To start with, long time no see. Sorry for the lack of update. Most of the time I have nothing I feel is worth talking about.
And when I do, well, it tends to be a doozy.
This Friday was not a good day for me, writing wise.
On the first of December, Patreon started processing my supporter’s payments. And as with every previous months, I lost supporters when their payments didn’t go through. I’m used to that at this point, or so I thought. On previous months, I’d gain enough supporters to get close to fifty, and twice, go over it, then on the first, I’d drop back down before fifty.
It was basically a joke to me at this point; that I’d never hit 50.
This time, I dropped below 40.
Ah, Ah.
That isn’t funny.
Other writers on Stream I watch before my day started tried to help me by asking me questions and offering advice. The more we talked about it, the angrier I felt myself getting at the situation and my perceived unfairness of it. I brought the conversation to an end before I became too angry and lashed out at people who don’t deserve it.
When my writing time started, I tried to work. I really did. I lasted about half an hour of staring at the screen, still getting angrier. Some of my watchers tried to help and offer support, and I appreciate them from that, but in the end, I ‘admitted defeat’ and walked away from the computer. I binge watched the show Wednesday, then Played Space Engineer for the day and the weekend.
So, why did it hit me so hard?
Well, the obvious one is that with fewer supporters, I get less money. It’s not significant enough to affect my bills, but it’s still ingrained him be that how much money I make is a demonstration of my ‘value’ as a person. So, yeah, that hit hard.
But that’s not really it, is it? That’s just the thing I can hang the ‘blame’ on. You know: it’s societies fault, it’s other people’s fault, it’s everyone other than me’s fault. All the things we tell ourselves so we don’t need to do anything to fix the problem.
So, why did it hit so hard? In the end, it’s a case of “why isn’t what I’m doing just enough to give me what I want” and some “losing track of why I’m writing”. Or possibly, having to reevaluate why I’m writing and change how I do things.
One thing I did do, is ask a question to my supporters about what they were looking for from me. If you want to look at it, and tell me what I could post there that would make you join my Patreon, feel free to do so: https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-are-you-in-75409174 any and all information will only serve to help me figure out how to proceed with my Patreon.
I did have 2 people there already give me an answer, so thank you to them. Unfortunately, one isn’t as helpful as the person giving it and the others requires a conversation with them to parse what they mean, and how/if I can incorporate that in my process. The discussion is on the post, should you want to take a look at it.
The difficult part in all of this is that I have to make changes. I have to look at what is going on and decide what I need to do about it. Yes, there are outside factors involved, but I can’t do much about those, so I need to work on adjusting how I do things in relations to them. Have I mentioned before how much I hate having to do work that isn’t directly writing?
So yeah.
I had a bad day, and you get a journal out of it… so that’s a win?
I will do my best to keep you appraised of the development, but do yourself a favor, don’t hold your bre4ath. I’d like to have readers left alive by the time I work through this.
If you want to support me, You can do so through my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kindar and by buying my books, Sylvain-St-Pierre’s Author page
I do know that feeling. And it happens. I got 3 neighbours who I help and 2 who just see me as a convenient way of getting what they want despite taking a toll on me.
I think you have a lot of value and I'd donate but being on AISH I got limited funds to work with and they can randomly ask for bank statements and will question any weird purchase that comes up so my fund can be either limited or cut off. Yeah, fun.
So take time for you. Have a cup of tea, go for a relaxing walk, chuck salesmen out your front door and remember. Follow through so you don't pull anything, ;)
I do know that feeling. And it happens. I got 3 neighbours who I help and 2 who just see me as a con
