Alright, now that we got out of the way who I am, let’s figure out what I do. My life revolves around writing. I write, both professionally and for pleasure.
Writing as in Copywriting [Updated 2022]
I’ve been a professional copywriter for 6 years now, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to things I could write about in order to sell.
What I mean is that I worked in the affiliate marketing industry, and to say the least – I was disgusted and tired. This is a toxic environment that can disillusion even the bravest and most ambitious copywriters out there. Especially when you’re affiliating for products you don’t support.
I know what you’ll say, quit if you don’t support the things. Well, I did. And I thought I’ll never go back to writing as a copywriting. But at this point in my life, I need one thing only – financial stability. That’s because:
- I have to pay living expenses;
- I want to make sure I have enough savings to support my mom if medical bills arise;
- I need enough stability in some aspects of my life in order to be less anxious about it in general and have the peace of mind to do what I love – to write for pleasure.
Lucky for me, I found a great place and a great cause to keep doing what I’m doing. Now I’m copywriting in the educational industry on topics like programming, digital marketing, and graphic. Let me tell you, I feel great.
Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction
There we have it. Probably like every other person on this Earth, I have the desire to create worlds and share them with people. I wish I could do it professionally. But what seems harder than anything in Bulgaria is to live off your writing.
So I’ve devoted myself to a life of anxiety when I started writing in my non-native language. I don’t have the money to commission a professional editor but I’m decisively on my way to publishing a book.
That’s, of course, another source of anxiety. I know very little of how the self-publishing field works, let alone actually making a living out of it. For that, I need the false sense of security that my current job offers me at such a confusing and stress-filled time of my life.
Because I don’t believe in luck. I don’t believe some powerful agent or a publishing editor would stumble across my work and love it. I hope I have a realistic idea of how good my writing is, and to be generous – it’s average at best.
That’s why I have so many scrapped ideas at this point in my life. I have 150,000 words worth of fiction that I’ll never return to. Another nearly 150,000 words I’m hoping to finish one of these months as a part of a trilogy. And tens of thousands of words of other projects, some fully fleshed out in notes, others – just ideas I’ve let simmer.
The Anxieties of a Writer
I have trouble focusing on one piece of writing. Especially when it gets to a serious volume that makes the possibility of an actual publication quite real. When I get to editing, I’m ready to do anything else but that. I get tangled up in anxiety, stress, and the thought that I’m wasting my time and no one’s going to like it anyway. And I scrap it.
A very good friend of mine had to call me out on this. To this day, she’s the only person who’s ever done it, and it truly helped me realize that’s a problem. I’m working slowly now, trying not to pressure myself and talking myself into doing a little bit every day.
Because I know nothing happens with a magic wand. Part of the reason I created Valthura as you’ll witness it, is to help myself crawl through the whole process knowing I’m doing something I love and I’m doing it because I love it.
I don’t know if that makes sense to you and if you can take seriously the barriers I’m trying to describe, but thank you for taking the time to read through that confession. If you have a similar experience, I’d love to hear how you’re coping with it and what’s helped the most.
