boundcreature

You're a good kid, play the game to break your heart.
You've gotta get back to where you started.

Today is a day for strong decisions. I've been fumbling on my career plan for months stretching into years now. It seems like I never have steady footing, I'm never doing what I want to be doing and no matter how much effort I put into my work, if it's for someone else, I always end up dissatisfied.

Pay attention now or it'll slip by.
It's your heart don't let it die.
Leave it all behind.

I had resolved myself to completing a comic for submission to the Small Press Expo and then working my way up in the sign shop and saving money until I could go on my own and start publishing my magazine.

Whoooaaaa

It's not gonna happen that way. Too much hate, too much restlessness... whenever I'm at work, I'm one heartbeat from an outburst... I can't suppress myself and my ability for much longer. I can't be passionate about my work at the same time I need to constantly switch gears because my assignments change and the owners' priorities shift every two or three days.

Is it true when we get old our hearts die?
I heard it in a movie once and I think I know why.

I've been playing it safe with my work for far too long. I haven't been brash and gutsy, I've been nervous and hesitant, scratching the boundary, afraid to break through, for fear of falling, fear of ending up like I was for that stretch of years where I never knew where the next payday was coming from.

life it sucks so bad it makes you wanna die.
Whoooaaa but you get by.

I'm gonna stay at my job for a while still, but it's dead to me now. My vision for what that company could be can slip down the drain with my vision for the scooter store. No sense fighting for your vision of someone else's company, no matter how much the owner loves it or wishes it to be true. They still make the decisions, they still cut the checks...

Life goes by

I'm gonna start taking design clients again this month. I will be working strictly on logo design and identity-marketing consultation. From now until September, I'm going to set a goal of two or three clients per month, which should allow me to raise enough money to quit my job in September and spend October through December strictly on developing a prototype edition of the magazine.

You're a good kid you've still got the power in you.
Hangin' around you don't know what to do.

I'm sad to stop in the middle of this comic, it really did shape up into a beautiful story, but it's a much smarter move for me to finish it in October and publish it in my magazine, rather than submit it to the Expo. The only thing I would get out of being published in the Expo is an ego boost. I'm not ready to launch a comics career just yet and it seems wrong to try building a name when I clearly am not in a position to produce comics on a regular basis, being chained to the fucking sign shop still.

Don't think too much Just let it loose.
Get up now's your chance...

I ran into a slight problem the way I taught myself and by choosing to work in the sign industry; which is that I worked really hard at learning GRAPHIC DESIGN, not how to operate software. So, I can't slide into a graphic design studio job easily, because I am not as fluent in Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash as I would need to be. I know how to use them, I have designed in them, no problem; but I don't have the speed and trouble-shooting abilities I'd need to be confident working in a studio environment. It's silly though, because, conceptually, I'm a much stronger designer and I would resent an entry-level position anyway... because of the choices I made in pursuing my craft, I have pretty much fucked myself to independent practice. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a very challenging career path.

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Guess the song I quoted and win a pony!