I found this quote from Agatha Christie on one of the blogs I frequent:
Most successes are unhappy. That’s why they are successes-they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice…. The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves that they don’t give a damn.
After reading it, and rereading it, and pondering it for a while, I’ve come to the realization that that’s why I haven’t pursued writing original fiction for publication/money: I’m generally happy with myself.
Why? Because in the grand scheme of things, what do I have to be unhappy about? I’m alive and reasonably healthy. I have a wonderful husband of 27.5 years (so far!). I have dogs who bring me joy. The Hubby and I both have jobs that we at least tolerate if not outright enjoy (the former for me
, the latter for him). We haven’t made all the right decisions, but we’ve made most of the right decisions – avoided debt, contributed to our retirement plans over the years, and avoided unnecessary trading up for things like houses and cars (we bought our house at the end of 2002 and paid it off with the proceeds of a small life insurance policy my Mom left; he drives a 2015 car and I drive a 2012 car, both fully paid off).
Do we have everything we want? Of course not; very few people do. But we have everything we need and many of the things we want, and we recognize that and are grateful for it.
So I have nothing to prove.
Oh, sure, I get a little dissatisfied now and again. That’s a part of the human condition, and very few people (I suspect most of them monks) get past those occasional feelings. Maybe the feeling is best captured by the sense that I’m not living up to my potential, whatever that means.
And really, what does that even mean? My potential to … what? To work my tail off pursuing someone else’s profit? To do what other people think I should be doing? I honestly don’t know.
So I’ve spent a lot of years (15, judging by my registration on fanfiction.net) writing and reading fanfiction. During those years, I’ve also read some original fiction (not nearly as much during the last few years of weirdness; I retreated into comfort reading and haven’t looked back. Much) and written less original fiction than I would’ve preferred.
Why would I have preferred it? So I could publish it and possibly make money from it.
But – see above – I’m blessed with a well-paying job and a hubby with an even more well-paying job. Money in and of itself isn’t a motivator for me.
I told that last to a hypnotherapist I went to see last year
, and she said something like, “That’s really disrespectful of money.” I didn’t have a chance to respond to her then – session time limits and all – but my response now is, “No, it’s not. It’s an acknowledgement that I have everything I need and most of the things I want. A little extra money from writing – or even a lot, should I be lucky enough to make it big – won’t change my life much. A few more vacations, maybe, and maybe build the custom house the Hubby wants.”
Then there are the times that envy (per Merriam-Webster, painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage) crops up, and I start beating myself up: If you’d spent the same amount of time writing original fiction as you have fanfiction, you’d be well on the way to a successful indie career. You’ve written four (count ’em!) fanfiction novels of 100,000 words or more, plus five short novels (30,000-70,000 words), and a dozen or more novellas and novelettes, plus several dozen short stories. That’s an original fiction career to be proud of!
But because it’s fanfiction, and therefore mostly not mine, I (sometimes) don’t value it as much as I could, and sometimes I think of the money I could have made from the equivalent number of original works.
Understand – I’m not saying I would’ve made gobs and gobs of money. At $3 profit per long novel, $2 profit per short novel, $1.50 per novella/novelette and $1 per short story, that would be roughly $100 if I sold one of each. Even if I sold one of each per month for an entire year, that would only be about $1200 – not exactly life-changing money for most of us, especially coming in dribs and drabs throughout the year.
It’s still more than the $0 I make from fanfiction, just not enough more that focusing on original fiction is an easy choice, especially when fanfiction has a built-in audience and I don’t have to spend a ton of time and effort building one.
Note that I’ve ignored the effort and expenses involved in setting up an indie publishing business; factor those in, and that’s a ton of stories before original fiction becomes profitable. So if it’s going to be a hobby, why not make it as enjoyable as possible?
