October ran away?

We're all pretty good at talking about mental health, and how important it is to take care of it, how you need to rest and recharge without guilt - but when it comes to ourselves? Well, I think we've all been trapped by the hustle and grind...

Mental health is a root-riddled trail, not a highway.

I've now been on a break from social media for 1.5 months, and I might stay off it for another month, at least, to be frank. I had no idea I was so exhausted, so drained of joy and pressured to perform. Stepping back, breathing, and actually taking time to see my daily life - bloody eye-opening, I tell you.

I've been working on my WIP B&GS (title to be revealed) for the past year - the FMC is struggling with anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD, which I have an overwhelming amount of intimate knowledge of. Now, given all this writing around these topics and my own life riddled with these struggles, one would think I'd pick up on what I'm doing to myself by pushing so hard without adapting to my own needs, right? Wrong.

I've been on a highway, powering on and speeding in a straight line. But the road beneath is bumpy and winding; it twists and turns. Basically, one minute I'm on the road looking at the bushes, the next I'm in the bushes looking at the road - chronically online, huh? Yeah - and I think I need to lie here for a while. It's soft, it's quiet, it's calm. Like lying in the grass while looking at the clouds go by with the bustling noise of overstimulation and pressures like a far-off siren. There, but not too intrusive.

I'm tired of the hustle culture - I want to live with joy.

Writing was fun, energising, wonderful, invigorating, and an absolute joy. Social media was companionship, community, sharing, love, and friendship. Art was one of a kind, personal, captivating, and soul-portraying. The world today is not like that at all. Writing is heavy, social media is just business, and all types of art is hijacked by AI.

Authors cannot live off writing - we must sell prints, we must have a patreon/ko-fi/etc, gotta get that youtube channel up and monetised, we need to make stickers and bookmarks to sell on our webshop, we have to have five other income streams at least, and most of us still lose money on this career. Hustle, hustle, hustle. Have sidehustles for your sidehustles, have sidehustles for that too, just to be sure you're killing yourself to earn a dime.

I don't want to hustle. I want to live. I'll start by stopping. A smartphone doesn't mean the world has 24/7 access to me. Social media accounts don't have any rights to my private life, thoughts, or experiences. Consumers of my art have zero right to consume me - I'm human, not an item. I'm going to share, talk about my feelings, my thoughts, my dreams, all of that - but on my terms. I'll be doing the things I want to, what brings me joy, what elevates my quality of life - no more pressure to do everything or be everything. It's getting me nowhere but down the rabbit hole of depression and anxiety.

It's your passion? But you're doing it with a mindset of what it can give you...

Hustle culture has stolen so much from all of us. It's going to be a big theme in S&CP (wip title to be announced) and I'm guilty of falling for it, too. My writing changed after I started thinking about what my passion can give me, rather than just doing it because it's my passion. When I went into being a published author, with my own company, taxes, accounting, websites and business emails, etc, everything changed. It had to, of course, but there is no need for it to be a hustle, a grind, a soul-sucking, overwhelmingly stressful thing. We're supposed to follow our passion in hopes of living a happier, warmer, more purposeful life, aren't we?

I used to write and publish for free - I've published close to 1 million words of stories (a standard novel is about 80k words) for free - and I've published a whole novella here as well for free, so everyone has a chance to read my writing, to try my style, without a single risk. I'm also available through libraries all over the world.

I LOVE WRITING WITH ALL MY HEART, it's my passion, my dreams are consumed by writing, by art, by creating something from nothing - and I don't want my passion to be a hustle. I want my passion to remain a passion as I share it with the world.

I wish there were a way to simply write, publish, talk about the intricate dynamics of my characters, the worlds, basically just fangirl the fuck out about my writing with my readers, and that's it. No hustle on social media, no side quests (so to speak) to complete the main one, no censorship or constant availability as a consumable when I'm a human. That's what I'm trying to figure out now. By stopping, thinking, and evaluating.

I don't have to be part of the broken system of today. I'll take a trip back to 2008 and stay there in every way I can. Among blogs and snailmail, sixty-eight dubious link clicks deep into a lore hole and five hours of note-taking about it, with a genuine love of the written word and the art of constructing life out of them.

It's our first time living, so let's test things!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm trying things out physically. I'm doing the things on a small trial scale, I'm hoping to be able to do them on a full scale later. I'm giving myself grace, giving myself an opportunity to try away from the public eye, and I'm also reducing my risks by doing this, which lessens my stress and takes a little bit of my joy back from hustle and grind culture.

Did I just talk about not wanting to do all the hustles, the side quests, that we as authors must have several streams of income today, etc.? Yeah, I did, but I still want to do some of those things - but SUSTAINABLY and in a way that makes me feel happy about it (not forced). I also want to do my other hobbies, without getting pounded by guilt - I'm a gamer, a crafts person, a reader, a painter, a beader, and I haven't been able to enjoy any of that in months.

Things are allowed to only be fun. They serve no other purpose than being fun. I don't need to stream my gaming to be allowed to game. I don't need to sell my paintings in order to paint. I don't need to do anything but have fun while doing hobbies, and sometimes that needs to extend to work, too. We're living for the first time, so we need to be able to test new things just for the fun of it!

I love my work, but that doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do the work. I'm going to test things out, and see what works. Life is long, so I'm going to take my time now. This overstimulated, stressed, anxious, and undeservedly guilt-ridden little human is trying. I feel a bit like Ray now with all these metaphores (if you've not read Clearview Cove, you've missed some great attempts of his that just weren't quite right, but the effort was definitely there from the poor grump of a man) so I'll just end it here.

Go do something you want purely for the fun of it! I'm gonna boot up 7 Days to Die and whack some zombies on the head while listening to Stiftelsen (a Swedish pop-rock band) ❤