Oh no, the foreigners are taking our jobs again! They can take my job, but they can never take my spirit!
Change is the only constant. Slow change we can adapt to. Fast change is very unsettling. Digital and the internet were very disruptive and sped up change while keeping it moving faster. Jobs go and jobs come. The market place and jobs that are needed keeps changing. We have to be flexible about what we want to do. And unless we are very lucky many of us do not get the job we hoped for as kids, thought about in high school, expected to get in college, nor keep the one we finally did get to start with for a lifetime.
There is some truth in this. A similar phenomenon has occurred in the music industry; cheaper home studio gear and online distribution have lowered the barriers to entry, thus the market is saturated, thus there exists a winner-takes-all dynamic in which most musicians barely scratch a living. It's not all doom & gloom though. The industry has changed, which suggests (to me) simply that the individual who wishes to be successful in that industry needs to change accordingly.
The thing with all these industries including writing is that while the digital age has increased competition it has also vastly increased opportunity - there is now a much bigger market for writing, photography and music, and fewer gatekeepers if you go that route. And while you can't compete on cost with the mass market you can still compete on quality - when i was working seriously as a wedding photographer (I more or less knocked it on the head when i started writing seriously) I used to charge in high three to low four figures... there were loads of people with entry level gear scratching about in the bottom quartile of the market doing £99 deals and wondering why they weren't making any money, however that never bothered me because my customers weren't people who wanted to pay £99 for a wedding shoot The same logic applies to writing (especially self publishing) - the bottom of the market is glutted with badly written uneditted garbage with crap covers clearly created using paint or the KDP creator, priced at 99p, for which no marketing is then done - these people are making no money and never will. However they are not the competition for a serious self published writer (ie someone who's serious about the business, not necessarily that their writing is high brow) with a well edited, well produced product with a decent cover, a realistic price point, and a business plan, and effective marketing - and while there are definitely more people in this market than there used to be its still possible to succeed in it if you are a willing to do the work
Hi OP, not sure if you're still following this, but I'll tell you that I'm tired at least 50% of the time I'm writing (I snag a few minutes in the morning before work and then some right before bed) and being tired absolutely does not prevent you from putting words on page. It's a discipline and difficult, but can be done. Develop the habit of writing daily, force yourself when it is hard, and you will finish your projects. Best of luck.
I personally have little experience with work. I worked for 1 year in factories while still in school, but I'm now happily back to theoretical grinding. (next school) So, in that time I did little to no writing, mostly cause it was just so boring and depressing at the factories. I wish I had picked up writing and started to overthink idea's cause it made me feel good. still does. Now I'm back at school and always thinking about ideas in the train/busses or hallways whatever. Not only because it's fun, but I still need the distraction. It was hard to pick it up after I let it rest for so long, so be careful of that. No worries, everybody loses motivation in his life a number of times. But the most important thing is to keep picking it up or keep doing it. Even when times are hard, you know that you need it the most, and it will make you feel better. Now, to conclude this ... well. I hope it will somehow be useful ... message: Even when you get to a point in your life when life gets you down, writing will help you cure your feelings. Writing or doing something fun will get you back up, so please don't give it up! Greets, me.
