Here's my current struggle. I have not produced online content for my sites/channels in quite a few months now. The main reason being that there is too much choice.
Too many things interest me and doing the same thing too many times bores me.
This is one of the reasons I stopped producing content for my Trailer Music School YouTube channel, I got bored of talking about trailer music. Which I know is ridiculous because it's my job but that's exactly what happened.
Same with my main YouTube channel, I got bored talking about 'composer struggles'. Same even with writing trailer music, for a spell, I got really bored of writing the same thing.
I got bored and that scares me.
I don't want to build something only to get bored and drop it. I want to build something that allows me to be all the different things I am and enjoy and yet still feel comfortable nerding out about very specific things like movie trailer music or Warhammer.
Then that scares me because I am basically thinking in terms of a very very specific person who likes to write music (specifically trailer music) and also likes to nerd out about other stuff too. Although even here, the term nerding out makes it sound like I enjoy going into mega detail in the things I enjoy. Generally I don't.
So I don't want to be mega specific, I also don't want to go mega detailed.
Let's take Warhammer for example. I love Warhammer but I forget the names of factions, can't remember any of the rules (much) and don't have a loyalty to an army/race. I just love Warhammer and painting those little miniatures.
I just love the whole world of it.
I guess I am saying I am a generalist even though I don't know that actual meaning of the word.
Let me check (checks Google)
"A generalist is a person, animal, or plant that has a broad range of skills, interests, or uses rather than focusing on just one thing"
Ok. I was pretty on the money there.
I thought for a spell I was something called a multi-passionate or even, (stands slightly taller than normal) a "polymath"...
- A multi-passionate is someone who has many different interests, skills, and strong enthusiasms, instead of just one single calling. These individuals often love learning new things and may change hobbies or career paths rather than sticking to one traditional job
- And a polymath isa person whose knowledge and skills span multiple, often unrelated, fields of study.
All of these terms I think highlight some things:
- Multiple interests
- Broad skills
- Enjoy learning
When I feel like I can safely talk about everything and anything I feel I go against all the advice (even my own) - niche down. Go super focused and I don't want to do that, well not for any great length of time.
But maybe my super focus is actually the other generalists who happen to have a slightly exaggerated leaning towards music and movies and get bored easily. I think I might be describing people with ADHD...?
I mean if I am honest my interests are actually all quite closely related to films and pop culture:
- Music (specifically it's use on screen)
- Art (actually very broad here)
- Movies and their trailers
- Comics and graphic novels
- DIY - this seems to be one of the odd ones out
- Warhammer and table top RPGs
- Deck building games
- World-building
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and thriller novels (usually translate well into movies or at least have a large lore of their own)
- Energy healing (specifically pranic healing) but this branches out into other "weirdy-beardy" areas too like manifestation etc.
If you boil it down I am a middle aged parent who loves pop-culture and seeks to relive his childhood love of comics, Warhammer and movies.
So when I think "right, I am going to create a channel all about movie trailers" I can sense a cage coming down. But if I think "I am going to shift the focus of my online content to everything that interests me" that both excites and frightens me in equal measure.
For one because of those "YouTube won't know what your channel is about" comments and also for the "why am I even doing any of this when I can just write music and earn a decent living from it, why do I even need to create content"
And I think this is the crux of the matter. Do I even need to create and share anything?
The answer lies in the same answer to the question "why do you make music"...because I need to regardless of anything else.
I have a drive in me to create and that fire has spread out from just being music to being videos, blogs, books, websites, drawings (the list goes on)
So rather than thinking in terms of "am I doing the right thing to build an audience?" maybe I should just be doing the thing I want to do just because.
p.s. immediately after I write that last line I felt a wonderful sense of achievement and certainty that was immediately snuffed out by the question "well does this go on your website or your Substack?"
FFS too many bloody choices!
