Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Why I Do What I Do

As your notification button on Facebook can attest, I've been pounding the keys a great deal lately and a few people have commented on how impressed they are with the dedication and drive I seem to be showing towards my craft.

I certainly appreciate the comments - we all know I love attention - but there is a much simply truth to why I do what I do every day.

Fear.


I don't want to be the guy who never chased his dreams. When I get old, I don't want to have to tell my kids about the tattoo on my wrist - the one that says "Freelance" - using the words, "I wanted to be a writer," only to have them respond, "But Daddy, you're a used car salesmen?"

There are too many people that I know who go through life hating their jobs and hating where they are and I can't be one of those people. At least not yet. Not without going balls to the wall with this writing thing for the next couple years, before those perplexed children above come along and I get into my mid-30s and realize I've been chasing the dream for far too long without results.

So I hammer away. I pepper your inbox with new blog posts from both sites, publish links of all the articles I've dropped on MMA sites and become friends with everyone I can on Facebook who may have some small way to help me get my foot in the door somewhere. And I write the book.

My friend and pseudo-editor Smitty said to me today that I'm one of the only people he knows who chases his dreams of writing with such vigor. He didn't use those exact words, but you know what I mean.

The real truth is that I'm tired.

I'm tired of talking about my ideas and my dreams.

I'm tired of working shitty jobs that don't pay anything.

I'm tired of writing for sites that don't pay me and putting in work that goes unnoticed.

Most of all, I'm tired of being afraid that all this is never going to amount to anything of consequence and have been a big waste of ten years.

So I write.

I write every day and I write with a renewed motivation and inspiration, in hopes of making a better life for me, my wife and those confused children that will certainly come along one of these days.

And for everyone who laughs when I pepper your inboxes and add "friends" I don't even truly know: check out Keyboard Kimura on Friday when I roll out my interview with light heavyweight prospect Cody "Donnybrook" Donovan...

He's one of those "friends" I just happened to make on The Shameless Self-Promotion Tour and now he's also my first official Mixed Martial Arts interview.

Chase your dreams while you can kids ...

2 comments:

Carrie said...

I feel ya, buddy. I work a two part-time jobs (one a writing job, technically a marketing job) and write on endless amounts of sites for mostly free. It seems so discouraging, but something good has to come out way someday, right?

Chalk said...

Spen, if this isn't you at your best, it's at least you when I like you best. The undiluted, unabashed belief in yourself and what you're doing is something I can't relate to at all but I find fascinating. I hope you never lose it.