Content About Content

There is a whole genre of content out there that is people making vlogs about their life as a vlogger. It would appear that being a video editor is a great vocation for the vlog-er, either that, or a minimalist. Either way, I find this style of video content addicting, I even have my favourite creators. Bring me your behind the scenes, tips for making great video and I am locked in, as the productivity guru’s might say.

What they have in common is that they are making content about making content. It is seductive to think that I could be making a living talking about how I make a living. I am not a minimalist in anyway, so perhaps I even have a ready made niche among my fellow small space – large library internet dwelling friends.

I have seriously considered trying a YouTube channel as a way to monetise my life. The thing is, I don’t want to. I come back to this idea fairly regularly, however, I have no desire for the influencer life. More power to those who can create content on the schedule that these people do. Like the video essayist, I am in awe of what you do and am grateful for the entertainment, and yes, the distraction that you provide.

Lately, as I have shared here, I have been thinking about how I do this “poet thing” in a more conscious way. How do I turn my poetry hobby into something more like a career, something where I am in charge of what success looks like. My first step was to fall in love with the process of creating poetry (again) by identifying and eliminating the things blocking my enjoyment of poet life.

Since then, I have more than rediscovered a love for the process; I have seen that without labour there is no love. The act of making, creating had to move from onerous task to joy. I took the creative pressure off and have been looking for ways to tap into my creativity without killing it. This has been daunting to say the least. There is a lot of labour in the work of being a creative that actually shares what they create. And, at the end of my days, I want to have been sharing my creativity as far and wide as I can.

Poetry, is at the very heart of my creative spirit, I am in love with language and painting with words. I also love to express myself in other ways, but words are indeed, my first love. The mission, the project as it were, is to let that creative spirit out and let it fly with its own wings.

Which puts me at a stepping off point, one where, I literally am tasked with backing my words up by committing my money, not just my time and energy to the mission of becoming whatever it is that I am working towards. I have to define success and engineer my way back from that to have any direction in which to shoot. I am flexible on my methodology, but I know I have to be firm on what it is I am committed to.

At the same time, I am highly resistant to having a goal. I don’t want to introduce rigidity into my journey of discovery. Within this framework, I am aware, that I already have a life that centres on my creativity and that I have succeeded in that much already. What I am chasing is being able to extend that into a rewarding career that also nourishes me in the material and spiritual sense.

My journey is through a series of questions I am still defining, paired with the development of answers which bring me happiness and contentment. It has been a week of slowness, of connection, family and lots of doubts about myself and my abilities. Still, there is a poem to be typed up, ideas on the table to consider, and the gradual development of a vision.

One thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to be writing about writing or creating a listicle about 8 things creatives do, not yet, anyway. Until next time and announcing the changes here at Poet Towers.