This process used to come easily to me, so I don't know why it has been so difficult recently. Maybe I am just out of the habit. Maybe I just don't have the time, but that is all relative. I am expecting a baby any day now, so then I really won't have the time. Most of my effort recently has been put towards marketing an idea on the internet, which it turns out is hard to do. I have a Kickstarter campaign in progress, that will complete at the end of the weekend. It is unlikely to be a success, barring direct intervention from God, but it has been a learning experience.
People always tell me that you learn more from failure than success, but I had never really experienced that. I was usually successful at what I undertook, and I knew a lot, so that conflicted with the premise. My primary failures were in regards to relationships with girls, and it is debatable whether I really learned that much from those experiences. My biggest failure to date had probably been a large investment in a startup company that never went anywhere. I didn't learn much from that, besides not to trust other people, because I wasn't very involved in the process. I just have a giant stack of boxes in my barn to remind me of that decision. Supposedly the owner learned a lot from the experience, but so far on my dime.
But this experience marketing my movie on the internet has taught me all sorts of things, even if it does end in failure. It illustrated to me how hard it is to create something out of nothing. I learned all sorts of things about PR firms, internet advertising returns, and the challenges of sharing an idea, and getting people to invest or buy into an idea. The sting of failure is probably also mitigated by success in other areas. I got hired onto my first serious paid project in two years, exactly one hour after launching my marketing campaign, so I haven't had as much time to focus on it as I was expecting. But that is a good problem to have. Ironically I am in a similar position in that project, trying to create something out of nothing, but my area of responsibility in that process is much more familiar to me. And the fact that I will be able to do much of the work from home is the culmination of years of planning and effort to put myself in that position, just before my first child is born.
And kids will be whole new adventure, which will give me plenty of new ideas and content to share on here and/or none of the time to actually share it. I am pretty nervous about the early stages of that process, but I am told by nearly everyone that you adjust to it more than you expect as it happens. So we'll see.
