And probably not the concept you’re thinking of…
Since the inception of the internet, I’ve been trying to find my place. Somewhere where I feel like I belong and that I excel. No, this is not a pity post. It’s a post for internal therapy.
I’ve gone through hobbies like no tomorrow. I’ve done celebrity fan websites. Music blogs. I’ve collected things. Decollected things. I’ve taken photos. Sold photos. Been an eBay seller. And so on… None of these things I found
In 2022, I decided I wanted to write full time. I can pump out a not-so-great first draft in a month if I put my mind to it and I have. Starting in traditional romance, I was okay. There was a lot to learn and I cringe at my first novel attempts but that’s how you grow. Because of my sexuality, I leaned toward writing about lesbian characters. There was an open market there and I dove right it, changing my genre to 100% Sapphic based.
Writing full time isn’t an option because I have bills to pay and writing doesn’t pay a lot of money, especially when you are doing it part time and you don’t have a partner who makes enough for you to focus on a blooming imagination and creative endeavor. So while lucky authors get to stay home all day about be creative and network within the community, I am stuck in a high-demanding retail job where I can’t stop and jot down ideas as they come to me. Therefore, I never truly felt like I fit in to their world.
And as I wanted to improve, I took a class on how to write horror. I love horror movies. My brain thinks about stories like a movie. I see the picture and the action. Horror, or more so slasher horror, is how my brain thinks when I think of what I like. But the Sapphic world is picky. They like there books to have happily-ever-afters and they love their girl-meets-girls, romance, conflict, and make-up tropes tied up in a nice pretty package. That’s not me.
The horror community welcomed me with only one open hand, not even an arm. Yes, my first Sapphic horror book did semi-well, but I still feel like I am flailing to gain any sort of footage, especially when the popular and semi-successful authors are at home, being starving artists with their craft. Not me. When you don’t write and release consistently, you are forgotten in the world. With over 10,000 books released a day with self-publishing, if you are not consistent, you are irrelevant. I’m irrelevant. Period.
Consistency is posting, marketing, advertising, writing your next book, promoting, networking, socializing… and well, I’m not there. I barely get online because when I get home from my physically draining job, I don’t want to work again. Writing is work. Marketing is work. Networking is work. I want to relax with a good movie. I want to escape reality for a bit.
Movies let me do that. They are a two-hour commitment, unlike a book which is a slower pace. For me, that is a 12-hour commitment which will take me a week to read when I only have 2 hours a day to commit. Writing takes longer. In 2025, I only wrote 4 books and those were not even first drafts. They were all stories prewritten in the past few years that I only “cleaned” up for publishing. Two of those books were not even published yet. So… two book releases in one year is not enough to be noticed.
Each year, there are 3 to 4 million books released. 2.6 million of them are self-published. My two books were lost in that, especially when I didn’t promoted because there is just no time for that in my world. It feels like a never ending battle to make a living at it, especially when you can’t devote that 40+ hours a week to it to be a real job. And so… I feel like I don’t belong in the book world.
I’ve been a movie person all my life. Since 14 years old, I’ve been more keen on watching movies than reading books. While, I am not some profound movie reviewer, I do like watching a movie and posting my thoughts on it. This is something I can do because I do that now with Letterboxd.
Writing fiction is a long game with no real satisfaction at the end. Even though I have a shelf of books that have my name on it, when no one talks about my books, its disheartening. When there are no reviews, its sad. When the only people who read it is the ones you gave away for free, that’s painful. Why do this to myself? Why try to be a part of a community in which you will never be.
Movie watching isn’t a long game. Two-hours and your done. Jot your thoughts down the next morning and move on. This isn’t work. This is fun. And movie people just get each other. Its odd. I’ve had more movie friends in my life than book friends. I guess they are just built different.
I don’t if I’m giving up writing, but I know I need a break. I’m spinning my wheels and not getting any traction. For that, I am embracing film and this blog. I still need a writing outlet without it being 100% focused on my own imagination. I’m exhausted. And I’m tired of being alone with books.
