sun for an hour waiting for a cop to help us break into the goddamn truck) then go home and sleep again. I was overwhelmed by all the amazing congratulations and support, but publishing is never as fun or fame-garnering as sit seems.
Publishing is one of those things where you know it’s going to be hard and then you actually do it and realize it’s in every way shape and form harder than you expected. Take whatever expectations you had going into it and times it by 100, add a few extra mental breakdowns, a sprinkle of random financial crises, and a dash of mental instability, and you have the perfect recipe for a published author.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. But I’ve hit levels of burnout so terrible that everything I did the past two months was done on literal autopilot. It’s like I wasn’t even aware of what I was doing half the time. Stress and anxiety about the upcoming deadline was the only thing keeping me going, and now that I’m at the tail end of the process (I still have to get paperbacks out and finish the book trailer) I’m finding myself struggling to even get the rest done.
I don’t say this to deter any young and/or beginner writers from wanting to publish, but please understand that it’s not all sunshine and rainbow-pooping unicorns.
Learn from my mistakes and plan this stuff earlier so you’re not stuck doing everything last minute and panicking.
But, and listen closely.
No, come closer.
*pulls you an inch away from my face*
I said closer.
No matter how many newbie mistakes you learn from more seasoned authors, you will still make mistakes. It’s inevitable. If you want to publish a book, be prepared to run into every obstacle possible no matter your skill level and expertise, because you can never prepare for them all.
But let’s talk about something else, shall we? I’ll go into more detail about everything I did and how much it cost me in another blog, but in the meantime, I want to give some life updates and important decisions I’ll be making in my career. Also, I will be getting very blunt in this blog since I want to be honest with people and show them the good, the bad, and the ugly that life puts us through. I'm not doing this to throw a pity party. I simply want to show that not all authors are artistic people in cute offices happily tying away at a perfect draft. I appreciate the people who are willing to show their struggles online. It reassures me that I’m not alone in my own issues, makes me connect to them more, and reminds me that they’re real people with real lives and not just a profile picture. So I want to do the same for you.
1) I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not a one-lane sort of person. If there’s anything life and my new independence has taught me, it’s that there’s just too much I want to do to set a proper “goal”. Maybe this will change with time, and maybe I will find one single thing I want to dedicate my life to. Like a specific career, becoming a parent, or volunteering for charities. Who knows. But right now, I’m at a point where I simply have no clue what I want. And I think that’s common amongst people my age. I know accomplishing things at a young age is always impressive, but I’ve given up trying to be this child prodigy with a million published books, 3 degrees, a secure job, and a solution to world hunger before the age of sixteen. (My mid-teen years have long passed anyway). It just ain’t happening. And that’s fine. Not everyone gets their shit together early. I might not get my shit together until I’m fifty, for that matter, and I’m really finding it hard to care. I have a lot of years ahead of me to worry about all of that. For now, I just want to go with the flow.
Plus, I never really discovered myself as a child because of my controlling mother. I was isolated and held back from many opportunities that could have allowed me to find my purpose in life earlier, which is why I’m going through that discovery process now.
I thought I wanted to be a paleontologist growing up. Then, before I ran away, I wanted to be an artist for an animation company. Then, I wanted to be a full-time author. Now, I’ve been trying to find jobs in the writing and editing field. Though I’ve definitely narrowed down my interests and goals, I’m still undeceived. And I’m fine with that. Sure, having a stable career with raises and promotions is nice. I saw my dad take that path at the law firm he’s been working at for almost 30 years. I saw how happy it made him and how proud he was of the 25-year plaque they gave him as well as all the fancy parties they threw him and his big ass office with his name stamped on a plate of gold on the door. (I’m speaking in loosely as my memory of what his office looks like is vague. I just know it looks expensive lmao). I would love to have that. But I’m fine without it as well because I know that I live in a day and age where people of my generation struggle more than any other generation to find a stable career or even get paid enough to survive.
In fact, I think dedicating my life to one solid thing isn’t a good idea because I notice how easily I burn out when I dedicate all my time to one thing. Like this book. I love my novel with all of my heart, but I can’t work with books and publishing 24/7 I now realize. I haven’t had time to read anything for myself, go back to drawing silly fanart, or pick up new hobbies because of it. It’s a wonderful career, but it’s incredibly exhausting as are most other career paths. I need a balance between my interests. I want to bounce between my writing, my reading, my art, my video making, and to do completely other things that interest me, like dancing, clothing design, cosplay, random craft projects, volunteering at different programs, etc. That’s why I think my next goal is to find a day job unrelated to writing. I would love to do something that works with animals, help out with conventions, or anything related to equal rights activism. I might start out somewhere mundane like a gas station just to save up a bit, but I want to find something in the fields listed above afterward. I don’t care if it’s not permanent or if I bounce around. I just want a day job I can at least mildly enjoy, so I can go home and work on my hobbies for fun and for extra pay. Doing this will give me multiple streams of income and enough time between each activity to not get burnt out with one or the other so easily. This doesn’t mean I will never experience burnout again, but it will help prevent it a bit better and let me enjoy shit more. And isn’t what life is about? Finding joy and fulfillment in any way we can?
This brings me to my second point:
Book 2 might be delayed by another year. I was planning on publishing 1 book per year, and that’s still my goal, but with the way I’m going mentally and financially, I’m prepared to take a leap year. I’m thinking of maybe publishing a short story next year instead since it would be easier and cheaper to get out and might hold people over until I get book 2 finished. I’ve had this 1920s sapphic romance/crime/noir thingy I’ve been cooking in my head for a while, so I might go with that if I decide to publish anything next year.
But in the meantime, I’m going to focus on a bunch of goals I want to accomplish or at least start during this leap year.
Goal one: Recover from the chaos that publishing was. It’s safe to say I’m exhausted and overall need a break.
Goal two: Save up money since, ya know, publishing a book is expensive and I drained a lot of my bank account to afford it. It’s about time I start saving for my next publication no matter what it is or when I publish it.
Goal three: Market book 1 more since right now my audience is small and I can put my bet on it that I could rewrite entire sections of book 1, update the draft on Amazon, and no one will notice because not many people are buying my book right now, and I don’t have a dedicated fan base that will memorize the entire book and point out its changes if I make any at all. If I can promote book 1 a bit more, I might have more success and support for book 2.
Goal four: Return to college. I used to be the youngest in my class and felt proud for starting school a year early. It was something that made me feel like I was worth something, and now that I’ve skipped almost two years, I feel like I’ve lost my touch. But I know that age doesn’t determine my intelligence, and college is geared for everyone no matter how old they are. So there’s no shame in returning late. Plus, I literally ran away from home before I dropped out. I was busy, scared, traumatized, and trying to get myself on my feet into my new life while also focusing on my book. I needed the break and feel better returning now. I’m still debating if college is even my thing, but it’s always worth a shot, especially since my field of work requires degrees for almost any job.
Goal five: As I mentioned earlier, I want to get a local on-site job for the first time in my life. Especially now that, and this is the first time mentioning this I now realize since he just gave me permission to share this, my boyfriend got let go from his job for quite literally no reason, and it’s been rough seeing him this distraught since he really loved that job. So we’re gonna be tight on money for a while until he finds another job, and I want to help in any way I can. Right now I work freelance from home, and though it’s enjoyable, the payout is atrocious. Even a minimum wage job would pay more than this, unfortunately.
Goal six: I want to start a Webtoon. It will take place in the Villain vs. Villain universe, but it won’t follow any character specifically. I want this to be my chance to explore characters, backstories, and events in this universe that I can’t in my trilogy. Some of it will be canon and others not. But working on my book trailer and illustrations in such a short period of time has helped teach me how to draw faster without making the art look too shitty. So I think now is the time to use those skills and start the comic I’ve wanted to start for a while and just have fun with it.
Goal seven: Better my living situation.
For anyone who doesn’t know, I live with my boyfriend and his family. We’re a household of 5 with four dogs in a very small home. Me and my boyfriend live in the basement and it’s depressing, to say the least, given it’s always cold down here, and we have virtually no furniture to put our stuff in, so the place is horrendously messy which isn’t the most inspiring setting. (Not to mention the little creepy crawlies I get down here all the time that I’m not in the mood to befriend). The point of all this? We wanna move. But we don’t have the money, obviously. And probably won’t for a while with the way the job market and house prices are going. So, we’re planning on putting our backs into this situation this year. We’re renovating/cleaning our room and the room next to it (that’s quite literally ceiling-high in junk). We’re gonna buy some cheap furniture and try to turn this place into a proper living space which will hopefully help me get some motivation back. And as we do that, we’re gonna try and get out our finances together and get our own place somewhere in or near Columbus since we’ve decided it’s the best location, (cheaper houses, cheaper gas, better traffic conditions, more job opportunities, and activities, very liberal, etc).
Which is yet another reason I’m looking for a job somewhere. Gotta save up for this shit.
Goal eight: Get proper therapy. Aaand other doctor appointments since physically and mentally I am not doing the greatest and haven’t for probably the past decade or so. I couldn’t receive proper healthcare when as a child because of my mother's extreme hatred towards doctors and therapists despite having the money to afford them. Now, I live with a family willing to get me help, but don’t have the finances for it. But it doesn’t mean I won’t still try anyway. My goal for this leap year is to finally find a therapist I can stick with, and also see a dentist since I have quite a few stains on my teeth that I’m ashamed of having after a depressive episode made it difficult for me to brush my teeth consistently for a while. I also want to get a proper medical diagnosis for my disabilities since all I got last time was a general, “yeah you have OCD and some other mental issues we’ll figure out later,” which, spoiler, never got figured out. And I’m determined to discover what is causing me so much difficulty functioning and how to treat it.
Goal nine: Last but not least, similar to what I was saying earlier about having a balance of interests, I want to focus more on different things I enjoy. It’s about time I start reading for myself again, drawing fanart, writing shitty fanfiction, and just enjoying my silly little self-indulgent hobbies again. I want to go back to the time when I wrote and drew for pure fun. Of course, I had fun writing my book, but publishing required me to treat this project as what it became: a business. I had to be professional about this and it took a lot of effort to get it to where it is. I just want to create things that are terrible and indulge in things for pure enjoyment no matter how stupid or cringy they are. (I’m already getting more involved in online communities and fandoms again which was a bit nerve-wracking because of the bad experiences I had in them as a child. But also nostalgic since now I’m old enough to enter these communities safely and properly enjoy them without running into the problems I experienced before.)
I wanna do stuff and not care about what others think or put in the tedious effort to make my work publishable. I want to expand my account’s horizon and post more trips and selfies, experiment with editing, video making, blog writing, poem writing even, aesthetic posts, meme posts, whatever. I want to make more YouTube discussions, practice animating, go to fun places and document them. I want to do everything I want in life even if it doesn’t make sense or isn’t productive. As dedicated as I am to being an author, this process was draining and I don’t want to be running in a hamster wheel trying to do it over and over again. I will publish more books, but I want to make room for other things in my life as well.
Also, honorable mention to my tenth goal which is less of a goal and more of a “I should probably handle this as much as I don’t want to,” type thing. But I recently found out the Wicked Witch of the West (AKA my mother. I also probably shouldn’t insult the Wicked Witch with that comparison, but I digress) is cyberstalking me, yet again, and posting things from my accounts on her Facebook without my permission. My father, so far, isn’t doing anything about it, so I’m trying to find more ways to protect myself online without going private or restricting what I post since they’re my accounts and I’ll post what I damn well please. But I also need to keep myself safe from the psycho that birthed me, so we’ll see what happens.
Closing:
In the end, despite how much I have suffered, I’m proud of myself for sticking around during times when I thought I couldn’t. I’m glad I pushed through everything and am continuing to push through. I refuse to give up and give everyone who ever hated me the satisfaction of watching me fall.
I may have been unsuccessful in some areas of my life, but failing is not failure. Giving up is a failure. Not succeeding simply means your goal wasn’t achieved at the time you wanted it to. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m a small creator, that my numbers are dropping, social medias are shitting on indies like me, and that I most likely will never make a full-time career out of my passions. But I will still take each small win in stride. I accomplished many things people my age don’t always accomplish. That isn’t to shame other people whether older or younger than me because I don’t believe age determines worth, maturity, skill, or talent. But I’m proud of myself for, at only 19 years of age, to have picked myself off the ground and started a new life for myself only hours after fleeing the house that destroyed me for 18 years. I’m proud of myself for building an audience online, publishing a novel, illustrating it myself, building a small business from home, working for various indie studios, putting myself out there, discovering things about myself I never knew, befriending wonderful creators, and more. It may not seem like a lot to some people, but I need to be proud of myself for doing these things since not everyone can. I need to appreciate my life for what it is, be happy with the things I have, and be proud of my accomplishments instead of moping about what I don’t have or didn’t achieve. Life is terrible and sucky and shitty, and if I could throw it to the wind, I would. But because life is so terrible, I need to be proud of myself for the things I did accomplish despite how many things went wrong and tried to hold me back. I think that makes me stronger than I ever believed I was and want to encourage others to do the same and keep going no matter how dark the tunnel is right now.