How come so many writers suffer from burnout?
More than 80-90% of web novels are abandoned. Fewer will ever reach a proper end. Are web serials the problem, or it their writers?
Writing is an activity known to most. However, few will ever know what it is like to write professionally. It’s like comparing walking and training for races; you expect that no one would say that they can run a marathon just because they take their dog out for a walk twice a day, right? But the reality is much bleaker. Writing is very hard to quantify and qualify, and no one has really tried to. So, we don’t really have a measure of how hard a writer’s job is. Especially for a web serial writer, writing can become a nightmare: deadlines are looming in days at every moment; if you stop, you lose subscribers instantly; you are terrorized by the end of each month.
The main problem is that we are not ready for success. We believe that once we start making enough money to live on, that will automatically solve all our problems. I mean, at least that's what I thought. And I gathered similar opinions from other people in this industry and outside of it. The truth is that you are either ready for success or you are not; and if you are not, you damn better start preparing right now. Otherwise, the day things go well, you won't be able to hold onto them.
One someone's income suddenly doubles, that puts tremendous expectations on you. And, as writers, we don't have a job where we still get paid at the end of the month even if we do nothing. No. If we take a break, even just a holiday, there's the risk of failing. As a general heuristic, I'd say that, unless you are in the top 1% of earners already, you better not take any vacations during the first six months. At least.