Little Nick going down the slide on the playground back at Springmyer Elementary School had no idea what a “personal brand” was. He was also a stranger to body hair. Quite an innocent, was little Nick going down the slide.
In phase 1.0 of my creative career, I overtly psyched myself out and focused exclusively on developing my muscles as a screenwriter. And it is still the creative outlet that has brought me the most money and my closest brushes with Hollywood glory. I didn’t really have the confidence that I could be a multi-hyphenate; better, I figured, to put all my push into one niche and burrow in there deep.
It sort of worked and sort of didn’t work quite well enough; and there’s a whole book one could write about the generational transformation in how screenwriters make a buck, how writers in general make money at all (“money” being a mythical object promised at the end of a long road called “Exposure”); and, most broadly, how creative individuals build their profile.
But I changed my approach – I think it was the right adaptation to make; because I am capable of doing multiple things, and have achieved enough with them to feel as if the world agrees with me. While I haven’t broken through to a level of success and income I’m satisfied with; the fact is I’m building a network, and a portfolio of work I’m proud of; and it’s happening because I’m operating in this unique and bizarre intersection between my particular skillsets.
They are, however, difficult to sum up; and that’s the enemy of that whole “personal brand” thing. I sign my e-mails “Writer/Actor/Filmmaker”; but there are a lot of subheadings to break out under those three titles when it comes to the work I chase. I joke that when people ask what I’m working on, I need to carry a little laminated card summarizing the four-five projects that are currently on the front burner. It’s not at all uncommon for me to be editing a new Earbud Theater episode, rehearsing a play, submitting a short film to festivals, and drafting a novel all while maintaining my position with Arts Orange County. That is, in fact, a pretty ordinary number of juggling balls.
This life asks a lot of you. I know it’s made it difficult to find personal balance, even to make time to be a fan of the media that I’m trying to create. And I think I haven’t been as good as I ought to be about self-promotion because at any given moment, creating is always more satisfying to me than trying for the thousandth time to understand the secret hieroglyphics of marketing. This is a tough savanna for an introvert to try catching a meal on.
But I have seen any number of people revitalizing the medium of blogging; and I blogged, no kidding, probably about a dozen books’ worth of text back in my LiveJournal heyday. If my prime difficulty is in reducing what I do to just a few words; then maybe the solution lies in the other direction – putting more words to it so you can draw your own picture.
I’ve been doing a lot of this on Facebook for my personal contacts; but once a Facebook post goes beyond two paragraphs I think I’m really stretching that format beyond its intended attention span. It breathes better here. So we’ll see if this catches on. There’s plenty to discuss, promote, announce.