Snowflake challenge day 9

[gwyn]

I skipped Day 8 as well, since I have been interacting in spaces a lot lately.

Day 09

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one's a bit hard for me. There are all these things I want to do--work out more, walk more, be a better person, earn more money/get more clients who actually want to pay me, but a lot of things feel very much out of my control. The biggest thing would be to find some way to reduce my constant unending back pain, but nothing so far has helped, and I don't have the funds to really try anything else. I don't know that surgery's off the table medically speaking, but I have no one to help me out post-surgery, and from everyone I've spoken to who had this kind of back issue, they are pretty debilitated for a while. So. I try to figure out other things, but it's both an expensive and time-consuming route.

I did already check off one thing on my list of goals, though--the other day Killabeez and Mr. Killabeez came down to help me figure out how to back up my system so I won't have something happen like last year, where my video card died and I was terrified I was going to lose all my vid stuff like I did in the hard drive crash a few years ago. Plus we had lunch at the Swinery, which I've tried to get up to for years and never did, and oh god, it's pork heaven (plus other things! but pork OMG).

Fannish goals, I honestly don't know. I have tons of fic ideas, but I feel like a lot of times I'm the only writer who instead of building an audience in a fandom by posting lots of fic, has actually done the inverse and fewer and fewer people want to read anything. So my big goal is to try to ignore the fact that I feel worthless and push on. I don't think I can write even a quarter of these things and work at the same time before Civil War comes out, and that feels like a sword hanging over my head, because it'll pretty much torpedo everything I want to do.

This is the first time in 20 years I'm not going to Escapade, unless something wild changes my mind and I rush off on the spur of the moment. But I would like to do a vid, only it's Jan. 15 and I haven't done anything. I want to make more vids, if I could get my pain under control. But it's tough, with the worthlessness feeling (see above). Depression and that sense of you're not worth anything if you're not achieving highly really do a number on my creative impetus, plus the work I do tends to eat up time and doesn't really allow me much leeway when it comes in. Freelance is a weird life.

I'd also really like to read more books that aren't for work. Much of what I read for work is pretty atrocious, and it's been hard to finish anything for years. But last year I read two whole fiction books, so I would like to continue that and do more.

Comments

[minim_calibre]

I have a friend who's probably having surgery soon and is single and lives alone. I can ask her how she's planned around that. Same for my friend who had it a few years ago (wow, in 2002/03, so more than a few) when she was single and also living alone.

[kore]

I know how you feel re Civil War -- it was bad enough so much stuff got jossed after AoU. I'm resigned to pretty much just doing my own stuff if I feel like it and trying to be happy with that, but ye gods, fandom is all about the kudos and the hit ratios and the top 20 search results on AO3, or at least it feels that way a lot of the time.

[ranalore]

I'm so sorry to hear about the back pain. I know from personal experience how much chronic pain just yanks away your attention and sucks your joy from anything. Any idea what the problem is?

I feel like a lot of times I'm the only writer who instead of building an audience in a fandom by posting lots of fic, has actually done the inverse and fewer and fewer people want to read anything.

Definitely not just you. Granted, I tend not to go for the megafandoms, nor has it been my pattern to settle dedicatedly into one fandom and try to build an audience through the types of long, multi-chaptered series that draw in bigger crowds than my favored short one-offs. I also used to be a lot more social and engaged in the hubs of primary fannish activity, mailing lists and chat rooms and the like, but fandom has moved on and I don't have the spoons to keep up that level of sociability, even if I could manage to cognitively parse the new spaces where fandom hangs out. Anyway, I commiserate. I wish I could make all of fandom read your stuff, because it's so good and they would love it.

I didn't realize you were freelance, for some reason I thought you worked for the big A. What's that like? It's something I'm looking at going into after I get the degree, which is still about a year out at this point. I'm also looking forward to reading books again when that happens. I've managed bouts of fic while in school, but books require different parts of my brain that classes are apparently already eating. That's been an issue with fannish engagement and writing, too. Which books did you manage to read? Have you got a preferred genre?

[sperrywink]

Ouch, good luck with your back pain.

I also agree about reading more books, not that I read them for work, but I would like to read more media.

[gwyn]

I mean, I can't imagine going back to work at a regular job. I love that I can set my own schedule. But...it's feast or famine, and lately more famine after a few years of too much feast, as publishers are going away. And some of my clients just don't send me work anymore, for whatever reason, and that means I have to search for more new clients, which I hate beyond reason. I make, most jobs, less than minimum wage will be in Seattle soon because my field is not valued and considered worthless for the most part. My health insurance went up over 100 dollars per month but my income is decreasing each year. So I don't know. I think there are some fields where freelance is doable, and some parts of the country. But it's really hard here. There's no retirement, basically. You're completely at others' mercy. If I hadn't inherited some money from Dad, i'd be in big, big trouble because I probably couldn't keep my house, but I'm burning through that like crazy. I can't take care of some medical needs because I simply can't afford it and insurance doesn't pay for it.

But I can get up when I want, work on my own body clock. I can work in my robe. I'm home with my kitty. I don't have to drive in rush hour. I don't have a shitty manager or harrassment or have to listen to a co-worker post-nasal drip snorting or eating something gross next to me. And while I have a lot of trouble finding new clients because of my nature, I at least only have myself to blame. This is a field with a lot of passive aggressive people who will treat you terribly, but at the same time, at least you don't have to, like, sit with them or something or go to endless staff meetings.

So it's a mixed bag. A really mixed bag. Most people I know, they wouldn't trade it, but it's a tricky life and you are never financially stable unless you're in a very techy, money oriented field that people desire.

The books I read last year were The Martian and Song of Achilles. I loved the latter. Absolutely loved. Gorgeous writing. I wish I could work on fiction like that--the fiction I read is mostly terrible.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Wish I lived close enough to help.

I'm very sympathetic on the spending all one's time and creative energy paying the bills thing. :(

How do you feel about audiobooks? They've been an intellectual life-line for me, but I'm often in my car which turns out to be a good place for me to listen to audiobooks (mainly courtesy of my library's downloadable-audiobook program).

[bond-girl.livejournal.com]

I second audiobooks - I get a lot done AND I'm having fun.