Talked Like A Man On Fire

Attention Conservation Notice: Quotidian Content, Navel-Gazing, and Process-Geekery ahead, next five days. Proceed with caution; do not operate heavy machinery while reading.

I’ve been looking for a job—a real job, this time, permanent with benefits, not a stateless-guest-worker temp gig like the one I’ve got now. My contract is up in April, anyway, and I’ve little interest in signing another.

The last few years have felt like an experiment—a new Design for Living. I spent years overcompensating, negotiating my way through life from a position of weakness. As part of this exercise, I’ve decided to play to my strengths. I know I’m good with words: I know I’m good with music.

Actualizing that—taking it from ideation to realization—means making something. Something that will convince somebody else. (God knows how many years it took me to convince myself.) Something actionable, something representative, something more than the words “Trust me.” Something that sends the message I have an artistic sensibility, I am a damn good risk. A portfolio, in other words.

Now, the portfolio process on the music side (i.e., recording and manufacturing a good demo) will entail more front-end expense than I’m willing to take on at the moment. And there are more and more-immediate opportunities in writing; I’m seeing mysterious, slightly-disconcerting blind ads in the Help Wanteds—feature writers, concert reviewers; reply care of this newspaper. Hmm. Oh, I am a sucker for the whiff of intrigue.

So I am concentrated on knocking together a packet of writing samples—pop-cult stuff, mostly, much of it repurposed material from this blog. My pieces for SonicDiary, hugely worthy project that it is, were in part intended as a sort of brand-building exercise—additional sites (and cites) to boost my profile.

There have been some interesting results already—though not necessarily those I expected. Dealing with the process and its consequences took up much of my headspace in February: I’ll talk about it here over the next few days.