Daily writing prompt

What bothers you and why?

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Morning!

Another day, another needless prompt post. When will it end? Next sunday – from then on, I’ll be more focusing on writing “relevant” content for my blog; Writing advice, reviews and a few cheerky pieces of art. But, for now, we’re going to have to lump it, regardless of the bother it causes.

Speaking of Bother [capital B], that’s the subject matter of todays prompt – what does this to me? Well, I could talk about a lot of odd slights that I don’t like, but most of them are fairly personal or controversial. I should know better not to dox myself online and also that I must keep the content of my blog somewhat consistent, so I’m going to be talking about writing Bothers today.

What bothers me about writing today is that there is so much competition. According to Toner Buzz’s 2022 statistic, Five hundred thousand to a million books are published by companies every year – quadruple that figure are possibly self published. If you are a fantasy/sci-fi writer like me, you might be able to relate to the soft dread of walking through a bookshop and seeing the hundreds of new novel series there. There’s too many people to keep track of in the writing industry…which likely means that there’s a fair chance that your book might not even get noticed at all!

Now, I’m not saying this entirely because I’m worried my books won’t be a commercial success, but more because I don’t want my stories to go unloved. Sure, they might have a very good reason to be ignored on release, but nobody wants to hear that nobody cares about what you’ve written. It’s very disheartening. However, this may be an irrational fear thanks to a couple of things. Firstly, if you are writing for a specific audience, you are greatly narrowing down the other writers in that category – people who happen to be looking there will likely find you. Secondly, many of the alleged people you might be “competing” against may be around to support you in promoting your book – many writing communities are highly supportive of their members and wish to celebrate eachother’s success rather than outdo one another.

There are probably more reassuring things to say about this, but I can’t think of them right now – thus, the sheer size of the industry I’m thinking of joining still unsettles me. But do we writers share this fear? Or, if you’re not a writer, do you feel the same about your facet of the occupational world? I’d really like to know.

Anyway, let’s get back to novel writing.