Measuring Success

“How do you define ‘success’?”

This is something everyone should take the time to consider, and reconsider because it will change. But it’s an especially important question for anyone trying to blaze their own trail. Authors, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs . . . all need to evaluate and re-evaluate our definition of success in order to ensure we are still working toward it.

For me, it is comfort. The ability to do things without worrying about them.

I happened to be visiting Denver at the time of the first game of the NHL Western Conference finals between the Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers. I gave a moment’s worth of serious consideration to buying tickets, only to be sidelined by the price.

Success in my art would mean avoiding those moments. In most cases, I prioritize experiences over possessions and that opportunity to experience a playoff game on the home ice is one I may not get again. I want to be able to see those opportunities and take them, without hesitation.

One of my dearest friends is getting married in California in September. When she first announced her engagement (with a ceremony planned for 2020), I didn’t think anything would keep me from helping her celebrate. Now there is too much standing in the way. Success would mean not having to make that choice.

Success, for me, is not “all about money;” it is, however, about having the financial freedom to gain the experiences.

What about you? What does success mean to you?

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If you would like to see more content like this, or want to support my work, join me on Patreon.

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Starving Artists

Some days I feel like those singers they used to feature on American Idol. The ones who had been told their whole lives they had the “voice of an angel,” but when the angel sang it sounded like a wounded cat.

Except with writing instead of singing.

I read through these elegantly-crafted blogs and even just social media posts and I question whether I am capable of conveying emotions and meaning in the same way. I have been writing, professionally, for twenty years, casually for thirty-five. But there are still moments when I feel like I no longer control the words in my mind. I can no longer guide them to the page in the ways I once did.

I have never wanted anything more than to entertain people with my work, to give them an escape from the mundanity of their everyday lives. But then I hear people talking about books they have read, emoting over the prose, choking back tears at the beauty of the story, the tragedy of the characters, and I don’t believe I am capable of eliciting such a response.

I see other authors gushing their gratitude over the number of books they have sold solely to their Booktok community or their Bookstagram community and I doubt the potential for that to be me. Because I am not writing books that touch people’s souls or change their lives. I never wanted to. But is that the reason I feel like I am back in the third, fourth, fifth grades, listening to my teachers tell my parents, “She’s just not living up to her full potential.”

But, is this my potential? Am I only meant to watch from the outside while others succeed at the dreams I have had, both consciously and unconsciously, from before I even started school?

Without even knowing what was happening, I grew up in a generation compelled to create. Previous generations have all given birth to creative compulsives, this is not new. But somehow the Xennial/Millennial generation has reared ourselves flying a bold middle finger at convention. We saw futures as starving artists and said yes, please. We are bringing back the concept of “patron of the arts,” in the form of crowdfunding, pay what you want models, and subscription services. We are figuring out ways to forge our paths while bucking convention. We have chosen to be hungry and homeless in favor of creation, in hopes of one day “making it” with our Etsy shops and our Bandcamps.

And for some, it’s working.

Just not for me.

Overwhelm and Too Many Irons

I set up this blog because I have previous experience with WordPress blogs being pretty discoverable. The free ones. The paid ones are not and I am still striving for passive organic growth. I need platforms I can just water occasionally and let them grow on their own while I focus on everything else.

I close out every one of these with a link to my Patreon and I’m pretty sure that’s getting me nowhere. I’m a pretty realistic person and I understand that supporting a Patreon, even at the rate of $3/month is not something you enter into lightly. Reading a free blog is one thing. Subscribing to a free blog is one thing. Giving money to someone every month is a whole other ballgame entirely.

So I get it.

What I don’t get is what I’m supposed to be posting.

I have yet to find a groove with this free platform that will bring in the traffic my previous attempts brought in while also engaging people enough that they will want to go off campus to check out something else. And I have a lot of free content on my Patreon.

I don’t produce enough fiction to be able to spread it around like peanut butter. I would love to. I really would. I would love to have some kind of serial work running on every platform. Something here, something on Patreon. Something on Radish, Kindle Unlimited, Wattpad. While also finishing novels on the side.

What I want is to be able to produce the amount of text that my fingers are able to type. Which would be the equivalent of two full manuscripts each and every five-day work week.

HA!

I know that’s not realistic. Danielle Steel does it but she’s a machine and has been doing it longer than I have been alive. Stephen King is probably close.* But the rest of us have to also work day jobs and . . . sleep.

I actually don’t need that much sleep. And a lot of the time I need sleep because of my day job.

Ideally, I would love to have enough content and support to cut back on my day job. I can’t give it up entirely. I am an extrovert. I need people to stay healthy. But if I could work three days a week in a salon then write the rest of the time, that would be an enormous step in a different direction toward “full-time author.”

I just need to figure out what people want from me. What kinds of content am I supposed to be sharing in each place to get the people to follow me?

Until I figure that out, I guess continue watching me fumble along in the dark.

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* Danielle Steel writes up to 20 hours a day on a manual typewriter. The woman is a machine. I don’t have the same statistics for Stephen King (I got the Danielle Steel stats from Jeopardy!) but I do know he’s a pantser like me which is both encouraging and DIScouraging at the same time.

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If you enjoy my content, please visit my Patreon.

More on the Subject of Patreon

A common discussion among the Patreon creators community is what a successful Patreon campaign looks like and what it could mean for each of us.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this question.

A lot.

And what I’ve come up with is something maybe a little off script.

See, my current day job is in a corporate mall hair salon. I enjoy it, most of the time, but it comes with a fair share of headaches. One of the things I enjoy most is the people. As an extroverted personality type, I need people to function properly. I spent a lot of time in isolation before getting this job and my creativity suffered for it.

But now, I feel like the place where I am doing the job has become a drain.

That is due, in part, to the state of the world at the moment and especially now that the governor of Colorado has eliminated the risk dial and turned restrictions and mandates over to individual cities and counties. The county where I live has put into effect what they are calling “Free to decide,” which has and will continue to create holy chaos as everyone starts making their own choices.

Corporations are still going to require the strictest policies, opting for national regulations over local.

The State of Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies that is in charge of licensure for people like me in the personal services industries is still abiding by CDC recommendations meaning everyone with a DORA license must (should) also follow those regulations.

And us poor schmucks with the licenses get caught in the crossfire. Maybe literally given our Congressional representation *eyeroll*

But all of that is only part of it.

The other part is I work with nine other women. We are split 60-40 liberal to conservative, which shouldn’t be a problem except that nothing in our lives is done without political slant anymore. Wear a mask, you’re a liberal. Carry a gun, you’re a conservative.

Support basic human rights? Liberal.

And that’s the clencher right there.

The four “conservatives” I work with: openly and regularly refer to trans people as “it;” constantly malign Black Lives Matter; refuse to believe in white privilege; and decry the science behind the mRNA vaccines; believe liberals are lazy and entitled for wanting “free stuff,” among a laundry list of other things I am forced to listen to every day I work with them (which is every day I work). They refuse to keep their “political”—and I use that term ironically—conversations within their sphere. You are welcome to discuss whatever you want with your clients but don’t share those conversations with me or my clients, thirty and forty feet away.

Inside voices!

So, I feel like all of that negativity and—yes, I’ll say it—hate is draining all of the energy from my creativity. To that end, I would love to make a steady, reliable $500/month from Patreon to pay for rent on a studio salon. I could work the hours I want and write when I want. I could even write in my studio between clients. I’m still not sure I have the clientele to make this work but if I could, I think getting out of the toxic environment I find myself in currently would be a game changer. And I’d still be putting their patronage toward my writing, just in a round-about kind of way.

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If you enjoy my content and would like to help me be able to create more, join me on Patreon or buy me a Ko-Fi.

Subscription support Platforms

Why do independent artists sound like they’re begging you for money all the time?

The answer? Because we probably are.

The thing is the creation and promotion of art, in any medium—be it paint, sculpture, music, writing—is costly for the artist. And even a represented artist ends up spending a lot of their own money to fund their dreams.

I can skim over the costs of being a professional musician, having known several of them over the years. But obviously, my knowledge is in the costs of being a writer.

So

Let’s talk about that.

First, let me begin by saying, obviously, there are ways to do it for free. It’s like trying to get to China in a rowboat, but it can be done.

However, if any artist—writer, musician, painter—wants to make a real living out of their art, they can’t skate by on free. At least not all the time.

Sure, you can recruit a trusted, honest, sympathetic group of writers to serve as beta readers and forego a developmental editor.

You can use the spelling and grammar checker in MS Word or Google Docs and forego the copy editor (warning, the grammar bot doesn’t catch everything!).

I have enough experience with graphic design that I can comfortably make my own covers. I am learning to sculpt in Blender so that I can make my own covers without using stock photography. And Creative Commons is free, but you can’t always find what you want there.

You can go to Pexels or Pixabay and download videos for trailers or teasers, but the really good stuff is only available with a free account.

The point is for everything we can do for free, there is a paid version that is going to offer a little more. There are sites like Bookfunnel or AllAuthor that send out newsletters with new releases, but you have to pay to be part of them. AllAuthor offers instant book cover mockups but maybe four or five layouts for free. If you want more, you have to sign up for the pro account.

Wix is an incredible website design and hosting platform. But if you want your own dot com, you have to pay for that. If you want your own contact@you.com email, you have to pay for that. If you want to sell your books directly from your site . . . yep, you guessed it. A paid add-on.

And most of these things are cheap. Five to ten dollars per month or maybe $100 for a year. Not much if that’s all you need. But when you need ten things that are $100 per year . . .

So, we sign up for Patreon or Ko-Fi or similar because—especially in the beginning—it’s hard to make the kind of money we need from book sales alone. Maybe you sell 1000 copies the first week or the first month but then you sell five or ten the next month and three the month after that. But with subscription services like Patreon, all you need is 100 people who appreciate your work enough to give you $5/month and BOOM! Your website is paid for, your advertising budget is secured, maybe your registration for a con or two. And all each person had to invest is the cost of one (or two, in my case) cup of luxury brand coffee each month.

That’s why you find these video game players on Twitch who are making a couple thousand dollars a month. Because 1000 people pledge $1 to see their content. That’s the breakdown. It really is that easy and that hard, all at the same time. The support subscription model really is pretty awesome.

Providing you have the kind of content people want to pay for. And that’s where the real work starts.

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Building Something Unique

I have set a goal for myself to promote my work to readers. I understand that writers are also readers but readers who are not writers, I feel, are less likely to be interested in things like editing tips and tips for developing characters or writing good dialog.

Not to mention, it seems like every other writer thinks this is the way to go with their platform building. Cater to other writers. Share your tips with other writers. So doing that makes me feel like just another bark in the kennel.

But I don’t know what to do—outside of sharing stories—to cater to readers instead of writers, or to cater to the reader side of other writers.

Obviously, sharing stories is important but I also don’t feel like I have the mojo to do that consistently.

I’ve been mining my old work, finding anything I think is worth sharing again. But I’m also quickly running out of old work to share.

Ideally, I would just write, all the time. But I need the connection of being around other human beings in order to keep my creativity flowing. And lately, that connection has been a source of nothing but frustration and irritation. Which is not nurturing. Not at all.

I don’t know the answer. I just want to stand out, be different and original, not blend in with what all the other writers are doing, while still doing things that will resonate with the people I need them to resonate with.

If you are interested in finding out more about what I AM working on, find me on Patreon, Instagram, and TikTok.

A Yearly Bout of Wanderlust

Every year, around this time, I get a serious wave of wanderlust. I don’t know if it’s the weather or the fact that for several years, I, either by myself or with family, have gone somewhere for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

When I was in college, we would travel to Mesquite to see my dad’s family for Thanksgiving.

I also visited my then-boyfriend’s family in Corpus Christi the week before Christmas my senior year of college.

After college, my mom and I would travel to Tucson to see her family for Christmas.

And the annual sojourn to Chicago for the New Heart for Christmas festival (yes, festival…three days of concerts, five days with basically no sleep, good friends, good memories, it was a festival).

And I was making a habit of traveling to Denver for my birthday.

So, for the better part of twenty years, I was going SOMEWHERE in November and December. So I start to get the wanderlust around this time.

This year it’s even worse because I can’t go anywhere. There’s just too much garbage in the way. The flights are going to be miserable, then getting somewhere there isn’t anything to do because everything is shut down or restricted. There are no concerts, no conventions. I’m just stuck here wishing I could be anywhere else. 

I am changing my milestone goals on my Patreon. Where, right now, I have a goal of adding a new “subscription box” tier when I reach $50 in monthly contributions, I will be changing that to a trip.

One thing about writing urban fantasy is it’s hard to write about a city you don’t know. With something like contemporary fiction or romance, you can focus your setting on the high points. Writing a contemporary romance about Chicago? Send your characters to Giordano’s or the Sky Deck and you’ve accomplished the goal. With urban fantasy, the city is just as much a character as the breathing creatures and you need to explore the side streets. You need to explore the nuances, eat where the locals do, go off the “beaten path” for entertainment. What places are only frequented by tourists? Where would your character live if they were in a bungalow versus a condo? Which side streets are one way and which way is that way? Do locals skirt around the city and drive on the Interstate/Freeway or do they wind in and out? Grab a Lyft or a cab and watch how the driver gets where they’re going. Talk to the driver and find out what is important to know about the city.

So I’m going to take my two week vacation from work and go somewhere and do all of that and document my adventures. I’m going to spend a lot of money on food and Lyft rides but I’m going to explore and learn. It’s a long way off but so is the freedom to do it so it seems like a good time to implement it.

If you would like to help me reach this goal, join me on Patreon.

Come to the Creepy Side

First, I want to make it clear that I am not comparing myself to others. That is toxic and unhelpful. I am, however, looking at what others accomplish as a means for setting goals.

For years, I was a horror writer. Until a vampire story I wrote in college turned into what I had called at the time dark fantasy. Now, it’s urban fantasy.

Urban fantasy is when you take elements of horror stories like vampires, ghouls, ghosts, and instead of monsters, you make them characters in a modern setting. The name of the genre is new but the concept is not. The concept goes back decades. Stories like A Christmas Carol are now included, retroactively, in the genre.

And it’s a fun genre to write in. So many possibilities. I’m not complaining about that.

It’s just frustrating to know the kinds of things I used to write that I can’t seem to find the ideas for any longer. And then to come across these Tumblr threads and Twitter threads where people are making up these creepy AF stories on the fly . . . That used to be me.

I used to make those kinds of stories up quickly and easily. Maybe not completely “on the fly” but I did a lot of flash fiction when I was writing what I still consider to be really good, and I’d churn out a 1000 word story in a couple of hours. Good, creepy stories.

I read one from Tumblr the other day about why humans are the only species to experience the Uncanny Valley effect. It got weird. Then it got historically feasible, but also still weird. I miss writing things like that.

I keep thinking I need examples of my creative work to share in various places—here, Vocal Media, Instagram, Patreon—so that people can get an idea of the kind of writer I am. But I also need that to be consistent so people can start to expect it and look for it.

Because that is ultimately what I want; people to actively seek me out.

feeling disadvantaged

I have been watching various artists in various mediums and I have come to a conclusion. Writers are at a disadvantage when it comes to unique marketing.

Consider, for a moment, the amount of time it takes to read a book compared to listen to an album. Consider the active, hands-on nature of reading a book compared to the passive nature of listening to an album while multitasking and doing other things.

But it’s more than just that.

Music and art are active creations. There is behind the scenes moments. There are riffs and drum fills. There are concept sketches and models. There are levels to what can be offered to fans or perspective fans. In reference to something like Patreon, you can offer the lowest level still photos from video shoots and upper levels can get previews of songs. Lower levels can get sketches, upper levels can get a discount on commissions.

I’m on TikTok as well and I see musicians sharing the progression of their songs. I see visual artists showing their creations in progress.

What do writers offer?

Time-consuming, passive content. I can offer up all the flash fiction in the world but people have to have time to read it. I’ll be honest; I love the concept of Patreon and I want to keep using it as an alternative to social media because social media is a flaming disaster. I want Patreon to be the home my fans go to when they want information. But I probably wouldn’t pay for what I’m offering.

On the other hand, the common consensus is that a majority of patrons don’t sign up for the benefits; they sign up to support the artist and don’t really care about the benefits. Which is why I have a “choose your own price” tier with no benefits.

I’m not comparing myself to other artists. I’m just comparing what I have to offer. I feel like if I could just hop online and break out a guitar to play for my fans, or set up a canvas and paint for my fans or offer drumming or drawing tutorials, I would not have to struggle so much to figure out how to reach people.

But I am not a specialist in anything. I’m the proverbial Jack of all trades. I am a Master of none and frankly, I don’t want to be. I don’t want to shoehorn myself into posting about the same thing all the time. I don’t have the kind of attention span needed for that. Unfortunately, not having a niche means I don’t have a ready-made content library.

So, I struggle. I search and scour for ways to make my art active and interesting in a world filled with people looking for quick bursts of dopamine and serotonin, who don’t have the time or patience for a slow burn.

It seems a little desperate to say this now but if you enjoy my content, please consider supporting my Patreon.