All the Feels About The WORK
The evolution of my creative career has been something I reflect on from time to time. We're trained in America to think in terms of success and failure. By all accounts, I have been a failure. I don't make a steady income from my projects. I don't have a 1Million person fan base, I haven't achieved fame (ew?) I really used to fear my creative work was just a "hobby". No word could have been worse for me. I didn't make something to be a "hobby" like you would arts and crafts. To me that implied that you didn't take it seriously, couldn't make it work.
My older self has a bit more perspective. Over the past decade, I have done everything I knew how to "Make it". I ran a dinner for comic professionals for 3 years. I worked for a comic book company. I worked for a well known film producer. I took jobs that only made me money. I tried to start an art collective, as well as an online gallery space. I toured the comic convention circuit. I worked in reality TV, took a job where I got to have breakfast with Edward James Olmos. There are a lot of other things, too many to list. This scattershot approach to "making it" has always been a question in my mind. From the outside it appears very unfocused. When it came to living it - I felt like I never wanted to limit myself to one way of making it work. Who's to say if it's the "right" way.
Through the journey of making the graphic novel and all the accompanying projects I have placed around it, I hunger to bring something tangible and finished into the world after many years of too expensive film projects that turned into nothing. I have come to accept that if this is only a "hobby" I'm having a damn lot of fun doing it while still managing to feed myself. If that becomes the sum of my time on Earth, then I haven't done too bad.
I can beat myself up for the path I've taken, or I can look ahead. Ultimately I know it doesn't really matter what came before. I can only work on one day at a time.
If you're looking for a little inspiration about your career have a look at these resources:
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