Road to Myself #1 - Freelancer?

Road to MySelf is going to be a new “mini-series” on my blog (in my life, really) which plays on the popular YouTube series format for Call of Duty games Road to Commander. Anytime I post something with “Road to MySelf” in the title, it will be a continuation in this series and contain thoughts and updates regarding my progress in, well, life, but more specifically job and relationship status as well as my current mindset regarding careers and what I want to do with my life.

I am starting this “mini-series” for a couple reasons. For one, I need to get back into writing more, as I feel I will need my written work out there if I ever hope to have a career or job involving it. Being a college student with no definite clue as to what I want to do or where I want to go with my life, I deal with a lot of anxiety and worry on a regular basis regarding the future, jobs, moving out at some point, etc. so this will allow me to work through things in my own head, as well as maybe get a little feedback from any readers.

Any time someone (who thinks they could help, and ideally can actually help) asks what I think I might want to do (career-wise) or am interested in pursuing, I haven’t been able to come up with an answer to tell them. Generally the reason for this depends on what’s going through my head at the time. Either I simply just don’t know what I want, or I’m just embarrassed by or unable to explain what it is I want to do. If I were to do what I want in an ideal world, I still can’t even put words together to describe it to myself, nevertheless someone else.

What do I want to do in life? In an ideal world, what would I actually enjoy having to do for the main chunk of every day and getting paid for it? Well, honestly – playing video games. Unfortunately for everyone, that is not a valid career path.

However, there are some options for integrating video games into a job that could possibly make one some money on the side, if nothing else. For example, this whole YouTube thing I (and countless others now) do. We essentially get paid for playing video games, recording them, and talking about them. Awesome, I’m already making some money from that now. Pocket change, a small bonus that allows me more room to afford to live, or afford to keep doing “this YouTube thing.” YouTube certainly isn’t a full-time job, for me at least. Yes, sure, there are others that do make some serious bank from YouTube, doing the same things I do, but I can’t just expect that to happen for me and not worry about a job. For one, it could never happen, that’s why it’s supposed to be a hobby. If I do get extremely lucky, and my channel starts getting a ton more exposure and I’m able to make more money from it, great, but I still need to look for a real job, especially if I hope to move out next fall.

Other examples of being able to make a living (or part of one) from playing video games include reviewing video games and making them. I’ve already gotten away from making them for a living by changing my major from Computer Engineering & Computer Science. While I am capable of programming and engineering, doing it for deadlines, for assignments (and for jobs) is dreadful for me. When it gets to that level, where I have to do it, I no longer enjoy it at all. I made a drastic change of majors, and therefore career paths, because I thought I’d be unhappy with that one, and that’s a choice I plan to stick by. However, I could still make some small indie games as I dabble back into programming on my own.

Reviewing video games could still be something I do some of. I’m a pretty good writer, and enjoy reviewing games when I have the time and energy, I would just need to figure out how to get into the field.

Essentially for the past recent times, I was relying on this mysterious YouTube-delivered job to appear and make itself available for me, so I hadn’t thought about any more serious or realistic careers. I was hoping to be able to find a job doing something like what Hutch and SeaNanners do at Machinima – produce and edit video content for the company – one day. While this is still a possibility (and would be wonderful) it’s not something I can work towards, directly, right now, and shouldn’t be something I rely on. I couldn’t explain this to people or come up with the words for it, because it doesn’t entirely exist yet and therefore isn’t something I should rely on becoming my main deal. I do think I’ve found the explanation of what I want to do, though.

I want to be a freelancer. That is extremely vague, but really that’s what I’ve always wanted to do, I just haven’t been able to explain it. When I’ve talked about my disappointment with where I was financially, all I could reason was I wanted to be “one of those guys who make money doing a few different things on the internet, but still make decent money.” Not exactly the most clear answer. I want to be a freelancer, someone who works for themselves, makes money doing things on the internet, always has a project to work on, but still gets to enjoy life and afford things. I’ve always known this, I suppose, but I still haven’t defined what it is I actually want to DO while freelancing. Again, the term “freelancer” is pretty vague.

I’ve decided that things I would be interested in freelancing (for pay) would include (but not be limited to) writing, voice acting (I’ve done some free work already), photography, and then eventually maybe making 3D animated YouTube intros for people, graphic design, and a little programming.

So from that list, the best choice for me to start with would be writing. I always have a lot to say, can always improve, and it requires no initial investment (I need a new camera to do any sort of professional photography, etc.) and no additional schooling to go on and get my work out there. So now we’ve looped back to the beginning. I need to write more. I’m using my Posterous blogs (this and my gaming one) as a starting place. I will attempt to work on an eBook guide (those are apparently sellers if you have a good guide to give) at some point, and then see if I can start submitting articles to various places to start getting a collection of “things I’ve done” out there.

My business card will read

“D3M0L1SH3R, Freelancer.

            Professional Badass.”