A Candid Look at My Career and History as a Writer

I don't have a career that you'd call a career.
That's honestly true.

However, I have been paid to write.
There's this vague image that the goal for a novelist is to get published and become a commercial author, but I think there are actually quite a lot of people who make a living in this modest way.

I know people who do it too. (Or rather, I did. I wonder if they're all still making a living at it?)

Ever since I started writing, I've always been told I'm good at it.
I've been told my stories are interesting, moving, and leave an impression.
On posting sites, I've even stayed at the top of the rankings. (Before the golden age of reincarnation stories, that is.)

But in my case, not a single one of my novels has ever been turned into a book.

What I have done is write scenarios for app games, scripts (romance and BL genres), and a few short, one-off stories.
In this day and age, where video is everything, it seems like this kind of work doesn't exist anymore, but back then, there were quite a few jobs where they'd ask you to write a story to act as a side dish to the main content... and what's more, the offers would come directly to me.

Even though I don't write BL, for some reason I used to get a lot of BL work requests... well, that's fine.


When I enter writing contests, I usually pass the first round.
The second and third rounds depend on the contest, but regardless, I usually get rejected in the final round.
Even when I do pass, it's only for a minor prize. Because of that, I don't get books published, but I do receive prize money.

By the way, my performance is better in the contemporary drama genre.
I think it's tough to succeed in fantasy if you don't follow the trends.

This might look enviable to some, but it's actually half-baked and incredibly troublesome. It's not good at all.

I don't feel like I lack overwhelming talent, but I know that something—something—is absolutely missing. I know it for a fact. If I were rejected at the door, that would be one thing, but because I'd make it to the third round or so, I didn't know when to pull out.

Maybe it would have been different if I had a strong will, like 'I absolutely want to publish a book' or 'I'm going to be an author!'

Since I'm still spending so much time doing this (writing novels) even as an adult, it was more of a sense of duty that I had to make money from it, so I didn't have that much drive within myself.

In the meantime, my work in other specialized fields (including writing) grew, and since my income as a freelancer became stable, I reached a state of 'Well, it's okay if my novels don't make money.'

Moreover, while doing work that wasn't novels or scenarios, I realized that my writing speed was incredibly slow, and that it was a problem of how I think and use my brain, not something I could fix with effort. I realized that I couldn't make a living writing novels at this speed... The time-to-reward ratio for novels is seriously terrible.
Even now, I think if I were to make writing novels my job, I would definitely die from overwork, so I'm glad it turned out this way. (I have actually almost died from overwork before.)

That said, writing novels is a huge time sink, so there's no doubt that getting a little money on the side is lucky. That's why I still submit them occasionally to aim for prize money.
I haven't received any lately. No, wait, I haven't submitted any lately.
First, I have to submit them! If you don't submit, you're not even at the starting line.

I feel like my ability to grasp trends is declining as I get older, so maybe that's why I'm reluctant. I don't think I've gotten worse compared to before, though.

I've never made a living solely from novels, so I can't say anything arrogant. But you know, I do think it's extremely rare to be able to make a living solely from books written about what you want to write.

Even if you can get a book published, I think it's better to have various types of income. And to carve out time to write, it's better to have work you can do without being employed.

If you want to make 'writing' the pillar of your income, I think it's more realistic to accumulate various types of writing work. But I think the environment for this is tougher than it used to be in every field. There are so many writers that it's oversupplied, and on the other hand, the demand for text content is falling, and on top of that, there's AI now. For the past few years, the time-to-reward ratio for my writing work has been so bad that I've quit completely. Well, I suppose it's also because I was a half-baked writer, even with my specialized fields.

Writing this, I realized that I'm half-baked at everything...
Well, there is the fact that I've been able to navigate this rapidly changing market environment with this kind of versatility.
It's all in how you put it. Good and bad are two sides of the same coin.

So, what type are you if you want to make a living as a writer?

In any case, if you are going to be paid to write, I think the ability to pick up on the needs and intentions of the client and the customers beyond them is more important than what you want to write. Within that, I think it's good to let your own personality shine through.

It's kind of embarrassing to write things like this.
I'll delete it if I can't stand it anymore.