New Year, New Energy?

"New Years Resolutions" are something that I stand hard against, not liking the arbitrary nature of suddenly deciding that because of one chronological annual inevitability I should suddenly start making promises for the year ahead. But I gues this new year I have made a concerted effort to enter it with a few more quirks.

I made a conscious decision during December that I would almagamate my 3 twitter accounts into my main one because there simply wasn't any point continuing to remember 3 different logins when two of those projects weren't really getting enough of their own exposure anyway. I also decided to start developing this new website under my own name and focus more on selling myself a someone with a lot wider range in skills.

Constantly being on the hunt for work in a competitve market when you simply have too much to offer for the bottom end jobs makes it tough. I am white, in my thirties, not disabled, or some other funding-focused tick box exercise, I am as it seems entirely on my own. There are no recruitment drives to get more people like me into work. For example, I'd love to start in a new career but the level at which I would need to train (given my employment and education history) means I would need to be paying hundreds, even thousands of pounds to get that training. Money I do not have.

I guess one of the other problems is that like most people I am pretty crap at saying what I am good at, probably because the one thing society doesn't like (in the UK, at least) is people who blow their own trumpet. It is sorry to see how society is so obsessed with the cheap and mediocre (just look at the most popular TV shows!), and they idea of getting the talentless idiot into the spotlight being the prevailing norm at the moment, being genuinely well education, able, skilled and intelligent - together with having experience - is something that isn't really that attractive.

I know that if I was to be thrown into a struggling local charity to boost their awareness campaigns, help the strategise, run events, design marketing, and keep costs down, that I could do that with great energy and great potential for results. I know that if I were to secure a job in a small theatre I would be of significant value, having vast expereince in wide range of expertise. But I'd have to find a theatre who needed that, and coulf afford me! I wouldn't cost much, but the arts are not the place to go if you need someone to take a pocket-stretching punt on you.

So I guess it is down to me ever more so than before to make a bold and blunt statement to said: "Look, this is me, this is what I can do; and this is why you need me. Does it seem arrogant? Probably. Will it work? Who knows? Do I have anything to lose? Hell no.

I have key things I need to achieve, specifically my debut novel that needs to get from "working on" to published and get people reading it. Although I don't to release it before it is ready, I can't keep using that as an excuse to not work on it.

I've just read Andrew Cullums debut "Lights Burning Blue" - what a stunning book it is. One of those things I read and though: "I wish I had written this" and "how can my debut be anywhere near as good?..." and so on. Nevertheless, I need to get the novel done also to allow me to be able to say: I've writtEN my first novel.

Anyway, onwards and forwards into this new year. I guess I should be claiming to have new energy, but right now I don't. So I need to find it somewhere. Be it at the end of my first novel, the start of a new job (and/or career) or something else...having energy is one thing. Using it effeciently and successful is another.