Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Just a thought that popped into my head recently. I've been doing some serious thinking about my writing career, not to mention my drawing and my music. I've always wanted to do all three ever since I was a kid, though it seems I was always distracted from professionally doing so for one reason or another. [I'm not placing blame in this post; I'm just as to blame here.] Now that I'm in my early 40s and I'm in a much saner and more stable place to do such things, I've been seriously thinking of how to make these things professional, especially now in this digital age where publishing, producing and selling have been made easier.

On the one hand, I've been thinking (again) how to release the Mendaihu Universe stories. Like I said a few weeks back, it's a tough sell to the kids in Manhattan. From those that have read ADoS, I've had many positive comments, even when the prose is a bit lumpy and in need of revision, so it's not exactly as if I feel I've wasted my time with this universe. [Okay, that's not exactly true...I, like any other writer, have the fear that I'll release it to the sound of crickets. I am also well aware that I can't release it to a void, and need to upsell myself when and where necessary.] I'm perfectly willing to release these as Indies. In fact, I'm kind of thinking of it like the way DIY punk sold in the 80s: word of mouth, friends of friends, a shameless plug somewhere, and the drive to nudge it at the right audience. I'm not expecting to be rolling in the cash going this route. This is the same for the artwork, and especially the music: I know I have the drive and (sort of) have the ability to pull it off. Again, I don't expect to be rolling in the dough.*

On the other hand, I would not mind being thought of a professional writer. I mean yeah, to some extent I am one, as I've been featured on a few music blogs, and I'm about to have a short piece published in a book about my hometown, printed by a tiny local publisher. And I try to keep a decent schedule on my two WP blogs, talking seriously about music and writing, two of my biggest loves. And I do consider myself more of a careerist than a hobbyist, considering I'm working on some writing project on any given day.

Maybe I'm thinking too seriously about this. I do have a habit of overplanning such things, and Making Best Laid Plans that disintegrate as soon as I announce them. But let's be serious for a moment, bypassing what it means to be professional. I think the question I'm trying to ask here is, am I willing to sink a certain amount of money into my three favorite things I love to do in order to maybe, just maybe, make a living off it sometime down the line? I'd like to think that yes, it's worth it.

Which is why I'm not just focusing on the writing end of things, but at least the music part of it as well. I'm your typical lo-fi musician right now, but I'm totally fine with futzing around with whatever recording software and the few guitars I have and making a decent racket out of it all. In fact, I kind of dig the science and the math behind it--what sounds can do, how to build a song, how the disparate parts become the whole, and so on--so I'm totally on board with the producing end of it.

I'm thinking the question I posited in the subject line is faulty to begin with, because I'm already thinking of it as "you're not a pro until you've hit the big time", which is not only unrealistic, it's a very narrow way of looking at it. I see more and more positive press about indie publishing, and I've bought at least a dozen or so albums via Kickstarter or Bandcamp this year alone, so it's not as if the Unattainable Pinnacle of Success as we knew it in the past really exists anymore.

So yeah. I still think of these things as career points, even if I'm still tripping up along the way.


* - TBH, though, have you seen some of the stuff they put on at the local Museums of Modern Art? I'm convinced I could draw one of my epic maps on a giant sheet of newsprint and get it to sell at the local MoMA when it reopens here. :p