Before the craziness, in early 2020, I decided I wanted to expand how I reach people. I started a youtube channel. To be safe, I started with the worlds most boring topic - paint drying. Seriously. Paint drying. I had no plans that anyone would ever, ever, ever watch. That way I wouldn't be disappointed.
Writing the book was a blast! I loved it! Publishing was... not so much fun, but I learned so much about how books are made and how every tiny decision can affect every other. Like changing the size of the book by 5mm in one direction can shave off $5 on shipping costs to Europe. Who knew?
It has been an interesting journey and behind it all the compulsion to share. I don't know why I have this, but it drives me and I just want to create things.
So I made some videos. I liked it. So I made some more. And after a few videos, the guild got in touch and asked a few of us to make a video about linen for a virtual guild meeting.
Making videos is an incredible amount of work. 1 to 4 hours of work for every minute of finished film (I hope it gets faster with experience). A lot of work. But I liked it. So I set out a plan that I would make 2021 my year of learning youtube and I would make at least one video a month and then...
... I got a serious injury. They say that it takes 2 to 4 years to recover. It limits my online time. And March got even worse with other events. It's been very much getting enough of the basic chores done around the farm and resting. A lot of resting.
But now I'm slowly getting back into things. I made a few videos and found out that if I want to do a lot more of this video editing, I need to save up for a new computer. I'm also taking it easy - one or two videos a month. Trying to focus on quality - so that with each new video, I learn a new skill that makes the video better than the last.
But it's slow this journey - an awful lot like watching paint dry.
In other news, I'm thinking of blogging again. Not much. Not daily, but a bit. Not sure if anyone is still out there or if anyone even cares about blogs anymore. They all seem to be professional bloggers with adverts popping up at you from every direction. (this is me fishing for comments saying "yes, do it" or if I get crickets, I know that I'm monologuing which isn't a bad thing either)
But it's that compulsion to write, to create, to make some mark in this world.
I have a blog on my new website, crowinghen.ca but I just don't use it. I think it's because the software is incompatible with my brain whereas blogger is lovely (and still is lovely after all this time away).
So decisions to make with this blog too. Do I revive it as it is? Do I spend time and energy rebranding it and curating old content to match my current place in this life? This blog is very old and I don't know. I don't have to make that decision today.
But I do need to think about income. I have enough for everyday life, but I left my work at the same time as the injury and if I'm going to get that new computer, I need to have my creative endeavours pay for themselves. So I've asked Google if they can put some ads on this blog - it's under review. It's a trickle income, but every penny helps.
If you like this sort of thing and want to see more of it, here are some things you can do to support me on my journey.
- go to youtube and give me a thumbs up! Or even a subscribe! That would be awesome
- or pop over to my Etsy shop and support me that way.
2 comments:
Hi! I'm still here, and happy to see you blogging again! I'm often late in my blog reading, but I will always get around to reading your posts sooner or later, because I like following along with what you're doing: it's always interesting. (I had realized you were blogging a bit on the farm's blog, but for some reason that one doesn't have an RSS feed, so I couldn't add it to my feed reader and I have to remember to go check for new posts every so often. With this blog, I automatically get the new posts in my feed reader, so that makes it easier to know there's a new post out.)
I'm sorry to learn about your injury. I hope your recovery is going as well as can be expected, or even better, and that you can still create to your heart's content while getting the rest you need.
Kudos for tackling the video production learning curve! (I'm ever so slowly working on tackling the podcast production learning curve, and there's already quite a bit to learn there, so I can easily imagine how much more there is to learn with images thrown into the mix, as well as how much more work…) You've already produced lovely videos, and I look forward to seeing what you'll create and share next.
Hi Josiane, so glad to see you!
It is great to hear about your adventures!
With the other blog, I'll probably copy over some of this content (and change the words enough so google doesn't think I'm just copying - even though I am). But yeh, that weebly blog is not working for readers or writer.
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