Saturday 20 February 2016

A Kind of Freedom

It was a stressful launch day - partly because I had so much to do, and no where to do it. Some decorators turned up to do the landing - nothing to do with me, it was all a bit random.  But, it meant that I couldn't use my office when trying to tell the world about patreon and my page and share great audio and... Not the decorators fault - they were really good, the finish looks to be a good standard (as they say on Homes Under the Hammer).
And I wasn't expecting a busy day fielding vast take up - this is going to be a slow build, it's going to move over the year, not a weekend.  That said, I was surprised at where the total reached by the end of the day - and I had a number of additional one off contributions (thank you!) and other help offered which isn't on the patreon feed.
I couldn't relax during the evening at all. I kept fiddling and rushing about to little purpose.  It was only at the end of the day, when I shut the laptop down and stopped that it hit me.

This is freedom.
Not freedom from tyranny, not freedom from money worries, not freedom from commitments... it's freedom from me.
Let me explain.  I make a lot of work happen.  I've averaged something like 14 different shows every year when not ill.  And even then, I don't think it went below double figures.  If I keep up this work rate in the theatre then I'll probably kill myself.  I tend to only have two speeds, super fast or super slow, and super fast added to live theatre and a high turn around is not good for me.
But now I can do things differently.  I can still create at my preferred work rate, but creating an audio show instead of a live show is a whole different world of work.  One of the things that eats at my life is the learning of new monologues - especially as I rewrite them as I go along.  Now, I can make the text work over the same period of time, but not have to spend that month ramming the words into my brain.  I can just, you know, get them right.
This means that, each year, I can focus on a just a few live shows of my own and take my time making them happen.  This year I've got one new show planned for April - Shakespeare: The Ever Living! and some other long term projects ticking along.  I'm acting in maybe a couple of other peoples shows.  And creating an entire new universe in my head to beam to your ears.
This is freedom.
If I can get the patrons.
Please, support me, if only for a $1.  It's really easy to do and doesn't take more than a couple of minutes.

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