One is—you are good at what you write about, imho, but this is a particularly awful time to be a writer without a lot of bylines, because almost all the entry-level publications are dead now. The feeling you are feeling is shared by basically everybody right now who doesn't have a good staff job, and those people live in fear of getting fired.
In that sense, it's actually not a bad idea to think about a job that would just let you write what you want, because there's a lot of freedom in just not being dependent on the ecosystem right now. It could be a job in a totally different direction, like being a mortician or whatever. I'm going through the same thing. Because…
Two—this feeling doesn't get better, ever, I think. There are paragraphs from this that could have come straight from my one am monologues and then I find myself in here as somebody who seems to be doing OK, etc. It's just kind of a lonely and difficult way to live. As long as the work itself is life-giving in some way, you should keep doing it, even if it's something you do in the mornings before you go off to your wage paying job and even if you feel like everything's going into a void. You're right that you have some objective numbers to look at here but you're wrong that if they were bigger you'd feel better about it (imho).
Three—you are really good at writing about video games (see: this post), and many, many people are not good at writing about video games. I don't know if that's what you want to be good at per se—something I've found about myself is that sometimes it's hard to respect your actual talents—but you should value that about your work.
Thanks Barbara, I really appreciate this comment. Sucks to hear you’re feeling similarly. You’re totally right that the numbers being bigger wouldn’t change how I feel—really helpful to be told that. It’s a small thing but it’s hard not really having other writers in my life to talk to about this stuff so I don’t know how extremely normal it is to feel this way. Anyway, time to look up how much morticians make haha
I have a lot of thoughts about this subject haha.
One is—you are good at what you write about, imho, but this is a particularly awful time to be a writer without a lot of bylines, because almost all the entry-level publications are dead now. The feeling you are feeling is shared by basically everybody right now who doesn't have a good staff job, and those people live in fear of getting fired.
In that sense, it's actually not a bad idea to think about a job that would just let you write what you want, because there's a lot of freedom in just not being dependent on the ecosystem right now. It could be a job in a totally different direction, like being a mortician or whatever. I'm going through the same thing. Because…
Two—this feeling doesn't get better, ever, I think. There are paragraphs from this that could have come straight from my one am monologues and then I find myself in here as somebody who seems to be doing OK, etc. It's just kind of a lonely and difficult way to live. As long as the work itself is life-giving in some way, you should keep doing it, even if it's something you do in the mornings before you go off to your wage paying job and even if you feel like everything's going into a void. You're right that you have some objective numbers to look at here but you're wrong that if they were bigger you'd feel better about it (imho).
Three—you are really good at writing about video games (see: this post), and many, many people are not good at writing about video games. I don't know if that's what you want to be good at per se—something I've found about myself is that sometimes it's hard to respect your actual talents—but you should value that about your work.
Thanks Barbara, I really appreciate this comment. Sucks to hear you’re feeling similarly. You’re totally right that the numbers being bigger wouldn’t change how I feel—really helpful to be told that. It’s a small thing but it’s hard not really having other writers in my life to talk to about this stuff so I don’t know how extremely normal it is to feel this way. Anyway, time to look up how much morticians make haha