The Full-Time Writer Life Dream of 2020
Updated: Nov 17, 2021
2020 has been a year of change for many. For some, it was worse and for others, it was better.
For me, 2020 has been the year I've been dreaming of for as long as I became a writer. There's nothing more satisfying with becoming a full-time writer and typing till my fingers ache from writing ten thousand words a day. There's nothing more satisfying than writing hundreds of chapters and completing a book. There's nothing more satisfying than being able to release new books in a month and not have to wait an entire year to do it.
However, not all dreams were made to last and mine has to come to an end.
For those of you who don't know, I made an impossible bet with my dad at the start of the year. He said that if I can earn a monthly wage of SGD2,000 a month from doing whatever I did, he would allow it.
As of date, my Patreon is at less than USD10 a month, my average income on webnovel is about USD20 a month and I'm not getting any other revenue sources.
As sad as this is, I have to keep my end of the deal and return to the workforce. I don't know what kind of job I'd be doing next year but I know for a fact, I won't be able to write as much as I did before or as well as I did. In 2020 alone, I accomplished:
Winning a writing competition category with Ringdom and finishing the book I submitted [Survival Bunker System Developer]
Completing [Love Journal] on Webnovel
Doing my NaNoWriMo for the first time and completing my book [My Wife is an E-Ghost!]
Signing [Time Cross Academy] with EMP non-exclusively
Setting up a 50 chapter Privilege Tier on Webnovel for [Ball of Nothing] and completing about 300 chapters
You might also be interested in 5 Things You Should Know Before Creating Webnovel Privilege Tiers
Living the dream is a bittersweet feeling. For one, at least you've had a taste of what it is like. For some people, just a taste if enough to make them content. However, that's not it for me. I honestly wish that I could continue doing what I do best without having to worry about materialistic matters. Sadly, reality wouldn't allow me that. I don't come from a rich family or have a rich husband to allow me such luxuries. I need to make my own living and this isn't working. It doesn't matter how many readers love my work. If they don't pay, at the end of the day, nothing changes for me.
Covid helped to give me reasons to not go out. However, this isn't necessarily a good thing. I had a small office space that I rented with my brother. However, due to the virus going around, we needed to cancel the lease for it early to save money since we weren't allowed out of the house and rent was just going to the drain. The landlord didn't waive it for us. The world isn't kind to everyone.
Read also Working from Home vs Working from an Office.
I can't tell you how difficult it was for me to not be able to go to the rented office or to a local Mcdonald to work. I like to work in places with air-conditioning and my father doesn't allow air conditioning during the day at home. It fucked me up so badly and I really struggled with the whole covid thing when my dad works from home permanently. Everybody was up in my face and I had a bad break down. We had a house with no privacy and I hated everyone.
To make things worse, I have no laptops. Rather, they all died on me because it has been a good five years or something. So that means even if they start reopening places, I still wouldn't be able to leave home to work on my writing. It sucks, it really does.
It took me a long time to finally adjust to this new way of living. However, I took a little too long to get used to it. Before I knew it, the year was almost over and I have not gotten close to meeting the requirements that my father gave me at all.
This blog post is generously sponsored by the following Patreons: *This could be your name*.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a 25-year-old lady and I don't need daddy to decide for me. However, I live in Singapore where rent and everything is sky-high expensive so I cannot afford to move out and I don't have a steady income. Month after month it's just expenses.
As much as I would wish this was easier, I can't pressure anyone to donate and raise funds for me just so I can continue doing the things I love. Many people in this world don't do that for others and many more don't have that opportunity either. I'm not particularly pretty and compared to some others, I'm not madly talented. I understand there's no way people would toss money at me the same way they toss it to popular streamers on Twitch.
However, at the end of it all, if you understand what I'm going through and would still like to help, you could do little things like buying a book instead of going to pirate sites, start paying for chapters when you can instead of using free coins to read them and pledge the lowest tier each month to my Patreon even if the benefits aren't really what you're interested in.
Every little bit helps. I will still continue to write but no longer as crazily I've been doing it this year.
With that, Happy New Year and I'll see you next year.