Cognitive dissonance of 2020-21

A long and meandering exploration of how to not write during a pandemic (and why I’ve decided to write again now) 

Quick disclaimer: I banged this article out on Google Docs, where you’re allowed to have footnotes. After a quick Google search I’ve discovered that WordPress footnotes may not be the easiest thing in all the world to add in on a long term basis, so get ready for some typically me tangential overuse of brackets, baby.

Once I moved through the initial shock of the pandemic, I thought it would allow me to dedicate more time to my writing. At the beginning of 2020, I had my first short story published, and while an online anthology launch is a particular kind of awkward, I was on some level relieved to think that maybe this was it; maybe I was on a trajectory to become a ‘real writer’ now. 

Then the pandemic kept going. We were still reeling from bushfires and floods in Australia, we had to move home so my partner and I decided to buy our first apartment, and we were frantically rescheduling our wedding. Spurred by George Floyd’s murder, the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining worldwide momentum and much needed media attention, Trump was in power and nothing seemed able to stop him, people were dying, businesses were struggling, cancel culture, the desire for accountability, and outrage culture, in all their nuances and conflations, were rife, and privilege was being called out. 

I’m not listing all of these things as ‘bad’ or even related (though many of them were), in any way other than that they were all elements of my personal, cultural, national, socio-political context in 2020, which lead me to reflect on my position in the world, and whether or not I had anything I wanted to, or should, write about. I fretted over whether now was the time that my voice needed to be heard. I decided that it wasn’t for the most part, except in my immediate context of friends and family. And even then, I was struggling to be myself, wading through a fog of overwhelm and uncertainty, like everyone else. I didn’t want to share things, I didn’t feel empowered or useful; I just wanted to crawl into a cave and come out when the fog had dissipated and the world was fixed. 

Lolz.

With a mixture of shame and tongue in cheek self-deprecation, I quietly admitted to close friends (but never, like now, to the increasingly terrifying world of the internet) that I sometimes thought I’d missed the moment where it was my turn to speak as a cisgendered, white, very privileged woman, with only the ‘normal’ mental health issues that women my age experience; anxiety, some teenage disordered eating, rare bouts of depression. I over-analyse everything and have always been slow to pick up on trends. I’d ‘ummed and ahhed’ my way through the patriarchy’s turn, and now finally it was time for minority voices to be heard. The #metoo movement happened in there somewhere, but I was still too busy reflecting on ‘the right thing to say’ to actually say anything at all at that point. I was immobilised by sadness, uncertainty and the simple fact that I was doing much better than many other people all over the world. I should be feeling grateful. But I shouldn’t use the word ‘should’; such a naughty word. 

This is a slightly preposterous and ridiculous way to think, and yet it’s an accurate picture of part of the process of cognitive dissonance, confusion and anxiety that comes with the disintegration of a whole bunch of myths you believed as a child and teenager (Garret Bucks, a guy from Montana whom I’ve just discovered, writes about it here. He also has a great newsletter called The White Pages, which discusses anti-racism work). Anxious me is not my best self, but in fact, usually my worst self. 

Like many fragile, elder millennial white girls, I’m anxious to please and terrified of failure. I simultaneously know almost nothing about Tik Tok and reels, and understand the internet all the way from dial-up to Instagram and Twitter (kind of… actually let’s be honest I don’t understand Twitter anymore). I’m academic, my dad loves learning and my mum is excellent at spelling. I’m relatively intelligent, and still to this day I love praise, way too much. All this means that the school system really worked well for me, and herein lies one of the myths I was led to believe: life will be easy if you do what you’re told in your teens and try really hard at school. 

I went to university, and probably could have chosen to do whatever I liked because of my aforementioned aptitude and suitability for school. Granted, anything remotely mathematical or scientific, would have had me working my arse off and graduating in the bottom section of the class, but those doors weren’t straight up closed for me. And with seemingly all the doors in all the land flung wide open, I chose to do a degree in Creative Arts, because I wanted to be a writer. 

Look at me now, Mum! This is writing! I’m a writer! 

If only it were that simple. No matter how hard you try, or how well you do at school, there are just some careers that aren’t necessarily going to earn you the dollars. Sadly, I’ve chosen one of those. Over the last decade, my overall paid writing work has amounted to, at a generous estimate, less than $5000. It’s uncomfortable to admit this, but relevant, I think, to my overall babble, so bear with me as I follow this tangent (or stop reading and don’t, because you’re a free agent!). 

Financial reality of being a writer: 

A 2015 survey by Professor David Throsby and Macquarie University suggested that the average annual income from ‘practising as an author’ was $12,900, but the median was even lower, at $2,800. So I guess I’m in that ballpark. 

More recently, the Australian Society of Authors surveyed over 1400 writers and illustrators, asking them to report their average annual income from creative practice. They reported, “Of the total respondents, almost 80% are earning less than $15,000 per year, with 49.7% earning between $0-$1,999 per year.” Thirty-one percent of respondents also reported that their income has decreased due to the impacts of COVID-19. 

Often, Australian authors are pooling their income from selling novels (which is almost nothing), freelance work, criticism, blogging, running seminars, and working at universities, all while being expected to market themselves and their creative work (and let’s not forget that it takes time to create the work in the first place). In an interview with Writing NSW that deeply resonated with me, Anwen Crawford explains: 

The day-to-day reality of life as a working artist and/or critic of any kind in Australia is that most of your time – unless you have a private source of wealth – is spent doing things other than creative work. There are only so many hours in a day, and I don’t want to pretend that it’s sustainable to have to spend your nights, weekends and (non-existent) holidays on personal creative projects, outside of your day job(s), because that isn’t sustainable at all.

Crawford also discusses the “soul-destroying” competition to get your hands on an arts grant to support your creative practise, which is essentially what a Creative Arts university degree set me up to do; run your own business, apply for grants, do your own marketing, accounting, and publicity, and learn the craft and keep creating while you’re at it. If I have to fill out one more ten page form proving why it is beneficial to my local community or to NSW or to Australia that I get an ultimately insubstantial amount of money to pursue a creative project, I might poke my own eyeballs out. 

Crawford also gave a particularly thoughtful guest lecture in my class in 2018, during my Masters of Creative Writing, because she had scored one of those coveted positions as writer in residence for that year. In it, she explained the reality of book publishing; that of 2,500 copies of her book sold, her royalties were $1,500 total.

Suffice to say that coming to grips with these financial realities leads to perpetual doubt over my career choice. In the past, I tried working in the publishing world, adjacent to being an author. I tried teaching high school English, not totally unrelated, but a much more stable, sensible job, with a stable, sensible income. But these things didn’t make me happy, and happiness was surely the goal. 

• Do well in school
• Follow your dreams
• Never work a day in your life

Right?

Add in the worldwide anxiety of a pandemic, and I am back to constantly fretting that I’m doing life wrong, trapped by a level of perfectionism, my anxiety about embarrassing myself or taking away from important voices that need to be heard, and my careful, risk-averse approach to life. I try to stick to my guns, wading through these classic existential crises and the apparent collapse of these stories I’d been told and been telling myself, and coming back to the fact that my teenage self would be proud of me right now; you basically work for the circus, and you published a story! You’re writing a novel! You’re married to the best man in the universe! Your friends and family don’t have Covid! Life should be perfect! Pursue your passions! Do what makes you happy! Follow your dreams! Live, laugh and fucking love! 

The myths were disintegrating before my very eyes, because when your passions are not investment banking, but in fact, writing, cultural studies, and aerial arts, and you’re dealing with social, cultural and economic instability, it doesn’t matter how hard you try to be at peace; you’ll still end up worried about money. LIKE WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME NOT TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT THE ARTS BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DOLLARS! (To be fair, my dad really wanted me to become a lawyer because I was smart and good at arguing, he said, but also as a grown up I now know that, for sure, the fact that they earn a heck of a lot more money was a factor.)

The older I get, and the more social comparison I partake in as I graduate from my twenties, where it’s cool to explore yourself and your passions, and enter my thirties, where it’s cool to have a fine-tuned CV and career choice, and have babies, dogs and mortgages, the more I feel a responsibility to be earning more. This is true, pandemic or not. I feel more and more like a failure because not only have I not yet published a novel like I promised I would, but I’m not active enough in the writing community, I’m squandering my privileged opportunities, and I’m letting down my partner by not earning the same amount or more than him. Once you become a team with someone else it’s hard not to compare finances; we’re sharing lots of big life goals now, after all. 

My kind self (and my kind partner) says that income is not the only valuable thing you can bring to ‘the team’. True. But (and we’re coming full circle now, thanks for sticking with us) the reality is that it’s harder to be kind when you’re under long-term stress. We hoped the pandemic would be a bit more in control by now, but instead, I’ve lost all my work (again) and I’m a bit sick of pretending we don’t live in a capitalist society that does not value the arts.

I’m also lucky enough to live on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, which is an inconveniently beautiful place to live, where I’m surrounded by sunny time picture-perfect beaches and all my family and friends, and so I’ve obviously made the foolish decision to pay almost a million dollars to own an apartment here (and by ‘own’ I mean be in debt to the bank for the length of time that I have so far been on this earth, but whatever I’m not stressed about it). More seriously, I guess what I mean is that the place I call home and grew up in is not a cheap one, and most people who stay here and own homes are either in high-earning jobs, or have support from family wealth; usually both. 

Financial stress + collapse of lifelong narratives + lockdown extensions = existential crisis #347

With a huge mortgage and no day job on Day 54 of Sydney’s wobbliest lockdown (due to last at least 13 weeks but likely longer), it’s very hard not to wallow in my own privileged, first-world wallowy thoughts all day erryday, lamenting my poor life choices. Everywhere I look, as Afghanistan is taken over by the Taliban, Haiti struggles after a deadly earthquake, Covid numbers continue to rise, and regular sad shit keeps happening like people murdering one another, WOE is there. WOE IS ME. WOE IS THE WORLD. WOE. 

One of the most manageable antidotes to wallowing in woe, as we all know (talking of prominent social messaging that is now laughable: #blessed) is a bucketload of gratitude. So, when I’m my best lockdown self instead of my worst lockdown self (which as you can see has truly been a person too shameful to describe any further), I realise that things are not so bad at all, and that I have plenty of power to try my best, again, to change at least my personal situation, even if I’m too overwhelmed to change the world. Not all the power. A dickload (yep, I said it) of that power belongs to the government. But some of it belongs to me, and so I’ve been doing my Headspace meditation, and going for my walks in the sunshine, and chatting on the phone or on physically (I don’t like that we say ‘socially’) distanced walks with local friends. I’ve been getting myself out of a funk, lockdown style. When I do all of those things, I inevitably gain some perspective, even if only for short periods of time, and have a good old think and reflect on my decisions, and why I made them. 

I do want to feel a sense of purpose, and like what I am doing with my life is striking some kind of balance between being personally meaningful, valuable to society, and earning some much needed money. I don’t want to be a burden on the people around me, whether it’s financial or emotional, and so I’ve been thinking about whether I can monetise some of these passions a little bit more in a way that feels ‘authentic’ (I’m sad that word no longer feels authentic) and not like I’m selling my soul to a corporation. Because the other option is leaping across to a different career that I’m struggling to show I have any aptitude for with my startingly odd and hodge-podge resume. Trying to find a new job right now, which pays a decent wage but requires neither intimate knowledge of Tik Tok or ‘3+ years of experience in *insert highly specific kind of content writing role*’, with a resume like mine, is not currently proving fruitful. 

At my infuriating current regular wake up time of 3.30am, I’ve been reading email newsletters from such excellent folks as Anne Helen Petersen, Chuck Wendig, Virginia Sole-Smith, and more recently Brad Esposito’s interviews at VFD. I’ve realised that I enjoy all of their content because it’s essentially critical and cultural studies, something I pursued at uni and always found interesting, challenging, and rewarding, but never thought I could monetise (except for one time when I toyed with the idea of becoming a university tutor and lecturer; on speaking to my tutors and lecturers about this they sadly told me to run for the hills because the pay was shite and the politics was soul-crushing). The only thing missing (and this could be because I haven’t yet dedicated the time to searching for it, which I am right now vowing to do over the next few weeks) in terms of relevance for me personally, is Australian content. Almost all of these writers are North American.

I’ve also noticed, not just on Substack, but elsewhere online, like on Instagram where I follow a hyperlocal reporter @ManlyObserver, that people are testing the waters with a subscription model where they do a bit of what they love, and what they’re passionate about, and in return, ask their readers to consider becoming paid subscribers, or just shouting them a coffee every now and again. Even large media outlets like The Guardian have turned to similar models in the past few years, and while this, I’m sure, is fraught with its own problems and speaks to wider issues with how we value media expertise, I’m starting to wonder if, just maybe, I could try something similar. If all I’m missing from these email newsletter is Australian content, could I create some myself?

Yes, it would be ‘just another side hustle’ – but at this stage, most sources of income, in fields that I’m remotely well-versed in – are. And I find long-form writing cathartic, rewarding, and downright interesting, so instead of listening to the risk-averse, anxious voice in my head that says I shouldn’t be doing this, and probably can’t make any money out of it, I’m going to just give it a shot and for the love of Time Lords, stop overthinking it. (Yeah, this is me, not overthinking things. Imagine the hell-raising chaotic monster that is my overthinking self.)

So while the majority of my income sources remain dormant during lockdown, I’m going to put feelers out there in this blog, and see if anyone is interested in coming along on this journey with me. Perhaps it will just end up as a side project for myself or something to point to in the next inevitable cover letter of ‘I know my career looks like a fruit bowl that contains not just apples and bananas but also some exotic fruits you’ve never heard of, a stray piece of Lego, a glitter bomb, and omg is that a piece of human flesh? But I swear you should hire me!’. Knowing that it’s not entirely fruitless, and at least it keeps me writing, and my brain churning, means I can accept that it might not quite go anywhere, for now. Hopefully, along the way, I’ll discuss some stuff that is interesting to you, and introduce you to some other cool articles and people that are saying cool things, and feel a bit more like a useful member of society again. 

If you’ve lasted this far, hooray! Thank you! I’d love to know if any of this was interesting to you, or resonated with you, or reflects some of your own experiences. Please feel free to leave a comment, send me a message, or dive right on in and subscribe to email notifications, so you can receive updates when I plonk another post up here. It’s likely to be anything between fortnightly and monthly at this point. 

Peace out, awesome humans. Thanks for checking in, and I hope that wherever you are, you’re able to take a little bit of time to care for yourself, and that someone else out there is taking care of you, too.