I started this year like any other.
On the 1st of January, I went on a long morning run, the smell of fireworks still hanging in the air. I had the traditional lunch with my wife’s grandparents and spent the rest of the day working on a short story. It was just like any other January 1st. And because my grandma used to say that the way you spend the first day of the year dictates all the rest, I expected 2024 to be just like the previous few years.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
January
Things kicked off quickly when I got in touch with a friend who’s selling goods in Amazon. “Alex it’s insane that you have two books but you’re not selling paperbacks”. Yes, it sounds absurd but I had my reasons. I was constantly updating my books and not being able to change them with a file upload was making me fearful.
I thought that the people who wanted the knowledge would’ve preferred the comfort of the digital version of the book. But what I wasn’t understanding about book publishing was that there are a lot of people who maintain a library at home. The books on their shelves are a signal of who they are to their guests, family and friends. Some people favored a Sunday morning with a book and a cup of coffee more than the ergonomics of a PDF.
I was missing out on an entire market.
Outside of writing, I kept getting problems with my stomach after an illness I had in late 2023. I was having crises in the middle of the night, making me feel like someone had stabbed me with a sizzling hot knife. They came and went but I thought I had just eaten something bad.
February
I reached out to local printing houses to get quotes about my two programming books and the upcomming fictional one. The price they gave me for a small print run was insane. In order to make even a small profit, I had to sell my books at the cost of Encyclopedia Britannica. When you take into account shipping to Amazon and managing inventory I was wondering if the hassle was worth it.
I had almost given up on the idea again when I found out about Amazon’s print on demand services. Turns out that you can upload your manuscript and book cover and they can print books as they get ordered online at a fraction of the cost I got from local printing houses.
We released Tao of React, and Tao of Node in paperback and dabbled in Amazon ads for the first time in my life.
Also, I found out that Amazon doesn’t like thumbs down emojis in manuscripts. I spent an entire evening resubmitting Tao of Node’s PDF after getting a “something went wrong” error with no useful pointers. At the end I resorted to binary search to figure out where the problem was, submitting chunks of the book at a time.
My stomach troubles got worse. I averaged one night a week without sleep because of pain and other troubles. I traveled 4 hours to go to a gastroenterologist in a good hospital only for my appointment to get cancelled because the doctor forgot about me. Oh well.
March
I published my collection of short stories — a childhood dream come true. I published it digitally and in paperback on Amazon and gave copies to family and friends. I had been working on these for four years, and getting them out into the world was the difference between taking fiction writing seriously and only doing it as a pastime.
I didn’t sell a few hundred copies on release day like I do with my programming books, though, and I learned an important lesson. Non-fictional literature enriches people. They pick your book up because you will make them better at their craft and they will get a higher salary. Fiction books are entertainment and there you’re competing with Netflix and video games.
You have to be very good for people to choose to spend their free time in your stories’s company.
My stomach troubles weren’t getting any better and I managed to finally go to a doctor, a local one this time. Turns out I had a horrible gut infection but at least it wasn’t Crohn’s disease or something worse. I did a run of antibiotics that left me drained and sleepy but it stopped the mid-night crises!
April
I presented my fiction books for the first time in the city I was born in. A bit poetic to return there after all this time. I found another difference between publishing e-books and paperbacks. The former leaves you with Gumroad notifications on your phone, but the latter puts 30 people in the room with you who want to learn more about your work and get a copy signed.
It was surreal.
My stomach was getting better but I started experiencing episodes of mild anxiety that I brushed off as something momentary. I shouldn’t have.
May
I got invited to speak about my journey as a self-published author at a local meetup. It turns out there are a lot of people who want to write and publish their works but are daunted by having to submit it to publishers. Self-publishing at first sounds as a concession, a path for those who can’t pass by the gatekeepers, but it was a choice I made intentionally.
The traditional publishing process is broken and if you want to maintain ownership of your work, self-publishing is the way.
I also went to a couple of Magic The Gathering tournaments. I didn’t place well but decided I wanted to treat myself after the successful release of the stories.
My troubles with anxiety became worse to the point of having a full-blown panic attack on stage at a conference in Bucharest. I managed to finish my talk and I don’t think anyone figured it out but it was bad. My nervous system was fried. I promised myself I’d take a break (but I didn’t).
June
Summer was starting, the weather was great, and I was back working on my next programming book now that I was finished with Broken Statues. All this, by the way, I’m doing in parallel to consulting and working full-time at SumUp. This is an important fact for what comes next.
I was asked to do another speaking gig and because I never say no to opportunities I agreed. Then on the night of June 26th, I burned out. Not in the artistic sense in which I couldn’t find inspiration for my work anymore, nor in the overworked sense in which one is too tired to work. No, I had a panic attack which lasted most of the night and I thought I was losing my mind.
Half a year of juggling work, health, writing, and everything else broke me down.
I never thought that this would happen to me. It happens to other people, not me. I’ve been working like crazy for an entire decade and never had problems like this before. But it turns out that my threshold was just higher - ten years, that’s all I could handle. Concrete fails slowly and then all at once. Me too.
I’ve never dealt with panic attacks, and this made coping with them much harder.
July
I was trying to focus on my well-being without fully dropping the idea that I could publish a second book this year. I was aiming for an autumn release for my next programming book while trying to take it easy so my nervous system can get it together. My stomach, however, got worse again. I started having the occasional crisis in the middle of the night and I was afraid that the infection had turned out to be more persistent than I first thought.
I kept having panic attacks every other night.
August
I wasn’t imagining celebrating my 30th birthday while struggling with burnout but you play with the cards you’re dealt. I’m blessed with very good friends and I’m glad I had the chance to spend time with them. I took some time off work and went to therapy, read philosophy books, and started a YouTube channel for fun.
It turns out that Kierkegaard wrote about despair all the way back in the 1850s. Back then he attributed it to not living an authentic life and doing too many things for others, and I think almost two centuries later he is still correct. Had I spent more time doing the things I loved, maybe I wouldn’t have reached the state that I was in.
He also writes that these periods are invaluable because they make you think about what you truly want. So in a way, I’m glad that it happened or I would’ve continued saying yes to everything people wanted me to do and putting my own dreams last.
Therapy is what made a big difference.
There are many techniques to deal with panic attacks, but that’s just blowing smoke while the fire continues to rage. You need to figure out what’s the underlying reason for all this pent-up anxiety and cure that. So if you ever experience burnout, heavy anxiety, or depression, talk to a professional. It works. Really.
I also did a food tolerance test and cut off the foods that my body apparently can’t handle. This helped alleviate the IBS and finally put a stop to the crises.
September
I came to terms with the fact that I’m not publishing Full-Stack Tao in the autumn. I was aiming for a September release but there was so much work still to do that it wasn’t possible even if I was in the best mental state. So I thought that I’d be done with the book in December.
This is the point when the narrator pauses the video to say “he wasn’t”.
I went to the doctor again and I was glad to hear that I had no infection. Unfortunately, I had most likely developed a kind of IBS that gets triggered by nervousness and stress which my body apparently had a large quantity of stored.
October
With my anxiety getting better I was slowly going back to normal life and had my first work trip which I combined with a couple of TCG tournaments.
I learned that I enjoyed winning, but I enjoyed learning things more. Playing a difficult-to-pilot deck with many lines felt more rewarding than a simple deck that wins easily. I had a lot of fun even though I didn’t place at the top.
It’s not too different in my work, to be honest. I enjoy making money, but what I actually like is the process of creating things. This is what drew me to programming, and is what I love in writing. Journey before destination and all that.
November
It’s the month I usually hate because it’s dark and gloomy, and there’s nothing to look forward to. Christmas is too far away and you only have the rain to keep you company until it comes time for the holiday decorations. But this year I enjoyed the change of pace. There’s nothing to do, so you can spend time at home without feeling like you’re missing out on things. I had nothing planned until the end of the year and I picked up some books that had been gathering dust on the shelves.
I played cards, I read, and I wrote. I had time for myself.
December
At the time of this writing, I’m almost done with the second draft of Full-Stack Tao. Yes, I didn’t manage to publish it in time for Christmas but I really want this book to be good. So I won’t rush it. Sometimes I reach a point where I hit a wall and I need to spend an evening away from the manuscript in order to figure out what I actually want to write. I’ve been aggressively cutting content too. I want it to be the kind of book that I’d read - short, focused, and valuable.
Every time I catch myself writing for the sake of filling out a page, I cut it.
And that’s about it. I won’t count my talks, the books I’ve read, and the wins at work because in 2024 they were irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that I end the year in a good mental and physical state. Like Albert Camus said:
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”
2025 Resolutions
Live authentically and stay true to what I want to do - write and create.