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Paypal addy is kaelan.rhywiol@gmail.com
I suck at asking for help, I really do. The world isn’t kind to creative folks. Most authors I know, even NYT bestselling ones with a long backlist still have day-jobs. Yet, I need help and I see others in similar positions with large patreon lists, so here goes.
I’m disabled, DXd with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, low-functioning thyroid and I’ve battled through generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression in the past. They still rear their unpleasant and ugly heads once in a while. But in the very near future, I’ll have to find a way to start working again. Only reason I’m not working now at a 9-5 job (in retail or phone customer service despite my advanced university degrees) is because Canadian immigration is SO slow.
I mean, we’re talking SLOW….
I’ve been waiting for 5 years for my paperwork to come through, and I’m still waiting.
Something I didn’t know–as an American moving here–was that my Masters in Teaching and my B.Sc in Biophysical anthropology/forensics chemistry isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on as far as working in either of those fields in this country.
Licensing requirements here will require I go back to university in Canada, to redo what I’ve already done, and I can’t afford the cost of university.
This will put me into a retail position or working phone customer service, IF I can hold one of those jobs with my health conditions, and frankly, I’m not sure I can manage that.
My inability to work a ‘real’ job is difficult for me to admit. Maybe I can do it, it looks like I won’t have much choice in the near future but to try… but it’ll severely curtail my writing and editing. This blog won’t exist at all anymore, because it takes me, on average three hours to pull together one of my pretty (and I hope entertaining) blog posts with links and information and pictures. There just won’t be enough of me left between working out of the home, being a Mom and a wife. Currently, I’m able to work as a full-time writer/editor/book reviewer/blogger/cover artist, and I absolutely adore it.
It’s my calling, what I’m meant to do. I work between 60 and 70 hours a week at my current ‘job’, and it doesn’t feel like work. If I could continue doing that, and somehow manage to make enough money to pay my half of expenses for our household (between fifteen hundred and two thousand dollars a month would make a world of difference in how we live. Cause right now we aren’t doing well despite my husband working between 50 and 60 hours a week himself. Cost of living is extremely high in Canada, especially as the city we live in is a sleep-away town to Toronto.)
If every single one of my followers tossed me 1$ a month as a patron? I’d be where I need to be, or close to it.
I CAN do this work. I have the talent, the skill, the knowledge, the equipment, the drive, and I can STILL do it regardless of the fibromyalgia, because I can do it from home… Yet it doesn’t bring in much if any money to keep us eating and help buy the stuff I need for my kids.
Maybe I’ll make it, if I persevere long enough, within the publishing world. I’m well reviewed by most people who actually read my work, but the slow nature of publishing is going to end up costing me my ability to keep doing this. Unless I commit to going Indie with everything I write… which has its own issues.
And given the slow growth of sales on my backlist… I’m not holding my breath.
As an immigrant, I’m not eligible for disability coverage and I won’t be for a long time, if ever. I currently have no health care except at the free clinic for homeless folks I go to.
I haven’t been to the dentist is 5 years and I’m in pain from bad teeth every day.
I have bad eyes, and I usually need new glasses every year. I haven’t had them for 5.
If I’d known, when we decided to immigrate to be closer to my husband’s family what the costs to me would be… I wouldn’t have come. Despite being extremely happy that I live in Canada, for so many reasons, it’s reduced me to begging for money and help from strangers on the internet in return for my work of words.
Aside from my blog, my writer’s resource page and everything on my website… what I offer on Patreon is screenshots of my Works In Progress or full short stories, long before others get to see them. You can read about my rewards on my patreon page below. If there’s anything else you’d like to see from me in the way of rewards, please let me know.
You can buy my books directly from me, I offer Epub and can figure out other formats. I get the most money when you do that. I get 7cents of the 2$ you pay per copy of MOTHMEN purchased from amazon, and it’s much less for the short stories.
If you want to, if you like anything I do on my blog or my reviews or other things I do, you can donate to my KoFi below.
If you’re in a place where you can afford to donate to me outright, paypal is an option.
Paypal email addy is kaelan.rhywiol@gmail.com
I have things I need or that would make my life so much easier or… a few small luxuries below on my
If you’re an author considering Indie pub. You can help me by buying your cover art from me. I do cover art and media packages under a pseudonym (’cause I write kink under this one, and a degree of seperateness seemed wise). You can see examples of my work here.
Help me keep providing content, and you know, eating? I’d be so very grateful, and I could keep doing the work I love to do.
For what it’s worth, this has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write.
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