Doing What You Love for The Love of Doing It

2024 started a little slowly for voice-work. This is typical and nothing to get alarmed about. Self-employed people learn about ebbs and flows of their businesses and plan accordingly.

Last week, it came roaring back. Every time I opened my email, it seemed, there was more work. And like the slow times, the avalanches also don’t last long, so you prioritize and manage expectations to get it all done, grateful for it when it comes.

Friday morning as I was splitting files – a tedious job* – something hit me. I hadn’t posted a Friday blog! I’ve been writing blog posts that publish on Tuesdays and Fridays for a long time. I can’t think of another time when I forgot about it.

And then something funny happened. Nothing. No one noticed! Not even my husband who admitted he doesn’t know my blog schedule. He subscribes, and when one comes in, he reads it. End of story.

I never imagined that anyone sat by their computer waiting for me to publish something. But it also didn’t occur to me that my hard-and-fast schedule was devised by me, only for me. Lots of bloggers start with great intentions and then quit because, well, writing is work. Thinking of ideas is work. And it’s work for no pay. You have to enjoy doing it for its own sake. Podcasting can be the same. And it’s much like my job. Voice actors audition, audition, audition, and only a few of those auditions secure real work. You have to love the auditioning process to keep going.

So, between the new work, auditions, and reading Geddy Lee’s memoir, My Effin’ Life, (highly recommend!), I was distracted by a lot of things. I was living. I also wonder if this is partly a result of spending less time on social media. Yes, I pledged a full SM detox for February, but I failed in that mission, as I explained on Gracefully and Frankly.

I don’t want to stop writing here. And I’m truly not fishing for compliments. But it seems that the hard-and-fast rules I’ve set for myself might not be as important as I think. Or maybe, I’m just realizing they’re really for me and me alone. Perhaps I’ll start blogging only when I feel the muse. I’m not sure yet. But it was a moment that made me stop and go, hmmmm. And that, my friends, is perfectly okay with me. It’s just information. And information is power.

*Splitting files means taking one large audio file and creating several shorter ones from it. Sometimes it’s because certain sentences or paragraphs are meant to accompany particular slides, so it’s easier to have those sentences separated for timing purposes.