Reddit is walking/talking contradiction in terms. I find it hard sometimes to reconcile the weird and/or dark places it gets to, with the beauty of insights I get on a daily basis.
Case in point, read this Bestof post and realized how similar the IndieDev journey is to my journey. He articulates where I want to be better than I can! So rather than attempting to rehash the same idea, here is what this one developer said, and then I’ll talk about why I think this applies to pipsqueak authors like me:
What I really want to happen is just get that number. I know that I’m following a pipe dream with it, but it is something I think I’m pretty talented at. However, the reality of the situation is, if I can’t find those first 1000 or so users and get at least some momentum, I will need to find another job, and I can’t follow exactly this dream at this time. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I do now have the skills needed to find something in games, but I really like the idea of being able to release my vision and share my ideas with the players.
Yes. Exactly right. Just as this developer wants to get to a million downloads of his apps, I want to get to a million copies sold/distributed of one of my stories. Sure, I could chuck my time and energy toward content writing – Medium and Upwork are always hiring, but that will never get me to the spot I want to be: sharing my ideas with readers. Whether I’m talented or not is a subjective question, but I know I’ll never get to that point without actually trying.
Back to edits and re-writes. Just a small piece of insight for your Thursday afternoon. Peace.