What Next?

So the listenings of my EP on ReverbNation have now dwindled after one day of definite success.  Apparently I had over 50 listens on just one day!  That made me feel good...but, as expected, in the days following, the amount of listens dropped off dramatically, and now no one is looking at my profile.

But as I said, I expected this to happen.  Everyone I know who would listen to my music has now listened to it...and anyone who hasn't probably never will.  So unless I find some new avenue to advertise the EP, it will likely go unheard by a great number of people.

But I'm still pretty proud of it.  It feels like a cohesive bit of music.  It's too bad that the widget for listening to the album online creates gaps in between the songs, though, because the album is best heard without any gaps.  I spent so much time on the weekend fussing over the size of the gaps between songs, because I'm one of those people who thinks that how songs transition in an album is incredibly important (I take my cue from Nine Inch Nails).

So if any of you want to hear the album how it should be heard, you need to download it, and listen to it straight through so that the gaps disappear!

So now I'm wondering what I should do next.  What I would REALLY like to do is find some kind of job.  I'm almost out of money!!!!  Paying my taxes took nearly half of my savings....

I honestly cannot believe that it is already June, and that June is almost over.  That means it's been nearly a year since I left my last job (I left at the end of September).  I've been trying to look for work, and there have been some promising steps forward (namely my old boss forwarding my resume to a bunch of her contacts with a glowing reference), but all of the postings online seem far out of my reach, or completely uninteresting.  And the jobs I have applied for, I've had no success with.

And as much as I want to be a creative person, and have a life full of artistic endeavours...I think the sad fact of myself is that I just don't have it in me to do that stuff.  I've spent well over a decade of my life now trying to be a person that I am not.  I am always saying to myself how I'm FINALLY going to write that screenplay...how I'm FINALLY going to direct that brilliant short... but it never happens.  The scripts remain unwritten and every time I start, I come up with some excuse to give up.

So now I'm 29 and I've wasted the better part of my life pursuing a dream for which I was too lazy to put in the actual work needed to achieve it.

Nearly a month ago I went back to my old university for a kind of reunion of my program...and part of me was absolutely terrified about going.  Mostly because I'm currently out of work, by my own choice, and I knew that the main question people would be asking each other would be: "so what are you doing now?"  I didn't really know how to make "Well, I had an okay job for a bit, but then decided to leave because it was tearing me apart inside, and now I live at home with my parents and I'm still kind of torn apart inside, but without earning any money, and I don't really know what I want to do" sound in any way unpathetic.

Thankfully the reunion wasn't like that, because I was surrounded by good friends who pretty much already knew my situation and were understanding and kind about it.  However, I tried hard to avoid talking to people who I didn't know, so that I could avoid having to awkwardly explain everything!  But that's also probably because of my inherent phobia of people.  (I'm not kidding!  I think if I were born in the 17th or 18th Century, I'd be one of those novelty hermits that rich people owned.  Sometimes when I'm walking on the sidewalk, I'll cross to the other side of the street if I see someone walking in the other direction.  I've ALWAYS been like this.  As long as I can remember I've been monstrously shy.)

So I guess putting out that EP was helpful for me.  It made me feel like I was doing something interesting for once.  That I wasn't idling away all my time.  I want to do more of that...but writing song lyrics is so incredibly challenging for me.  I'm only marginally happy with the lyrics I came up with for that mini-record.  It takes practice...but one thing you quickly learn is that song lyrics are NOT poetry.  The same rules don't usually apply.

Oh God, it's so late now.  I should go to bed.  So, like many things in life, this blog entry will end abruptly, and with no central theme or meaning.


*****

P.S.  I'm thinking of trying to record a cover version of Talking Heads's "Psychokiller".  Awesome, no?