Lessons From One Year as a Full-Time Writer (Patreon)

April 2nd, 2018, was my official first day as a full-time writer. No day job demanding my time, no grad program awaiting my return. Just writing.

I've gotten both more and less done than I hoped, and it's definitely been different in a lot of ways vs. what I imagined the full-time writer life would be like.

As part of my reflection on this year, I'm going to share some of the lessons I've learned about what it means for me to be a writer first and foremost vs. being a sales & marketing manager who is also a writer or a sales rep who is also a writer, etc.

Being Your Own Boss is Awesome

The freedom of being self-directed and self-employed is even more empowering and energizing than I thought. Not having to get vacation days approved. Taking a nap when I feel crappy and not worrying about missing a meeting.

There are a thousand and one ways that selling your labor in the current capitalist system is shitty and dehumanizing, even with a pretty good boss and a flexible job. It's far far worse for a *lot* of people, and it's been worse for me in jobs in the past.

Working for myself means taking the afternoon off to play video games because I'm stuck. It means going to a lunchtime matinee of Avengers: Infinity War because I wanted to see it early enough to avoid spoilers. So many things that should be straightforward and shouldn't require risking your job because a vindictive manager or HR staffer will take out their frustrations or abuse their power. The freedom of self-direction has been a huge factor in recovering from burnout - though that process has proved more complicated than I thought.

Burnout Is Real

You know that thing where you get sick the moment you go on vacation or the day after turning in the big project? And that only then do you realize how hard you'd been pushing yourself?

What if that, but for several years? My writing career picked up in 2014 (I had three book releases that year) and so between then and early 2018, I was writing, podcasting, conventioning, and more, working myself well beyond a sustainable pace.

But the thing I didn't learn until well into 2018 is that burnout doesn't just go away as soon as you dial down the pace. I knew in 2017 that I was in a bad way, talking about permanent willpower points ala the World of Darkness RPGs (In those games Willpower is one of the character statistics. You have a permanent willpower rating and temporary points based on that permanent rating. You spend and regain temporary points regularly through play, but your permanent rating goes up or down rarely, and losing permanent willpower is seriously debilitating. Hence, an apt description for post-2016 election trauma, among others).

But it wasn't just the election, and not just the over-work. The past year has been a process of balancing between giving myself time to relax, to not have to push ahead all the time, to re-connect with hobbies and friends and to not feel like I'm running out of time. It's for sure a process, and I still don't feel totally recovered compared to where I was around five years ago.

Feed Your Muse

Since I don't have a day job anymore, I have learned that I need to put more effort into creative inputs. I read a ton for Angry Robot, and those works became a source of inspiration ala "this urban fantasy is really interesting. What would I do with a similar premise" or "Here's how I would use this idea or react to it or build on it".

Reading has been harder this last year or two. Probably because of the Political Hellscape, but not exclusively. For a while, I turned to comics. Then to romances. Recently I've been watching and listening to actual play RPG shows. I follow my interests to find solace and joy where I can. I recently jumped back into fiction and have been trying to read more deliberately this year. I'm still not reading so many of the Big Important SFF books because most of them have the reputation of being depressing and soul-crushing. I'm good, thanks. Those books don't tend to be cathartic for me. I'm glad that they are for others.

Getting back into playing tabletop RPGs has been maybe the best source of creative energy for me in this past year. I've been in an online D&D game for a few years now, but in 2018 I got *way* more into RPGs, from re-booting Speculate into an actual play show with my co-host Greg Wilson to playing with my family, with friends in Baltimore, and more.

If somehow I was forced to stop writing and publishing fiction, RPGs would be the way I could keep creating, keep telling stories. The RPG renaissance of the past few years has been an utter delight to follow and is even more fun to participate in on my own terms as a GM and player.

Reflection

In the year since going full-time, I finally finished the space opera novel I'd been working on for several years, I launched Born to the Blade with Serial Box, I opened a Patreon and a consulting business, I became a SFWA mentor, I sold a to-be-announced project, and I found a better work-life balance which helped me be a healthier, happier version of myself. I traveled less but still traveled. I changed agents and found a new business partner to work with as I take my career forward. 

I'm not past all of the challenges, not remotely. I still feel pulled in several directions by different projects I'd like to pursue but haven't had much success working on them in concert. A piece of wisdom I heard from other writers is that going full-time doesn't always mean being able to write more. And that's more or less been true for me so far. But I'm still in a much better place creatively and emotionally than I was at the beginning of 2018. And a big part of that has been you - readers and friends, patrons and colleagues.

Thank you to everyone who has been with me along the way, helping me get to where I am now. I've got so many stories to tell and new ways to tell them.

And now, being my own boss, I am excited to get back to work.

And a bonus - today the WorldCon Dublin team announced that the Skiffy and Fanty Show is a Hugo Award finalist for Best Fancast. I was barely on any shows in 2018, but I am very proud of the work Skiffy and Fanty does and am super-excited for the team to be recognized again for contributions to the field.