I haven’t shared any videos on the blog in a long time but this particular episode of Out of Frame really resonated with me.

The video also reminded me of some of my own antics. Taking the seat next to moral hazard is opportunity cost.

The blog’s been quiet and peaceful, something I’ve enjoyed for a long time. It’s helped me build up self-discipline. The peace and quiet and ‘safety’ has also set me back in some areas. At some point, all of this gets interrupted. It has to in order for me to move forward. The floodgates will open–or the dam will just break–and I’ll have to take on a whole lot more than I could have ever imagined just a few years ago.

It’s chaos, so I know I’m going to be making a lot of mistakes along the way navigating the love and the cruelty of the audience.

Not going out of my way to bring people to the Praedian Records when it first started could have been a mistake. It was definitely one opportunity traded for another. I wanted to get comfortable with things and establish what I do first. It was important to prove to myself that I could handle the silence as well as the din and not peter out. I can work with and without feedback, so I know for a fact that I can keep going. No one told me I could, I just showed that to myself.

I think about how much more motivated I could be, too. When I was first starting out, it was insanely difficult to post here at all. Writing out of character, and to no one in particular, is one of my weakest areas. If I was engaging people, things would have been a lot more exciting, frustrating, interesting, and annoying, all at the same time. I know I’d be a lot further along in certain areas, though probably not in others.

Another example of opportunity cost: What if I’d found an artist to render some of ZAP’s more prominent characters, or maybe even all of them? What if I’d taken less time to write and honed my own drawing skills more? I might not need a dedicated artist other than myself in that case. For now it’s all just text and reference materials I made years and years ago. It’s not a steep cost by itself, but it’s still there.

There were a myriad of different ways I could have handled things. I wonder how each phase of what I’m doing is going to transition into the next. As quiet as the site is right now, it’s already a little chaotic, and I’m always tripping over the edge of my comfort zone.

That leads to the actual feedback and the challenges. I’ll go ahead and confirm that the Praedian Records does receive visitors, and not just spam bots. Comments are exceedingly rare, but like I said, the blog’s been quiet and peaceful. It’s not always going to be that way, though. That’s good, but I know what comes with it.

With every bit of constructive criticism or general approval comes the harsh and vague critique, the random accusations, ridicule for not liking or knowing much about this that or the other thing, politics, sabotage. You know, the good ol’ internet drama that follows and harries us all. The more progress you make, and the more success you earn, the worse that will get. If it doesn’t, then I’d suspect I was going backwards and course correct. Either way I don’t take it lightly. Even the negative feedback is important, but it can get you wildly off track if you’re not disciplined enough to handle it.

I’m in no hurry to get to that point, but it’s coming. A part of me doesn’t want to give up the relaxing days of chipping away at stories, slowly building up a catalogue of content while honing my skills, but I see the cracks in the dam … and look at all that text. You can tell when something’s bothering me because the words just keep coming.

That’s enough of that for one day, but this is definitely going to come up again in the near future. I hope you enjoyed the video and found this post in general useful or interesting.