writing – cheney dot me

_{If you’d like, you can also read this for free on Medium.}

I don’t know what to do with myself right now.

Just over a year ago, I started work at a wonderful place with wonderful people, and over 90% of the time I can confidently say that I love my job, and being there makes me happy.

That is a true statement.

For the entirety of my life since I grasped the understanding as a child that one day I would have to work at a job to have money to live, I knew that the only job I wanted was to write books.

I devoured books as a child.

My mom still jokes that when I was a kid I was way easier to take shopping than my sister.

When she took my sister shopping, she always wanted new clothes, and that adds up!

Mom said that when I went shopping with her, all that I ever wanted was books, and that memory checks out.

I remember being over the moon excited for the days that the Book Fair came to the hallways of my elementary school, and I circled all the books I wanted in the little paper Scholastic flier and ran with it to my mom to ask for the little envelope of cash she would give me so I could get books.

A lot of books.

I remember my mom leaving me in the strip mall bookstore while she went and got her hair done and I would lose time.

I would become so wrapped up in looking at all of the books, reading all of their blurbs, and wondering: Which one will win today? Which one of you will I take home? I would lose track of time.

My mom would find me an hour and a half later, sitting on the floor in the back of the store where the adult science fiction and fantasy were kept, enthralled by the Dragonlance series that was written by women, and I would be annoyed that mom wanted me to choose quickly, and would only buy me one at a time.

It took me a while to realize that was a good thing because I read fast, so it meant more trips to the bookstore.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is write books that would go on those shelves one day.

It’s still all I want to do, but over the years, the way I’ve wanted to go about it is different.

As a teenager, I worried about querying for agents.

I daydreamed about my first manuscript going to auction and selling for millions, launching my career like a rocket.

Clearly, it hasn’t been like that.

I only have a few books that I’ve started writing and finished.

None of them are books that I’m proud enough to sit down with and re-read, and either try to edit or let other people read and critique.

The funny thing is, I’ve been looking through old Scrivener files and I found a bunch of things that I started and didn’t finish that are actually quite good and I think worth exploring further.

Even just being able to tell myself I’m working on a book again is a beautiful thing.

But it’s also brought me into a sudden and rather deep depression, which is followed by anxiety of becoming too depressed and anxious to function — a vicious cycle.

I think I understand it now when someone I know says their worst fear is running out of time.

“Running out of time for what?”

“For the things I want to write and publish. For projects I want to tackle.”

I feel that deeply right now, and I need to find a better way to function.

I worked for myself for seven years before I was essentially forced by the economy and rise of AI to get a full-time day job, and as I said before, I love my job, but I wish I didn’t have to have it.

I have about an hour and a half in the morning before work to do whatever I want, and then after work, by the time I eat, shower, and do chores that can’t wait til the weekend, I will usually have two to three hours to do what I want.

Four to five hours of “free time” per weekday.

That fucking sucks.

Who wants to live like this?

Who do we blame now for making the world wrong?

Don’t the time keepers know that while being a writer is what I want most, writing isn’t always what I want to do?

I want to read books, I love television and movies, I love going to bed early just to have more cuddle time with my boyfriend.

It’s not just that I can’t dedicate all that time to writing — I don’t want to.

I want balance that makes me happy, and I haven’t found that balance.

I want time to write without pressure to make money from whatever I produce.

I want time to pull out the couch-bed and snuggle through a movie before we go to sleep, just so I can check out for an hour or two a day and do my best to think of nothing but what’s happening in front of me.

Media is an escape in so many ways, and that’s a good thing in moderation.

When I open a new book or start a show, that’s me willingly walking away from here so I can enter another world for a little while.

It’s hard to live life, enjoy life, and then find time to do the thing that will make you enjoy living life while also giving you a better life.

Thinking like this makes it easier for me to understand why it seems to be dawning on some kids that doing this whole “doing life” thing might not actually be worth it.

You strive, you struggle, you stress — and for what?

For being able to think “At least I can afford rent, and they probably won’t shut off my electricity in winter, and I’m sure those grinding brakes in my car can go another six months to a year or two before I can consider repairs.”

Because what money do I have for car repairs?

So here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to write anyway.

It’s Friday, 7:05 this morning (and I started this at about 6:45 yesterday morning).

I do have plans to go out and enjoy Saturday with my boyfriend, but I’ll be home alone on Sunday, and I am going to buckle down and write.

I’m not going to lie to you.

(Sorry mom and dad!)

For a while, because I need money and it’s true that sex sells, I will be writing and publishing fetish erotica on Amazon KDP.

My first story has been live for a week, I’d like to add at least 2–4 more stories per month, and hope to have that established as a reliable income stream by 2026.

Oh yeah, we’re setting goals now.

But as all of you writers know, it’s hard to set specific goals for our work.

Erotica is just work to me that does not fulfill my creative needs at all.

I want to write the stories that excite me, that I feel passionate about (not sexually).

I want to create worlds that I am excited to dive into and build more every day. I want to move my characters into these worlds and see what they do when I unleash them upon each other.

I have to dedicate myself to that.

2,000 words a day?

2 hours per day?

A first draft in three months?

I suppose we’ll see together if you’re somewhere on this sort of journey with me.

But not yet today, because I have to go get ready for work.

Photo by Angèle Kamp on Unsplash

I woke up at 5:30 this morning, which I try to do every day that I work my day job.

See how I said “work my day job”?

Maybe if I keep telling myself it’s just my day job, I will once again be able to tell people with confidence that I am a writer.

A writer who has barely written or shared anything she’s written in years, besides snippets of poetry and prose catered to prompts.

Not that I’m complaining about writing prompts, I love writing prompts. They get me writing faster and with more speed and enthusiasm than any other kind of inspiration I ever find.

The last time I had COVID-19 was in mid-December of 2022, and I have not felt the same since.

After that last infection, which burned through me, literally manifesting itself as a fever that stayed over 103 for a day and above 100 for three days with no respiratory symptoms at all, I have remained somewhat broken.

I developed high blood pressure and tachycardia for the first time in my life, and now I’m on medications for both of those things.

My body seems like it’s not able to produce and/or store vitamin B-12 and iron, so now I give myself a shot of B-12 once a month, and I’ve been seeing a hematologist at the cancer hospital to see if, after two iron infusions, my body holds on to it.

I have hot flashes like a woman in the midst of menopause and I only just turned 42.

But the worst thing?

I am just so. fucking. tired. all. the. time.

The worst part, I think, is that I am most tired when I wake up.

It’s a daily fight for my life to get out of bed, start moving, and start trying like hell to shake off the weight of the exhaustion that rises with me every morning.

My psychiatrist doesn’t believe me that I am most tired in the morning and become more alert as the day goes on – to the point when some nights I have to force myself to get in bed because I don’t feel sleepy.

It’s making me miserable, depressed.

It’s making me not look forward to waking up in the morning, and that right there is a slippery slope.

Want to hear the real bitch of it?

I had a sleep study scheduled for last Friday night (after waiting nearly six months to get into the clinic) only to have them call me Friday morning and say “Sorry, we have to reschedule because your technician called out sick for the night.”

Now I have to wait another 26 days.

Not like anyone’s counting.

Not like it matters to anyone but me.

I signed up for Mastodon last night, because I am not going back to Twitter, and I am hesitant to start using Instagram again.

Facebook is out of the question, but Bluesky may be a possibility if I can’t figure out Mastodon.

I’ve concluded that yes, when it comes to my writing, (at least some of my writing) I DO want to share with the world.

Between complaints about my health and all the writing about not writing, I’d really love to use this space ( MY SPACE!) to work on my craft, or on myself, every day.

I am a poet and forgot it.

I am a writer of fictional stories and novels.

I am a writer of creative non-fiction and essays.

I am a writer who hasn’t been sharing her writing because I have such low self-esteem, I don’t expect people to pay attention, I don’t expect people to comment – I expect people to ridicule me.

I have to get over that.

I hope whoever’s reading this helps me and doesn’t hurt me even more than I have been in the last 42 years.