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Glitter & Gold: Regarding jobs



(3/10)


When I say that writing a book is a crazy thing to do, I am being serious. The book put me in the red.


The reason: on June 1st, 2021 (the Official Bulgarian Children Holiday), I submitted my resignation and did not start working again till July 1st, 2024, a weekend after publishing the book.


I had a reasonable job with decent pay (I was writing health technology assessments). I did the math and figured, I can survive a year and write a book. At that time, the working title was "Pyramid Home Corporation".


I did meet my deadline. I did two months of research and started writing The Ultimate Deal in Autumn 2021. After about a year, I had the first draft. However, looking for a publisher, a professional editor, breaking up with a publisher, and deciding ultimately to publish myself, required two additional years, which I did not calculate.


As a debutant, who had written a lengthy sci-fi novel as judged as incapable to produce a meaningul product (despite professionals lauding the book as a piece of writing). Truth to be told, I did receive an offer from a publisher, where I would get 20% of the cover price, while I paid them 100% of the costs. That still seems ludicrous.


Any mature person asks themselves a logical question: "How did this idiot managed to be unemployed for three whole years". In truth, I did treat The Ultimate Deal as a full-time job. I had a workweek, I had a schedule, I had deadlines. The blessing and the curse of being my own boss. But this would be dodging the question.


Truth to be told, from "my" family only my brother and I, our cousins, and their brother remain. My Mom lived to see me finishing the book, but did not live to finish it. My Dad passed away, when I was in high school. All the grandparents are also gone.


I financed The Ultimate Deal with my inheritance. Admittedly, what I had saved from my job covered a smaller part of the costs. To some hard people this may sound like an easy way out but it comes with several problems.


First, I prefer everyone to be alive, and me not to play act as a writer. Second, the feeling of guilt that for my own dream I have spent the blood and sweat of other people is a hefty burden. Third, I do look at writing as pleasure, but also a career. If I didn't earn something back that would mean that I didn't do my job as a writer.


Besides guilt, I went literally insane at Uni, so I have to also manage an inferiority complex. I've worked in labs, I'd started a PhD, but my schizophrenia didn't play well with daily mice decapitation, sophisticated technical work, and deficient fine movements due to the antipsychotic at the time. So I quit Biology despite my love for it.


I started that health assessment job and after finishing the first draft, I took Python courses. After the publishing of The Ultimate Deal in Bulgaria, I moved to a non-biological analyst position, and I now work as a Software Developer.


In a sense, The Ultimate Deal was an act of desperation that would let me conquer both psychosis and the inferiority complex. A way for me, as a writer, to touch other people, to make them happy, and to be useful.


While I worked on The Ultimate Deal, I was on olanzapine. My side effects included sleeping for 12 hours and feeling like shit every day. I've also taken aripiprazole, which escalated my psychosis as if I'd snorted cocaine, and I've never tried cocaine.


Once I took an antipsychotic that caused part of my breasts (normally for me, pecs) to swell like those of a girl in puberty. As a guy, I empathize with women. The female puberty is literally painful.


Good thing is that three years ago, my psychiatrist finally found a drug, with which I didn't lose half of my day and/or didn't grow tits. Lurasidone works so well for me that I am always scared that it is too good to be true and I will relapse.


NOTE: If you need therapy, ask YOUR doctor which one is best for you. I am not advertising anything, just sharing.


In any case, there is a boon in writing your book with "your own" means.


The Ultimate Deal is an honest book. It doesn't contain what somebody told me to say, I didn't follow some political agenda like movies or news outlets. It doesn't contain any hidden propaganda.


It is my debut and it reflects my soul.


In the end, I am grateful I had the opportunity to express myself.



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