JcDent

A T-55 experience

Military history, video games and miniature wargaming.

RPGs, single player FPS, RTS and 4X, grog games.


Passionate about complaining about Warhammer.


Catholic, socialist, and an LGBT+ ally.


FORUM SIGNATURE:
THIS USER IS A GIRL KISSER

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Fortified Niche: a podcast covering indie miniature wargames
www.anchor.fm/fortified-niche
Grognardia: the current place to order my t-shirt designs [until I find a better one]
www.zazzle.com/store/grognardia

NoelBWrites
@NoelBWrites

So when I was a kid I dreamt of being an author the same way I dreamt of being a Power Ranger. Then I grew up and realized "oh shit, people can just become writers, nobody can stop you. So I started writing.

I love writing, enough that I kept doing it and I started to get involved with other writers and with the publishing industry.

And since then, my dreams have gotten smaller and smaller every year.


JcDent
@JcDent

But I have survived and thrived off being a copywriter.

Except that I hate it! Now more than before, when I am an SEO copywriter and everyone's excited about AI.

I can't be the ways shitty tech will improve by job of internet enshittening.

I'm not even looking for an SEO job at this point. I want real shit, mostly for or about video games.

But I too am hostage to a world where the value of my work is decided by people who can't write1 and would have replaced me with AI yesterday.


  1. Lithuania isn't an English speaking country, so you can imagine what that additional barrier does when it comes to someone more then a single management step removed judging your work.


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in reply to @NoelBWrites's post:

I always say money is wasted on the rich. They just hoard it there! They only want their net worth to go up and do nothing with it. They could be paying artists of all kinds to make stuff but their dreams are smaller than mine.

Yeah. The slow (fast?) sanding down of any ambition whatsoever while pretending to lionize it is one of the more existentially troubling things about capitalism.

Yeah... feeling this.

I'm not big brained enough to come up with a solution to that whole "not wanting to market books/self pub author stuff etc* problem, but I feel like if there were some sort of "writer's co-op" where there was a centralized place for members to have their work shared and random kind people spending little bits of their time to help market things to make success for each other at least somewhat more possible it'd be a good start.

There's a growing group of comics creators doing that and it's what made me think of this. Here's a link to their site if you want to give it a look and spread a similar idea around to other writing buddies. https://cartoonist.coop/

i feel this. maybe im also idealistic and bound to get a bit crushed later in life but—art and capitalism dont mix well. so while ill be overjoyed if whatever art i make in the future is profitable, i also want my most meaningful audience and contributions to be in building local, physical community in my city. like for music, for example, i of course wanna make a really refined album for people to have in their headphones, but i want my most meaningful work to be in creating third spaces where friends, political allies, ethnic communities, youth and anyone else can come to heal, relax, and be themselves by just singing some tunes together. same thing is true for cooking—i want to make spaces where my friends can find reprieve from the intensity of life. for me, i think the best shield from capitalism is centralizing the friends around you. that being said, bills still exist and i am still working to make those friends. long road ahead. wish u the best. <3

Yeah I'm currently building up a co-op art studio with a bunch of local friends/artists and it's amazing! Writing is kind of a more solitary thing, unfortunately, I really need that wider infrastructure to find readers and share my writing

yeah i was thinking to myself writing doesnt really work like that it is inherently isolated. and all the spaces that share it en masse are market owned. and writing is also the most difficult art to consume cuz it has to be slow. i kinda feel the same way--i love using my writing as a springboard for conversation with others, but then ppl need to actually read it, which is asking a lot...so it rarely happens. that coop idea sounds amazing and i hope it works out!!

This is a mood that hits me every once in a while. I want to write but I want to do it in an ecosystem where I don't have to choose between obscurity or being exploited. The thought that the field might have no future except for the lucky few already at the top is hollowing.

I don't know, best I can do is hope that one of the smaller pushes against this manages to take root.

in reply to @JcDent's post:

I wa also "supposed" to be a writer. I wrote constantly in school. I think I may have been saved by what would have otherwise been a hinderance: unyielding perfectionism. Unrealistic is more like it. I didn't want to move anything forward I didn't fully love or find fully complete. And that's just not how real writing works. So I never got anywhere with my writing as an adult outside of using my abilities in various freelance fields. Luckily for me the writing industry collapsed in time for me not to regret any of that! (Much)