I Am Not a Content Mill

I am not a content mill.

Obviously.

Look. In between editing and rewriting my book, as well as my first shot at beta reading, I’ve also been working on my social media presence. I meant to keep a consistent upload schedule here on Vocal while tackling these background tasks, thus the weekly “photo reflections” I had going regardless of the radio silence.

Because, look, I do understand the importance of “consistently showing up.” Consistency got an old fanfic of mine to (as of writing) nearly 30,000 hits. With one success to my name, I told myself I could do it again, this time within the framework of original writing.

No.

No, no.

Absolutely not, no. Not when I’m clawing and gnawing myself through this drag of a rewrite.

Oh? I can hear my dad raising his brow at me. Is it that you can’t? Or you don’t want to?

Both! Both, Your Honor! While also leaning more I don’t want to!

I think fellow writers here can relate. Managing social media presences in order to corral readers here is a serious side hustle. I’m still no good at it—couldn’t tell you the first thing about “email lists” or “search engine optimization,” but between Bluesky and Tumblr (because I’ve gone my entire life without ever touching that ultimate cesspool of a hellsite of the current Internet), I’ve memorized my hashtag list like it’s the Pokémon anthem.

And then there’s also curating what I share, right? I have to become Anubis with the scales of judgment to weigh one excerpt over another. Hmm, is this excerpt in Chapter 10 revealing too much of my story versus this bit of dialogue in Chapter 11? What about this bit from 9, does it spoil too much about the antagonist, or should I opt for this bit of bickering in 4?

I’ve also recently learned that images land more readily with our scrolling tendencies, so I’m weaning myself off of external links in favor of screenshotting and Alt texts within the same post. Because I too, avoid opening new tabs or windows if I can help it.

Oh, and if I want to provide descriptions? I have to craft it within two sentences so I don’t distract from the screenshotted excerpt, then rinse and repeat the same upload process over at Tumblr. By that time, I’m throwing tantrums over doing the same at Facebook, so I end up… not. And start considering whether I really want this Facebook page at all.

(Also, I have this really compelling scene I need to polish in my book and it’s threatening my sanity at gunpoint until I sit down and work on it, so I really don’t have the time to worry about my social media presences, ‘kay, thanks, bye!)

Fellow writers, please tell me you hear me when I say that urge to write, edit, and create is an imperative. Not abiding by that program is grounds for termination, which for me begins by edging me, through fatigue and General Sad, to the precipice of depression. I stare down that abyss while knowing that as long as I put pen to paper and get a stream of words down, I can lay planks to my own salvation.

Listen. Listen. As writers, we already perceive the world so differently from the rest of society. I’m known for a particular slowness, as well as a heightened sensitivity to sound and smell and color that I can communicate so much better than, say, what documents I need to put together to renew my health insurance. I feel like I occupy a space outside of the great system of social constructs and look inside the framework—the hegemony—to understand its machinations and thus my otherness from those systems.

So the internal scream in me, that I am not a content mill, is both a tantrum and, maybe, a call for revolution.

“But don’t you want to make a career out of your writing? Then you have no choice but to make yourself visible by submitting as much content to as many places, as consistently as possible. Make it relevant to the times. Make it align with what people are looking for.”

Is that you asking me to sacrifice my creativity for the sake of making myself more discoverable? Tell me I’m not the only writer whose gut reaction is unadulterated spite? Whose immediate reaction to the so-called “way that things are” is a resounding NO, I DON’T WANT TO.

Spite, you see, drives me to find the loopholes and convinces me more every day that good writing and powerful story will beat the consistency and discoverability claims. Spite makes me want to live and write the way I want, and informs me that forcing myself to create something mediocre, just to be found, is the story of murdering my creativity.

That’s what’s going on in this world of AI and social media, isn’t it? Kill and uproot creativity, clear the space and make way for the content mills.

I can’t do that, Your Honor. I have my pride and creed as a writer devoted to crafting the very best storytelling I can.

Then, what can I do?

First, I’m redefining “consistency.” Consistency lies in the quality. Consistency means that my readers come back to my work in two weeks or two months and still say, “Damn, Nagisa’s done it again; this is why I keep coming back to read!”

Because this too, I’ve done and seen before. Comments from readers exclaimed how much they looked forward to the email notifications from me. Reviews trickled in within an hour of uploading, telling me how a certain line or characterization or description made them feel seen, heard, experienced. Whether they laughed or cried or fumed at the story I presented, those readers found and seized upon a connection through my writing.

Yes, I did upload a chapter every week. I aimed for Friday nights, because I struggled with revisions for hours before I hit the “upload” button. I did have a buffer of chapters. I did finish writing that story’s ending weeks before my readers saw the ending coming. Was my timely consistency part of that fic’s modest success?

Maybe. I won’t deny it, at least.

Neither, however, will I give “consistency” full credit, because that denies the time and effort I put into the creation of that piece. I showed up not just with the goods, but with the best possible goods I could procure. Character, description, dialogue, relatability, depth—I brought all of these every time I did show up.

That’s the consistency I mean to pursue. If I don’t do it every day or week, if I miss a couple Sundays for my short stories or Fridays for my, uh, ravings, then so be it. At least you know I missed those days to make sure I’m providing my readers something good.

None of this is so far-fetched an ambition, is it? As long as I’m consistently good, I get my name in readers’ mouths, and make sure they remember that name.