A new era for my creative work

I actually made a video to share this but three speak wasn’t working, and recently I’ve had a hard time uploading videos in general. I used to be able to upload directly from iPhones photo app but recently that doesn’t seem to be working so I have to convert the file into some kind of recognizable format which would be fine, but then videos keep crashing while uploading.

So no video.

I’m not sure who’s paying attention now. Everyone’s attention spread so thin, lots of people seem to care, but not enough to care all the time about everything, and that’s completely understandable. There’s just so much going on. More and more of us are creating more than we’re consuming.

I’m getting tired of the seven day payout. I have decided that I no longer want to optimize for that. I think it’ll be a while before subscriber functions and ad revenue can make up for the amount people earn from payout at hive, but Leo is making big steps to making that happen over the next year or two.

I’ve decided to start NOW though, focusing my energy more towards work that is meant to last more than seven days and finding ways to make it last more than seven days even in the current state of affairs.

This is one reason why I’ve been busy at substack and YouTube. These platforms are turning my old work at hive into a portfolios, collection of work that I feel is meant to be relevant for months and years.

I want to get back to making new music sometime in the next few months. But I have a bunch of old stuff that I’ve never really done anything with. And so now I’m trying to present those songs in a way that honor them.

I have a really hard time with massive projects. I got overwhelmed and don’t finish, so I’ve decided to release this song says a series of four song EP’s, 2 or possibly 3.

i’m going to try to make a video for each song. The first EP is all completely recorded, and will be “officially “released in the next month or two, while I am completing the third and fourth videos.

The second EP is mostly recorded. There’s a few things I wanna fix before I release them. The 3rd EP, I’m still not sure will be released or not because of the songs that have to record before releasing, and I’m not really in recording mode right now.

A “official release “basically means I’ll be selling it in digital and physical formats, and may be putting the songs up on Spotify and other streaming platforms. I’ve never really given people a way to “consume “my music. I have links up here and there, but it’s not places people go to listen to music.

Meanwhile the videos serve to complement the songs, and allow me to explore them from different angles. I’ve made two videos on my own and now I want to ask two friends to help with the second two.

I also have an idea for a 60 song album. That sounds like a big deal, but 60 one minute songs, mostly which have been written and recorded to some degree. That will probably come later.

I feel liberated throwing away the idea of a 12 song album. It never felt like me, at least not at this stage. Maybe after I’ve put out a lot more work just as a thing to challenge myself with. That’s what I’m realizing is becoming the best start in the art that I feel the best about, the stuff the challenges me but also feels exciting.

Before that I’ll also be putting out the second series of videos that accompany my book, “Confessions of the Damaged “. I’ll also be putting out the Mandarin and Japanese versions of these books.

That’s a lot, especially when I’m still writing articles.

i’ve put up five videos in the last two months though at the same time that I built a following at Substack, so that shows you what kind of output I’m ready to start producing it. I got this.

I’ll be working on the book related videos while friends are helping with the old song videos.

And Hivenposts will be a combination of updates like this, Clips from those videos, the creative process, an occasional article, may be three times a month but usually something more thought out, not only meant for a seven day pay out window. I’ll also share video and music experiments, and rewrites of old articles that I wrote for hive long ago.

So expect a much wider variety of things being shared here.

Meanwhile at the subscribers only section I’ll continue to share my process of growing on Substack, and some behind-the-scenes moments of my life and what inspires some of the art that I’m sharing.

I know it’s been heavily frowned upon at hive to recycle old work, but I’m starting to feel that the seven day payout is not conducive to creating art. It’s a really nice mechanism and I don’t think it should go anywhere, but I think I need to choose how I interact with it.

The scarcity mindset has me and many others trying to post as much as possible because no one knows which posts will do well and a post today or sometimes two post a day increases our odds of getting a large payout. But I don’t want to be in the scarcity mindset.

So I will start treating all of my posts that I have as updates. Some of them will be draft versions of video and music, pieces of more multifaceted artwork or writing, an unfinished video that I’m working on, a part of a larger article that I’m sharing elsewhere, a rewrite, none of these are COMPLETE WORK in a sense. And I’m starting to feel that that’s the best way to interact with the 7 day payout window. Also it’s very important for me not to try and post as much as possible but only when I feel like it.

I want to share when there’s something I really want other people to see, or when there’s something I need to get off my chest, or like today when I’m trying to organize my thoughts.

I’m still teaching and doing some translation work, but the next year I want to focus more and more of my energy on creative pursuits and building communities, connecting with people and just doing cool shit.

I was convinced by a friend who I think is very intelligent and has a really good sustainable lifestyle, that I needed to build up a work grind to support my artwork. The problem is that the economy, supply and demand, and cultural differences, have made it really hard to build up my work work, almost as hard as it is to build up my art work.

I like teaching, but I have too many interesting things I could be doing, to try and convince people that I am the best teacher. I’m happy to spend 10-2 hours a work teaching but I’m tired of spending the same amount of time trying to “sell my class”. It’s too long to not see results.

The fact is people don’t know what’s best anymore, they judge you based on what you put out and how people react to it. If I want to play that branding game being a teacher, I need to put most of my energy towards that and my heart is not there.

I teach languages because I like helping people to challenge themselves, not because I care about languages. I’m happy to teach guitar, but not because I love guitar, more because I love the idea of helping people discover their artistic sense and become more confident doing something to enjoy.

I think my marketing for class will inevitably end up being my artistic work. It doesn’t matter that it’s kind of tangental to what I’ll be teaching. The fact that I’m living my dreams, and creating things that I’m proud of, should be enough to find people that understand the value I have to offer.

So while I think it was great advice that my friend gave me, to make sure that I had enough work and earned money in the most efficient way possible just enough to survive so that I could focus the rest of my energy on my heart, I plateaued right at the point where I could just barely survive every time and so trying to build more of a safety net doesn’t seem to be working for me. It’s time to go all out on the things I really want to do and if it doesn’t work, I’ll just have to push harder and try more ways to turn these passions into a lifestyle, there’s no other two ways about it.

i’m thinking about changing the focus of my classes to those with creative pursuits and how to create work that you’re more satisfied with. I won’t be able to teach people how to make an insane amount of money or a massive following, but I could definitely teach people how to find their own artistic voice and how to start creating something that feels special and authentic, or creating a finished product on their own terms, and how to consistently improve and build skills that will allow them to reach more people, find their audience, and work with the people they want to work with.

There’s no one thing that I’m the best at, but I’m very good at combining different skills in order to get the same results. I’m also very good at DIY with regards to putting out art as someone without formal training.

this is turning into a bit of a rant, there’s a chance no one reads this, and to be honest it wouldn’t bother me all that much. I always feel that these kind of rambling about my own projects are the least valuable to other people.. But that may not be the case. Everyone takes different things away from your work. Just because I didn’t treat this as one of those articles that is meant to survive into the future, doesn’t mean someone can’t take a little nugget of information and make use of it.

And maybe someone sees the videos I’m putting out, and wants to understand the mindset of the person who made this. Maybe they’re like me and they feel that they are just a few steps away from being able to make some thing that they feel happy with, and seeing my process will help them somehow.

And if not at least earn a few dollars from payout. I guess I can’t complain. The point is, I like for that to just be an afterthought, not the reason I share things any more.

Love you All. Peace

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