The Brain Fart that Lasted a Decade

As most of you know, I'm using AI as my business assistant to analyse the book market, upcoming trends, my sales data, etc., and to help develop strategies that might one day get me to the point of making a living as a writer. Cognitive offloading is one of the most helpful ways for neurodivergent individuals to use AI.

But here's the kicker: For over a decade, I had no idea what I was writing.

I thought I was writing mystery series, while at the same time being annoyed by most mystery series, and preferring the complexity of psychological thrillers. I thought I was writing young adult dystopian fiction, while at the same time wanting to throw most YA fiction across the room, and preferring literary science fiction and dark speculative fiction.

A couple of days ago, I did a thing: I gave Gemini and Claude all of my books and asked: What genres and readers does each book serve?

For every single book, the AIs told me this is upmarket fiction.

What the hell? This sounds snooty. No way I write snooty books!

What's upmarket fiction?

I've never heard of upmarket fiction, and you probably haven't either.The term is used by editors, agents, and sometimes by writers, but rarely by readers. The stories are driven by complex characters with psychological depth, and often address social issues.

And it has nothing to do with snootiness.

Upmarket fiction is at the intersection of genre fiction – books that follow tropes and genre definitions, and can be written by a human in a month or two, or by an AI in a day (think sexy detective duo who solve every crime, but could be replaced by any other sexy detective duo and you wouldn't notice the difference), and literary fiction – books that take a year or even a decade to write, and that are either totally incomprehensible or so life-changing you'll never forget them.

And that, dear ladies, gents, and gentlethems, is exactly what burned a hole into my little writer's heart. I fell for the marketing gurus' bullshit of cranking out books as fast as fingers could fly, and then marketing the living daylight out of them. I wrote Vow in 3 hasty months, and that scorched me pretty hard.

Because it's impossible to create character depth at speed.

What does my belated epiphany mean for you?

I'll always choose depth over volume. I'll keep writing characters who stay with you, and stories that work on multiple levels. I won't waste my energy churning out stories without complexity, or hammering your favourite characters into flat cardboard cutouts just so I can produce a dozen books a year.

I'll also finally accept the natural neurodivergent cycle of super focus → crash → super focus → crash, and stop fearing the next crash will automatically result in a 5-year burnout.

Here's what you can expect:

• 2 full-length novels a year that will mess with your head and heart,
• and a few short stories/novellas as snacks in between.
• Some ink-on-paper art when my brain needs a different outlet.
• Characters who'll take up permanent residence in your head.

So basically, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, but with more confidence and a lot less trying to squeeze myself into a commercialised shape that isn't mine (aka book factory).

Micka Fans!!!

You probably gave up hoping for a new book in the 1/2986 series ages ago. But I've got news for you! I'm writing a novella that's exclusive for backstage members. It should be available in my next update, or, if life gets in the way, in about a month. Plus, I'm working on an outline for book 5 in this series.

Yup. Book 5. There, I said it.