In my first post on this blog, I talked about the annoying thought I’ve carried in the back of my head for more than two decades.
I wished I had the opportunity to just write. The world could go away and I would be able to stop working for awhile. I could focus on writing.
This wish effectively created a two part problem.
The first was that I was gating the thing I wanted, to write, behind something that was never going to spontaneously occur, the ability to not worry about being an adult and having adult responsibilities.
The second was that it was a convenient excuse that allowed me to avoid actually trying. It saved me from needing to write things that could fail publicly. It saved me from proclaiming that I was a writer and being judged on the veracity of that statement. Experiencing life through the perpetual lens of imposter, it was a convenient way to protect myself.
Back to that initial post, I have the time to write right now and I am taking advantage of it. In the process of doing this, I am being aggressively public about my writing. The point is to take all that fear of failure, of being exposed as an imposter, and inoculate myself repeatedly against it.
Which brings me to this article: The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI by Scott Santens
If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
I have championed UBI for quite some time. I’m still on that cause, but it’s not what I want to talk about from that article. At least not directly. The most relevant points from it, to what I’m doing with writing, are a minimally supportive financial platform to work from and a peer scene to work within.
A Platform To Work From
If I want to continue writing the way that I have been, a minimally supportive financial platform is a necessity. I am effectively chasing just enough income to serve the same purpose that UBI would serve. Enough to allow me to write. Not part time. Not when I have the energy. But as a fundamental part of my identity and as the focus of my intention and efforts.
My Patreon is the initial pillar in attempting to build that platform. The goal is have it as a proving ground that gives me a little bit of space to build while limiting the amount of my time that it requires. The goal is to write, not manage a public facing identity and to market myself. Patreon handling much of the process is beneficial in that respect.
I recognize that the potential is there for a Patreon that provides zero income. Given that, I need to consider other methods of income that support writing. I’m still considering what those are. Ultimately, I’d like the writing to be the product and I have a lot of writing before I really get to that point. Writing provides income which supports writing is a long way off. Potential in the never realm.
A Scene To Work In
I’ve had a stark increase in output. I run the risk of burning out the vast majority of potential peers. I know that if I was approached when I was part-time with my writing and someone was firing pages at me as fast as I now need readers for it would have been completely overwhelming.
Not only do I need to find a scene, I need to find one populated with creatives that are similar motivated. When I am writing weekly pieces as part of my Patreon, I’m aiming for flash fiction level pieces, but have already proven that I’ll write a couple thousand words instead and not think twice about it. A reader who might get back to me once a month for a short piece represents a significant bottleneck.
I recently did a reading of my short story GREAT at a Writers’ Open Mic event in Guelph, Ontario. It was a solid event, one that I’ll talk about more elsewhere, but I don’t particularly see a peer group forming there. Not one with me as a member, at least.
Of the writers in the room, I was one of two that skewed genre heavy (Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror) and the other was fantasy. There’s also the issue that Guelph isn’t really local for me. I don’t consider a 45 minute drive a burden, but that’s also because I typically only do it a half dozen times a year. If I needed to make that drive more frequently I’m likely to reconsider that position.
I don’t have a strategy for this right now. I’m looking into local writers’ groups and events. Much of what I’m seeing either fizzled out before covid or shortly thereafter. I find organization websites that haven’t been updated in at least three or four years and event calendars with the same pattern.
Discord servers always ends up in noise and story swap sites become transactional instead of community based. I’m struggling to make those first in-roads on a proper scene.
Thinking Out Loud
I don’t have the answers here. I’m writing all this down to get it straight in my own head and have a launch point to start from as I try to resolve this. There’s a lot of work to start moving forward, but I’ve got some primary directions to begin working toward.
I’m hoping to be able to start answering some of these problems in the future and providing those answers here.