A writer with no readers

I recently completed another novel, my fourth or fifth, I think. They sit atop several volumes of nonfiction and a pile of original scripts for movies and radio drama. Last year, Amazon paid me $24. If there is a less successful writer, I'd like to know who. One way to explain failure is simple. I'm a bad author, unreadable rubbish. Good joke on me, after 30 years of effort. A book reviewer recently said he wanted to slap me. I suppose that's progress. In Costa Rica it was death threats for an oblique forum post of 20 words. I am an extremely slow writer. On a good day, I can produce 1500 words. Add another day for noodling, a third for copy editing, and more hours to format it for self-publication. It's awful to be self-published, a bleak, windswept literary Siberia. Put that aside. Let's consider how much time I invested in writing the unwanted. 500 words in print that no one reads cost me approximately 24 hours of my life. Half a million equals 1,000 days of effort. Unfortunately, one cannot write every day. Those 1,000 days were cloistered at a keyboard, sitting alone by myself, unable to do anything else but drink coffee and fill a blank page. Weeks elapse and then months and years without reward. Relationships wither. I'm not fun to be with. As we all must, I try to earn a living, time away from the job of writing. I lasted four months at a trade publisher. Three weeks at a music shop. Eight days at a factory on graveyard shift. I've failed every time that I attempted to play well with others, a lifelong handicap. I am not entirely certain that my problem is narcissism. Sometimes I weep with sorrow for my characters. I struggle to get it right, and it seldom seems to be. There are always typing errors and offensive expletives, the bane of signature literature. The upside is how little it cost me, compared to directing. I spent huge sums making films and TV shows that no one exhibited. The reputation hurts. Simon Jester mocked me as a "soulful luser." I can name a dozen people who encouraged my creative work, past and present. I suppose it kept me going, especially during the past few years, when I found my feet as a mature writer. And that brings me to an awkward conclusion. The years remaining will be few and empty of romantic love. I am old and ugly. I'm free of religion, politics, sports, fashion, pop culture, and Politically Correct speech. It is difficult to read other authors. It's also difficult to re-read my own work, because I know it by heart, every word of every book. I can't retract anything, however unpopular it is. One does not author a theory of constitutional law lightly. My novels are about characters I admire and understand. I don't mind being ignored or slapped down. The work is what it had to be. So, my advice to young writers is to write, whatever it is you find right and good. If it makes money, that's excellent. Someone must succeed. I have already plumbed the worst case. You are absolutely guaranteed to do better than Wolf DeVoon. Groovy, huh? Unhappily, we get what we pay for in life. I paid a heavy price. Think about it. Some time very soon I will have to sell my car to put food on the table, an old car that might fetch $800. If you are willing to write, no matter what it costs, I salute you from the grave. I've outlived F. Scott Fitzgerald, dead at age 48, and Frank Zappa, dead at age 57. No one could ask for more, and I used every minute of my adult life to reach for a fraction of their legacy. Your mileage may vary.