It’s hard to believe that 2017 marks my fifth year as a published author. All my major life events, from house moves to jobs, have been based around 5- and 10-year plans, so this year I have some thinking to do on where I go from here. At the moment, I’m in a new job that’s using up a lot of brain power and struggling to stay creative. It’s the first time in five years that I’m wrapping up editing on a project, and I don’t have the next one lined up ready to go. More and more I find myself wondering if writing is worth it.

I never went into this adventure looking to get rich. I knew my limitations from the start; I’m terrible at self-promotion, I have a full time job, I’m slow, and I don’t write what sells. I had no illusions. I can’t compete with an author who pumps out four or more books a year. Money is not what’s bringing me down. It’s the other stuff I find soul-sucking, like:

the expanding threat of plagiarism and “pop-up” authors out to scam the system
genre drama that brings legitimate writers down
the instability of indie publishers and etailers and questionable professionalism
piracy and a general lack of value for other people’s work
proliferation of readers who will read anything as long as it only costs 99 cents

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