Category: WorkCategory: Work

In our “WHY HAVEN’T YOU STARTED THE THING YET?” Escape Pod video call last week, a common thread is the question of “do I want to do this, or is it just thing I SHOULD do?”

“Should I start a newsletter?”
“Should I update my website?”

We need to ask better questions.

Who is this for? Who does it serve?

Asking “would the people who enjoy my work like to know about my art show next month?”
“Would the people who might hire me like to have current online portfolio to look at and a clear way to contact me?”

Start with clarity, then start.

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Join our next “WHY HAVEN’T YOU STARTED THE THING YET?” call, on Monday, July 13 from 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM EDT. Register here, pay what you want starting at $3.

I left NYC on July 31, 2010 on my single speed bike with my laptop and a few belongings in my messenger bag. On that day I rode from Brooklyn, up to the George Washington Bridge, then down to Rutherford, NJ, some 27 miles or so.

There was a time of planning, researching, and asking questions, but then my lease was ending and I had a job I could do remotely, so I just got rid of all my stuff and hit the road. I did this for about two years before heading home when my mom got sick.

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A question came my way via Substack Notes (sorry, I lost the link):

I love the idea of working “personal.” From a songwriting lens it’s always been a rule that too personal then others can’t relate. However, with so much content now and like Mr. Banhazl said “the democratization” makes content, whatever form, music being mine, makes it all seem so generic and muddied together? What’s your take?

Here’s my thoughts:

• Rules are meant to be broken
• Don’t make content
• Don’t make generic music (everyone else can do that)
• Every major artist that you know about started out with one fan, then three, then five… no shortcuts.
• Make the music that rings true for you.
• Don’t force yourself into tiny boxes.
• You can be at least one person’s favorite artist.

The allure is real, the possibility that you can post a song and “everyone” loves it. But this happens very rarely, so don’t stake your career on it. As Seth Godin says,

The goal of reaching the masses is rarely compatible with the math of the long tail. Someone is going to win that lottery, but it probably won’t be us.”

For some people, the mass produced, hyper targeted, synthetically created music is good enough. You’re probably not looking to be in that world, so create for the world you want to inhabit.

You’ve been writing for months, right? Maybe a year or two. When is your big break gonna come? Steven Pressfield was “fifty-two, specifically, when he sold his first novel.”

From Rain Bennett, who recently interviewed Pressfield:

“I think about all the writers, filmmakers, musicians, and entrepreneurs who have quietly decided that if it hasn’t happened by a certain age, it probably won’t. Who have looked at the overnight success stories on social media and measured themselves against a timeline that was never real to begin with.”

As Sean Cannon said on one of our Escape Pod Zoom calls, “you just have to be a little bit better so you can survive the war of attrition.” Don’t count on overnight success. Keep making the work, stacking the days, so you can get up and do it the next day. The overnight success happens after years of overnight work.

If you bought movies in the UK on your Sony Playstation, some of those movies will soon be deleted from your account.

“Sony said that affected customers will lose the ability to stream titles including Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “due to our content licensing agreements.” As of September, Sony will remove any affected titles that UK users bought from their PlayStation library, per the notice.”

Oh, and the Sony Playstation is going to stop making game discs in 2028, meaning you’ll buy all your games… digitally.

There’s a rumor that Bandcamp cut “most of the remaining engineers,” prompting some folks to download their purchased music just in case the site goes dark (the site as been sold twice in the last few years, I think).

The digital goods economy is fragile. In the never ending quest of convenience, we’ve paid for things and let someone else store them, whether digital music, movies, or even our websites on sites like Squarespace.

Like Morpheus said in The Matrix, “They are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys.”

He was talking about Agents that prevented people from escaping, but that seems like an apt comparison. Are you gonna buy CDs again? Blue Rays? Host your own website? Manage your own email list?! Are you really going to escape this system?

I said “maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer” back in 2024 and it’s just becoming more true by the day. The allure of all this centralization was convenience and reach. Then, after all these years of handing over our entertainment and audience to the corporations we end up owning nothing.

Start today. Download your data. Make back ups, both locally and in the cloud. Own your work. Build a website and host it with someone you trust. Host your videos. Buy a record (or a digital download) direct from the band.

Or, put all your work into the hands of corporations who will wipe out everything you’ve worked on (sites like MTVNews, Spinner.com, folks who amassed legions of fans on social media etc) with a press of a button.