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The Prospect of Failure
One of the biggest things I fear as an artist is failure. I know I’m not alone. Confidence issues happen to every artist I know. The strangest thing is that every artist I know sees failure differently.
It could come as a 1-star review. It could be a negative reaction to some specific aspect of the work. It could come in any number of ways.
My job, as a writer, isn’t to entertain everyone that reads my work. My job is to produce the best content I can and let people find it.
Today I spent a little time going through reviews of all my works. There aren’t many. It’s easy to go through them all if I chose to. What I was looking for wasn’t how many negative reviews I had or how many positive reviews I had. That wasn’t the goal. What I was looking for was, did the reviews get better over time? Had I improved?
Now, there were a lot of people that LOVED V&A Shipping back in the day when I produced it in audio. When I released it in print and ebook, it got a lukewarm response, at best. I hadn’t been expecting that. What was different?
My first version, the audio, didn’t have any typos…that listeners could see. I could fix grammar and spelling as I read it out loud. Again, to the best of my abilities at the time.
I’ve said this many many times, but it bears repeating. You can’t get worse at something if you keep doing it. I say this repeatedly to reinforce it with myself. You can reach a plateau and that’s where learning from others comes in handy. Reading is a great exercise. Learning from someone who’s successful at what you want to do is invaluable.
At any rate, got a super late start this evening. I’m crazy tired and it’s time to get to bed.
5/5/2021 GRPC 2 will drop. I will make certain to provide lots of links to the ebook when it’s available.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0128-e1075ku
Daily Update: Movies for me.
I haven’t been to the movies since my trip up to San Francisco. It’s not that I don’t like movies or that there’s nothing for me to go and see. There are a large number of movies I’d love to go see. There just seems to be a large number of them that are in 3D.
For me, 3D adds nothing to the experience. If anything it makes it worse for me. I have a weird astigmatism in one eye and I cannot see movies in 3D. I can see a little of the depth, but for the most part it’s grainy, blurry, and none of the effects POP off the screen like they do for some people. Top off that the tickets are $5-$10 higher than a normal ticket for a worse viewing experience, I’m at even more of a loss.
So I wait for a lot of movies to come out on rental and watch them through Pay Per view on my television that has a great screen, wonderful sound, and I can watch when I’m ready to watch. I can read during the slow parts if I like. I can pause it and go take a break, come back when I’m ready. Eat whatever I want to eat. Going to the movies has become extremely expensive. I remember way back when I was a boy going to the movies was less than $10 for the family. Now it’s over $100 for a couple if you want to get snacks, drinks, or what not.
The sad part is that I miss some movies until way after the fact. I’ll intend to go and see them, think of the cost, and not go at all. Instead I’ll decide to wait until they come out for rental and by the time that happens I’ve forgotten about them entirely. Many movies I might not even hear about because when I record something with my DVR I skip commercials. Unless it’s been posted on a blog, I’ll miss it entirely.
Now comes the hard part, the ‘bang for my buck’. Movies just don’t have it any more. I keep seeing movies and will continue, but I’ve drastically slowed the pace at which I watch movies. Some might catch my attention and I”ll intend to go see it, but I always think about how many movies I’ve seen that really suck because there’s no characterization, little plot, plot holes, terrible acting. At some point movies just went the wrong direction and don’t seem to want to come back. I don’t mind corny or campy, but I don’t care for over the top stupid.
I’ve said it before, maybe I’m just becoming too much of a cynic. Perhaps I expect more for the high costs of making movies and the higher prices they demand we pay. If you’re going to tout excellence, give me excellence. Eye candy will only get a movie so far. After that it has to offer something more.
Speaking of ‘bang for my buck’, I’ve been reading more. I’ll be posting some reviews in the coming days. Keep an eye out for them. There are a lot of good books out there and almost any of them will be under $10. A significant at $2.99 and under if you’ve gone digital as I have. If you have an awesome book you’ve read and think I’d like it, tell me about it. If I like it, I’ll review it. 🙂 I’m not going to dedicate this blog to book reviews, but there will be more in the future. I’ll try not to be as sporadic as I have been.
I’ve got reading, writing, and work to do. So…
Until Tomorrow!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 