FULL BLEED: AND DON'T BELIEVE THE THINGS YOU SEE ON TV, 'CAUSE THEY'LL NEVER HAPPEN TO YOU

Long couple weeks, folks. Back from a draining and not reinvigorating trip to LA and straight into the wall of Birthday. Then straight into a weekend in the hospital for someone close and anxiety whether or not that would impact their upcoming surgery (essential and required for any manner of daily quality of life) and that went all day and we're still in the recovery phase. Lots of demands on time and energy. Just cleaning the goddamn house. Laundry. Cooking. Cleaning. Caretaking.

I'm very behind on things. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. Holidays coming up. Long-planned trip probably shot to hell. More holidays. Behind.

Behind on a thing that I'm the only real audience for. Yeah, I finally figured out the game. Only took fifty and some years. Of course, I had it figured back in 2016 when I was writing up press releases for The Queen of No Tomorrows in its original printing and I just blurted out that it was the book I wanted to write, that I wanted to read. And I guess that's kind of a no-no in the Century of Writing as Customer Service. Writing as Good Thoughts. Writing as Best Friend Time. Writing as Fan Fuel. Explains a lot.

As I said out on the scream machine a few days ago, I've only ever had one other reader begin to tumble to what I thought I was doing in The Queen of No Tomorrows, that being Jamie Delano, a British writer of horror and weird SF who'd for some reason consented to reading the book when I offered to send him a copy some time back. He came back to me after my post on folks not getting it and said words meaning something like "Writers are writing their books for themselves." And I'm not sure it's entirely true. I'm sure some are writing it for the paycheck, assuming they're still getting paid for their writing. But otherwise, yeah. It's an audience of one. I joked back that "Writing's an even lonelier job than I ever thought" and maybe that got a chuckle. It was more than ten days ago, so, lost in the churn.

I try not to think about how lonely it actually is. But it's tough not to have that thought rolling around in your head. I'm trying to think about it in a creator/muse sort of way now. Trying to. It's still difficult, hard to break the habits, the rules that brought me here and what good are they, etcetera? So, is that making up an imaginary friend? I don't know. Maybe it's magickal practice. Just the knowledge or even the possibility that we're not actually alone but in a relationship with everything. That's agoraphobic big too, I get it. But that's better than claustrophobic small, being this isolated speck in a universe that one is constantly reminded does not actually revolve around you and maybe it's better that way.

Along those lines, I ran into a thing a couple days ago, the title card of a YouTube video. Yes, I know. Forget it Matt, it's YouTube. Still, my eyes stuck on it like a fishhook from a catastrophic failure of a casting. The card read "IT IS THE CREATOR'S DUTY TO KEEP CREATING" and I had to ask if it was a rabid fan who wrote it or a content platform that needed folks posting more stuff to keep other folks engaged and engaging? I was stuck on the absolute and monstrous hubris that it must have taken for this person to make this thing and post it out there for other people to see. Now sure, part of that's residual guilt on my part as this October's been a double-battered shitshow of a month in terms of getting any work done. Bad brain, bad energy or no energy. And all this stuff, this something from nothing, takes a lot of energy. Takes un-interruption. Takes knowing what direction things are even going (only settled sometime last month.)

But still, this bonehead had the gall to tell other creators what they needed to be doing. The sense of entitlement was... It was something, folks. See, here's the thing. The person who gets to boss the creator around is themselves. Now, they might have entered into various business agreements that dictate certain levels of output, that's their business. But the creator who's slogging along in the hours they're not doing other stuff? Yeah, that's all them. Nobody on this planet is owed anyone's creative work. If the creator wants to make the work, that's their call. In particular, nobody is owed free work. Creators can put work out there on whatever platform for free or hoping for tips.

I post photographs all the time and I happen to think they're largely pretty damn good but there's no market for them, nor do I ask for tips or run a Patreon or anything. I might go back to putting out work for free just so it can get looked at, but I tried that once when it was supposed to be a miracle-gro career booster and no.

Nobody's owed creative labor. We've been trained to believe that's the case, really since the 90s when filesharing really exploded via USEnet. We're used to seeing free blog posts or whole books posted to websites. Music essentially made free for a subscription fee. Streaming movie services where the back end deals are not really much better than what Spotify offers, I'd bet. Hell, we're not even owed the last couple of Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones books by GRRM. He's worked hard since what, the seventies? We can't demand more films from John Carpenter (and why would he, given his largely shoddy treatment by the studios and even the fans.) If they want to do this stuff, go ahead. It's not an obligation. And miss me with that "the fans made these dudes rich!" The fans' money went to the studios or publishers. Some of it was passed along, I'm sure. But not a share that's in any way fair.

And maybe once was that the systems of exchange for these sorts of creative labors made sense for the creators. Except for the folks at the top couple tiers of the pyramid now, it's not the case. Now, this doesn't mean that the machine will stop. The studios and publishers and distributors will always find folks who will sign deals that suck just so they can do what they love and maybe get paid for it. That'll work for awhile, until the grinder starts working so fast that it breaks. Or they just keep re-releasing Avengers movies or reboots or remakes.

But fans aren't owed this. And if it doesn't make sense, then maybe creators need to walk away, or just go with smaller houses and keep these enterprises as side gigs.

So, yeah, miss me with this. Maybe people will do the work when they can, but bossing them and posting "Shouldn't you be writing?" memes ain't the way forward.

Thing is, it's not cellphones or too many entertainment options or video games or social media or anything else that's fueling creative collapse, even the drive to do these things. People aren't dumb. They can look around and know that they're living in a meatgrinder. A content grinder, an art grinder, where everything is reduced to clicks and chum. They can see that there's a disconnect between the making of the original art and folks getting paid for their work. They can see that none of the big studios or publishers want to or even really know how to market other than the big ticket firehose of capital advertising items. And they have to do that because of all the money involved. How much stuff for Tron: Ares did we all see floating around (I was in LA the week before it opened. I saw a LOT, but that's LA for you. I even saw neatly-lit billboards for the last Godzilla/Kong movie from Legendary when I was there last year.) Did they work? How'd that movie do, again? Right. It died like a dog. Great soundtrack, though. I could write a lot about that, how it references the soundtracks of the two previous movies in moments but also has its own unique character, more martial and forceful. But yeah, an ill-conceived project put together by people who either didn't have a good story to tell or were so hampered by external forces that any notion of that story only really existed as a couple lines of dialogue here and there. Call me, Disney. I got the goods.

There's been a breakdown in all of these creative industries, which now exist to keep large conglomerates on life support and not to actually do any creative work. Yeah, sure, sometimes they stumble onto something, but they'll squeeze it so hard it will have a difficult time growing. It's hits out of the gate or the midlist death spiral.

Ah, it must be nice to have hit the midlist.

So, yeah, toxic environment. But yes, I'm sure that has nothing to do with folks not pursuing the creative arts. Not that most folks ever did, really, not as a percentage. We just got that feeling of late because these things could be tried out as online identities, as consumption patterns, as lifestyle accessories. And now folks are grinding at jobs that don't pay well enough to pay the cost of living and to take care of themselves and their loved ones. But yes, let's talk about how its cellphones behind all this.

We all have to find solutions that work for ourselves. We all have to make the work that makes sense to us. Or not make it. Or start it and fall behind. It's funny. I was in Robert McKee's class, Story. And I learned a lot in it. He was right about an awful lot of stuff. At one point he said "People will do what they're capable of doing." Not that they're waiting for a moment to display their capabilities and rise beyond everything they've done up until that moment, that instant where everything changed. That the day to day of things and their actions is what people are capable of. Perhaps they get pushed finally. But the day to day, the sunrise to sunset, that's what people can do. Particularly now, in a time that he probably couldn't conceive of some twenty four years in the future (I'd hope he's retired by now, but maybe he's still plugging along.) We're doing what we're capable of. That's a condemnation if you choose to look at it one way. It's a celebration if you choose to look at it from the opposite side. I tend to lean towards celebration. I'm forgiving like that, and after fifty and some years on the planet, I've learned enough to soften my stance somewhat (and I've had in most respects a life of ease). Doesn't mean I'm not wishing we couldn't do more. Doesn't mean I'm not wishing that I couldn't do more.

Is this an excuse? Perhaps. But trying to force this to happen in the face of *points at everything including stuff in my life I don't really talk about* is a fool's errand. Does this get around the fundamental loneliness of the occupation or solve the problem that nobody gets the work (or maybe I just am not that good at it, or simply refuse to bonk the reader on the head with the message I think I'm putting out there, dealer's choice there.)

I don't know. I'm tired. I'm angry. I'm drained. And the work has to come out of something.

Until next time.