yuki_onna

I've started to get emails telling me that Fairyland and related activity were a bad idea, that I ought to get a real/day job instead, that I shouldn't have been on tour if things were this bad, or planning a wedding, that this is not grown-up behavior.

I don't want to spend a lot of time defending what seemed like the best thing to do, to me. But I knew this criticism would come up eventually, so I do want to address it before much more time passes.

First of all, the tour cost us very little, ultimately. And was all predicated on the idea that there was a job with a local company waiting when we got home--he worked a bit for them on the road and it was understood. Surprise, the job wasn't waiting. The tour was a couch-surfing venture, with no venues that were paid anything but a cut of the door, and tips and book sales paid for our gas and dinner most nights. People were kind and generous and took us in and fed us, and the whole tour cost us no more than living at home for seven weeks would have. This was not some lavish venture, and frankly without the infrastructures00j has set up around the country, we never could or would have done it.

Second, "real" jobs are not exactly thick on the ground these days. We did a lot of calculations, and the fact is I did fuck up--by getting a classics degree seven years ago. And dropping out of grad school six years ago. The jobs I'm qualified for without going back to school are just about Starbucks barista (which I can't even do because I have been fired from the Bux in the past.) And the fact is, I make barista money as a freelancer. So I could spend $100 a week to get back and forth from the island and make what is not at all enough money to keep our bills paid and lose all the time and energy I give to my freelancing, and not make any more money than I do now. That didn't seem like a wise solution.

I don't know about the wedding. I'm hoping a job happens before I have to make a decision I don't want to make. The big savings account I had for it dwindled a long time ago. But A. it was always a very frugal wedding and B. I haven't paid anything for it yet beyond reserving the location a year ago. It's all on hold. The only thing the donated money is being spent on is rent, bills, and food. It is sacred money of the highest order and we're not spending it on a wedding or anything else but what we really need. The very basics. The rest...we'll just have to figure it out as it goes.

We waited until we were on our last dimes to do this. I've done my very best not to ask for charity, but to offer real work for real money, which is a fairly common transaction. I'm sorry if this offended some of you--I'm very aware that I'm awfully lucky to be able to do this, that many people don't have the option. It was a hard decision to do it. But I've never judged anyone who reached out for online help and donated everything I could when I had it to give. I will always do that.

If you've had internal WTFs about this whole thing, I can only say: then just don't read the book on Monday. I'm not the first one to offer fiction for donations and I won't be the last. Cyberfunded art is still work, and we all do what we think is best.