Entertainment

   Something has been bothering me, people have told me when I’ve been looking for work that I should find what I love and do that. I tell people that I love to write and they tell me that it’s more of a hobby something I can’t or shouldn’t be able to make a living off of. It’s something that sounds so insane to me, like where do you think most written works come from? I always wonder if people who make such statements realize how insulting they are being.

   Nowadays it’s so incredibly easy to get your work out there and to get paid. You can get patrons on Patreon or donations through Paypal or get self-publishing through many different services or through Amazon directly. That makes it not only possible but also effective for someone to make a living for their written work. With the rise of social media, it’s easier than ever to reach your audience and spread your work far. People around the world can read your work within seconds of its completion, or with a Google Doc, they can see it as you’re writing it.

   I’ve never understood someone calling somebody else's occupation as hobbyist or unrealistic. When I was growing up there’s always been a stigma around someone wanting to be a game designer. Like it was unrealistic or childish fancy, like the games they played weren’t made by people who spent time, money and passion into their projects. More recently the same criticisms are usually directed at Youtubers and Streamers.

   People seem to feel that creators of entertainment aren’t allowed to do so as their occupation, but only as a hobby which is absurd. Why is it so often that the entertainment based occupations are seen as not real work? Like the effort of creating such things only take the same effort as someone would take to appreciate it.

   It takes years of practice and learning to create an entertainment project, yet I often see it judged based on the time investment on the single project. “Why do I have to pay $100 dollars for an image that took you less than an hour?” It’s a common question you’d get if you’ve ever done commissioned artwork. Why does the consumer owe the artist so much for so little time? Well, partly because of the fact that you’re paying them for their work, not someone else, not work anyone could do, but work only they could. They spent years learning how to do something, the amount of time it took them to produce a quality piece of that thing is mostly irrelevant. What matters is the skill and effort invested into the piece, not the time it took them to apply such things.

   Here’s a thought that I never seem to understand why so many people seem to have trouble understanding, people deserve to be compensated for their time and effort. If someone invests their time into a project and you receive enjoyment from that does that not make you feel that person deserves compensation for that? But what about art for art’s sake? That old adage, that you should be happy people appreciate your work, and somehow that should be enough. I’m sorry to break it to you, but you can’t buy food with appreciation. It took much of someone’s life to learn how to be an artist or an author. Just like it took much of someone’s life to learn to be a doctor or lawyer.

   Not only do I feel people should be compensated, but I don’t think like we should be contributing to the social stigma that someone’s creativity should be stifled in order for them to make a living. I honestly believe that people should be encouraged, not dissuaded, to pursue their chosen career path. Not every great work, has been imagined, not every great game has been created. There is a future for people seeking to do these things. People insist that such things are unrealistic, that not everyone will succeed. While it is true that many people do not succeed, A strong confidence in your ability and talent can take you much further than just ability and talent can on their own.

   If we encourage people that want to be president, a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist, why not encourage people who want to be professional gamers, authors, artists, Youtube personalities? So go out there find someone you know who wants to pursue a creative career and encourage them. These fields are competitive and hard to break into so the least you can do is support and help them, the last thing they need is their own family and friends to pressure them to get a “Real Job.” In any other competitive field you’d tell them they need drive and passion, but in a competitive creative career, people are told they’ll never make it, how dare they think they can be the next Stephen King, the next Shakespeare. How dare they try to be more than those that came before. So I reiterate if you know someone who dreams of working in a creative field, who puts their heart and soul into it in spite of how competitive is encourage them and support them. Tell them you believe in them.

   Now where does that leave me, the writer of this blog, do I not deserve compensation for my work? Well maybe, but that’s for you to decide. I’m not going to demand payment, and at this current moment, ads don’t even run on my site. Currently there is no way for anyone in my audience to support my work, and as a result, my work is erratic and inconsistent with months of constant updates followed by months of silence because something came up. For the blog this doesn’t really bother me, the blog is a hobby, a thing I do to spend time, but the stories are different. They are a work and commitment I’ve made to myself to produce. When in the flow of a story I can shut out most of the world and it’s problem as I work, I can lose myself in the writing.

   I’ve thought of a few ways for people who enjoy my writing to support me, a Patreon where my patrons are charged when I publish a new story on my website, a PayPal donation button for people to support me directly, or even publishing my short stories on Amazon for a small fee.

   While I know I could always just place ads all over my site, and I did try with some Amazon ads back at the start of my blogging days, I didn’t really like how it looked. The ads bothered me a bit, and well, it didn’t really work out, they weren’t really giving me any return investment for the time I spent adding them to every post. Sure much of that could probably be attributed to programs like ad-block. I can’t really blame people for using it though since I also use ad-block given that some websites are so ad heavy that they literally bog down your CPU even trying to read them. So, I don’t think I ever really want to go back down that road. I might if I find a less intrusive way that doesn’t bother me as much like maybe Amazon links to books or movies I talk about in my fictional rants section.

   Whatever method I decide for my readers to support me will come one day later down the road, I’ll probably set up a support page where people can easily find whatever method I decide without too much trouble. Under no circumstances will I ever charge people to read my site or block people from reading it who use ad-block or similar programs. That is not something I ever think I can feel comfortable with.

   For now, the only way to support my work is to like, subscribe and share it on social media.