Editing and Self-Worth

I know, I know. I said I was going to be posting more checks calendar a month ago, and have yet to post more. It turns out keeping to a schedule when you don't have comments and likes to drive you is hard!

I'm in the early process of editing Concurrency Point, my best performing (and personal favorite) webnovel. It was posted on Reddit originally and Did Numbers. Not like "wow they went viral" numbers, but still good for me. It'll (probably) never get published traditionally since I already "published" it by posting to Reddit, but that doesn't mean I can't do things to get it out and visible. Kickstarters, an ad campaign, and good old fashioned "telling everyone I see that I have a book coming out" are all tried and true ways to building buzz (and through it sales).

And yet.

Slogging through the edits are hard. Writers know this, but laypeople may not. I have to take the draft that I worked hard to crank out and effectively take it apart and put it back together better. Maybe I need to make the characters more cohesive, maybe I need to give one more interiority, and another less page time. That chapter has a scene that isn't doing much to drive the story, I should cut it, but wait if I do that then this thing later will make less sense, so it should stay and I should just make it "better" but what is better? What is going on? Why am I even doing this? I can (and should) hire an editor to help with this process. Someone with fresh eyes who doesn't see what I have in my own head about the story and can objectively point out where things don't work, where they could use polish, things to move around. They are human beings who need to be paid a fair wage for their work, and I can't afford them. (Do not mention AI. It is not a solution.) So instead I will do the best I can on my own.

Recently I was listening to Hank Green's new podcast, Humans and he was conducting an interview with Jad Abumrad (from Radiolab among lots and lots of other things), and they were discussing why they made things. Hank said - I'm paraphrasing - that he makes things so that people will like him, and that resonated with me.

It feels to me like writers aren't supposed to admit that. We're not supposed to be in it for the upvotes, the likes, the adulation, the readers. We're supposed to be doing it For The Art, or if not that then For Yourself. I've tried to write without the expectation of an audience, and I get about ten thousand words in or so and go "just WTF am I doing?" and...I stop. I have two drafts in Scrivener right now in fact that end around draft chapter 4.

But! When I write to post serially, be it on Tumblr, or Reddit, or Royal Road, or wherever, I can do it. I can write the next chapter, build the next scene, drive the plot forward because I don't want to disappoint the readers.

I want those upvotes and comments.

I need those upvotes and comments? It sure seems that way.

This probably means that I should probably put aside my dreams of one day being traditionally published, and continue to write and post as I have been doing for the past three something years. This time, I'll post it here as well as the other places too, if for no other reason than it's my own place.

So keep an eye out.