I'm someone that doesn't pull back on my punches when it comes to the truth, especially when it comes to my experiences. This will be a heavier sort of update.

I've got a decent amount of reads so I should be trying to monetize my writing to make it a full-time job, right? All that's missing is to make it an unreliable but decent source of income. This has been my mind for a while and I keep teetering from this place of wanting to keep writing as a hobby to another place of becoming a more serious respectable writer.

If I have to be honest, I shouldn't be writing at all. This isn't a self-hatred thing, this is a reality thing. I'm not making enough money from writing and my financial situation isn't the best. I should be working a second job or trying to get a better full-time job. I'm getting pressure to do more, be more, obtain more yet I want to just sit down and write my silly stories. So, let's put all aspects of my identity into bullet points and expand on that, diving into intersectionality.

Immigrants are oppressed by society, especially those that are from nonwhite countries. This is a fact, if you think differently then just leave. I know there are some successful POC immigrants but those are the exception, not the rule and I don't need to be arguing about frivolous things. Because of this, two elements come into play; my family doesn't get good paying jobs and needs to rely on me, and they have high expectations that I'll get better opportunities here than in their home country. I can't chase after my dreams like these ignorant aspirational movies or guidance counsellors from my high school days would preach because it doesn't make money. Art is for the rich and privileged.

So, I should be monetizing my writing, right? Self-publishing books and getting into the fancy monetization programs on the writing platforms or something? Maybe a Patreon?

Well, that brings me to my next point:

So, I can't write straight shit to save my life. I can't write white gay shit either because there's already a lot of it out there and it doesn't interest me. I don't even write a lot of gay East Asian stories because I am not that connected to my East Asian roots since my family celebrates and practices Thai culture. The small remainder of Chinese culture in me is us celebrating Chinese New Year, some food, and the story that my grandfather had to escape to Thailand from China on a boat.

Why are we talking about ethnicity/race in the sexual/gender identity portion? Someone might be asking. Unfortunately with intersectionality, aspects of my identity cannot be divided away because, surprise, it all gets tangled up together like a bunch of electrical cords in a forgotten drawer. Since it's all interrelated, I want to be represented. Whoever else is representing me is a very small few and may not have all those elements or aspects in one book (frankly, it would be difficult to put everything into one book). So, you have me writing many self-inserts (yes they're all self-inserts, every single one of them and I'm not ashamed of that fact) and possibly accidentally writing my quartner into it (I love them so much, hi if you're reading this) to satisfy this inner desire.

And because I write such unconventional characters in my works, it's harder to market. It's not unmarketable, it just would be harder to profit. People who are willing to pay for writing don't tend to hang around free sites like this so I would have to step up my marketing game. I'm sure some of you lovely people would love to financially support me in other ways but I would need like a few hundred of you to be fully on board with that which is pretty hard to guarantee.

If you have time and determination, you could work very hard and do the whole underdog rise to the top path, right? Just keep hustling and you'll get there eventually.

Here's the third point:

I have ADHD and I haven't mentioned this yet but I also have dyscalculia.

Sure, other people with ADHD can achieve these things but as I said earlier in my bullet points above, I'm queer and second-gen Asian Canadian immigrant. I have pressure from my family to pursue something more financially stable and I am not out to them. I'm out at work, I'm out to my friends, I'm out to my quartner (I hope they know, it would be really awkward if they didn't), I'm out to only my little sister who is also queer, and I'm out online but I'm not out to the rest of my family and I don't see the need to be out to them. Trying to do a whole marketing thing and maybe even asking them to financially invest in my writing would put me in a weird and awkward situation.

So, I'm on my own and because of my neurodivergence, I cannot handle juggling such large and major steps to progress into a serious professional writing journey. Especially when it comes to math and financial planning. Hustling is a lot of time and energy that I cannot spend at the moment.

That means traditional publishing should be for me, right?

Writing is also my coping mechanism for life. It's an outlet and a tool for me to process a lot of stuff that's on my mind. I would need extreme mental fortitude to query and handle rejection after rejection because I know the industry second hand from other people and it's not easy. It's in fact, difficult for people like me to get published. Getting your personal and deep truths rejected sounds like a nightmare to me especially since I also write neurodivergent characters who are also POC and queer which makes marketing even harder! Everything is connected.

Now that I divulged all of this, does that mean I am announcing that I am quitting writing?

No, I'm not quitting writing. I just made this update book, it would be nonsensical if I just posted a chapter right now to announce my departure. Writing is deeply ingrained in me too at this point. I only explained the surface level of stuff I deal with and a good chunk of people probably would not want to know all the stuff I actually go through. If I can survive what life has thrown at me so far and continue to write then it'll probably take a lot to break me. I won't go down without a fight.

Now, don't feel bad for me. I'm not someone in a dire life-threatening situation. I'm just in a very weird life position. Very awkward but manageable for now.

It just means I will be going through this writing journey very slowly. Slower than anybody else most likely. I've seen so many writers just shoot for the stars and more in shorter amounts of time than me and I'm so happy for them but I'm in no position to fly as fast. I don't even know where I'm going. I don't even know where I belong in society much less where I land in the writing space and that's something I got to figure out. Luckily, I've been doing this for ten years, I can wait for another ten.

For now, I'll just float in space.