Writing For Self

Indie Author Diaries #1

I’m on the tail end of recovery from burn out, neck deep in midterms, and about 75% done writing and editing a novel. Writing for the self instead of others has been an interesting journey the last several months.

For the last six years, I’ve been a fiction ghostwriter, mostly the romance genre. It’s not that I haven’t written my own books and short stories before, they just haven’t gone further than my portfolio. By day, I’ve worked retail management. Life is pretty expensive here in the Great White North, so the retail gigs weren’t really a choice. I’ve finally applied for university and got accepted last fall, so my life in retail is for now, at an end. But that was only the beginning of a strange series of events that brought me here.

In the middle of November, I contracted a pretty severe case of tonsilitis from my retail job that hospitalized me. I couldn’t even get out of bed long enough to work on projects, nonetheless study the basics for school, or even go to work. I quit my retail job and ghostwriting altogether in mid December, needing a break after hitting that double grind for almost four years straight and having almost nothing to show for it near the end of it all.

I don’t really like to talk about myself—in actuality, I hide behind my characters and stories, simply because I don’t find myself interesting at all, but going within to look at where you are in life is a necessary evil sometimes.

My current project is a romantasy series, simply dubbed Roxanna’s story in the meantime. Enemies-to-lovers, travelling dimensions, the whole deal. It’s just fun (at least to me). As much fun as it has been to write for myself for once, it’s been a struggle to write since I’m not forced by looming deadlines and clients to publish or to even write at all, but the bills are starting to pile up as I near the end of my first semester. It’s strange to write solely for the self, especially after the last few years of post-covid struggle. I’d like to go back to ghostwriting at some point but I need to write for myself for once, to remind myself why I write at all.

It’s one of my most disorganized, messiest projects yet, but wanting to know what it will look like, what I will look like, on the other side keeps me motivated, keeps me at my keyboard when I’d rather be playing Animal Crossing or sleeping (in class, obviously. What else is Calculus for?)

It’s a scary but exciting journey, creating and learning things I’ve never attempted before. I don’t even know what I want out of life or for myself, but I exist. That is enough. I recommend everyone goes on this journey at some point. I sure as hell need to hit the textbooks and update my portfolio soon, though.