This is not my dream

I just want to sell books and write them. I didn’t sign up for this.

This is not the dream my child-self thought it would be.

Times are different now than they were in the 90s, of course. Yet, I can’t help but mourn for the ideal dream I once had as a little kid who sat quietly alone at their desk writing stories. That bullied, neurodivergent kid who had aspirations of being an author while everyone else wanted to be a veterinarian, an astronaut, or a firefighter.

Now, I see an ecosystem online of abuse masked with kind words. It’s masked with care. Support is extremely conditional, solely based on if you can meet someone’s demands or not. “Move here, jump there, this place is making me angry so you can’t be there anymore, boycott this, boycott that, and if you can’t comply immediately, you will be shunned.”

It doesn’t matter who you are, what your values are, or what your disability or health status is. It doesn’t matter if you’re the very demographic the loudest ones claim to be allies to — who they claim to be fighting for. They will turn on you as quick as they once claimed to support you, simply because you’re in a place they deemed unacceptable.

It doesn’t matter what the difficulty is for you to uproot shop. They did it, so you have to do it too and since they were capable of it, you must be too or you’re being lazy. It’s not simply that you’re disabled or chronically ill, or struggling financially. No, it’s because they deemed you lazy and resistant to change.

Your sales drop. Your newsletter goes nowhere. You’re too exhausted to move platforms, you feel like your chances at success are based on the ever evolving outrage cycles of the internet and your ability to keep up with them. You had things set up where you could manage them, everything was fine until people started using the word boycott as loosely as some consume alcohol. They became addicted to the anger, the ever-evolving boycott.

Boycotts that go nowhere. Boycotts that target the untouchables. Boycotts that only alienate and harm smaller creators but do nothing to even poke at the huge CEOs people claim to be after. It’s hard to hear, but it’s true; these boycotts are not doing what people think they are. They’re doing the opposite.

They’re destroying disabled and marginalized creators. They’re shoving out smaller creators while the big guys watch and laugh. The only people who get hurt are the ones these activists claim to be supporting; the creators. The disabled authors, the poor artists, the queer crafters who just want to get by selling their passions. And what of those who aren’t chronically online? What of those who don’t have the time to be on social media, who aren’t aware of any of the outrage, who can’t make ends meet because they're suddenly seeing a drop in sales?

No, this is not the dream my child-self once saw. This is a cycle of toxicity, and it’s a nightmare. It’s a constant uphill climb while you’re in a fucking wheelchair. The folks who have the means and the energy to make it will race past you without offering to help. There is no equality in this space, even from those who advocate for equality.

I still want to be an author. I still want to share my stories. I’ve just lost hope they’ll reach their readers because I don’t have the means — mentally, emotionally, or monetarily — to comply to the demands of people on social media every time something new comes up.

I just want to sell books and write them, and I want to be happy doing that whether I make a livable income or not. I didn’t sign up for all of this.