June 10, 2020
But that’s not quite the beginning, is it?
I suppose not.
You had tried three times to get away from burnout. You burnt out at bConnected. You moved to Canonical, and while it worked for several years, you burnt out there as well. You burnt out at the Archive. And here you were, burning out at New Vector.
Right. The third time, it turns out, was not the charm.
So, while that comes before the beginning, you still must start at the beginning.
Okay.
I started Hybrid Ink back in 2018 almost on a whim. The idea was to start picking up unique novels that tickled my interest and bring them to light. The mission statement was soon narrowed to focus specifically on LGBTQIA+ works, and it seemed like a really good pet project to get working on.
By the time I was getting frustrated at the Archive, I was already toying with the idea of turning it from a pet project into an actual company that I could work for. It’d be easy enough, right?
Right.
Why do your monosyllabic interjections always sound more pointed than mine?
Are my barbs too sharp?
I suppose I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So, untangle that.
I say “it’d be easy, right?” with the knowledge granted by hindsight that it was not, in fact, easy. It was not easy at all.
My plan was to find a tech job and work there for a year, both ramping up Hybrid quickly and also saving my money to help support me as I delved into a job that would not be making me tech job money. I had it all worked out. I came up with six anthologies that I would publish, staggered across several months. By the time I was ready to leave my next job, the house would have picked up enough steam that it would be able to run on its own right.
Right.
Exactly.
So when New Vector started falling apart with astonishing speed, I raced to both accelerate the ramping-up and search for a new job. Maybe I could make this work, right? I just needed to land something else relatively quickly. I started looking at tech writing jobs, as I figured those would be more likely to be tolerable — hell, maybe even they’d make a good long-term career. Writing, right? Even if it’s just docs?
And then I started looking at companies I wasn’t as fond of. No one was biting, and those that were were swamped with other candidates more credentialed than I. DigitalOcean was super promising, and also super nice about it when they turned me down.
And then I started compromising my morals. Amazon was an option, right? They’re a horrifying company, and I felt slimy and disgusting interviewing there, but a paycheck was a paycheck, right? I could hold my nose for a year or so to get back on my feet, right? I could not.
And then I started digging back into tech jobs. Maybe if I took a more junior position, I would be able to work more easily. That way, I reasoned, I would be less isolated, having to report to someone more senior. My day would be easier to get through without flailing at nothing.
Compromise is the warp and woof of the world, is it not? Here you are, compromising three times over, racing to find a job during your last few weeks at work, and failing ever downward.