So when I was a kid I dreamt of being an author the same way I dreamt of being a Power Ranger. Then I grew up and realized "oh shit, people can just become writers, nobody can stop you. So I started writing.
I love writing, enough that I kept doing it and I started to get involved with other writers and with the publishing industry.
And since then, my dreams have gotten smaller and smaller every year.
I dreamt of publishing a book with a huge advance and a movie deal and having it made. Then I realized that was unrealistic because most books get like 20k of an advance, after years of work.
So I dreamt of publishing enough midlist books that I could live off of combined royalties and have a steady paycheck writing full time.
Turns out the midlist is disappearing and most books don't earn out their tiny advance anymore, so no royalties. Publishing houses don't really market their authors unless they're best sellers right away. Most authors are not full-time.
Again I changed my dreams. I would write business stuff for money and write fiction on the side. So I became a copywriter and did pretty well. It was hard to write fiction after being done with work but I did it. I would just be a part-time author, writing books for bonus money, mostly just to keep writing books.
Publishing houses won't really build an author's career anymore. If you don't find success with the first book, there won't be a second one. They still won't market you tho. That's on you.
So I dreamt of publishing short stories just so other writers would read them, just because I wanted to share what I wrote, just to be part of the literary world that I love, be in the magazines I love to read. I'll try to publish the odd novel, but I'm realistic!
What's that? Agents and editors are leaving the industry in droves because none of them make any money either and also they're all overworked and burnt out and there are less and less publishers all the time?
That's okay, I'm dreaming of literary magazines. They're closing down because nobody has any money and now they're also inundated with AI-generated garbage submissions so the volunteer readers are overwhelmed and may never get to read whatever I submit.
Good thing I still find my copywriting projects to be creatively fulfilling. I'll just dream of working with cool clients on cool things.
Suddenly nobody has a budget for a writer anymore, but wouldn't I like to be paid a fraction of my rates to edit a pile of garbage a computer spat out?
I don't have any more dreams left.
