My One Millionth Post about this blog and my writing career (or lack thereof)
Sometimes I worry that I’m a bit too wishy-washy when it comes to what I want to do with myself, my creativity and my vocation. I can remember the first time that I came to the conclusion that writing might be my path in life. I had this sense of relief come over me that seemed to say this is what I know how to do! and I embraced it wholeheartedly. I remember pitching and writing articles with verve and enthusiasm. Now, it’s a few years later and I’m not so sure that the rough and tumble world of a freelance writer is for me. I realize that I articulated this thought just a little while ago, but today I was thinking about all of this and I realized something kind of strange:
I’m not sure if I have any interest at all in writing for money at this point in my life.
When I started getting serious about writing, my blog was this neat little refuse, and I really looked forward to writing about the things that I cared about. I really dug writing down silly little stories and funny little drunken asides. I liked getting a little drunk and writing about bands and songs that I liked. Money wasn’t an issue in how or why I typed the words that a few of you read. Half of the time it was ranting and raving about some criminally underappreciated artist or song, and the rest of the time it was a twisted ode to my friends or my burgeoning relationship with Jessie. Life was good.
Then I moved into full-time freelancing.
As a full-time freelancer my blog took a backseat to trying to turn these words into checks. For a little while, it was working and I had fun, I got to write about a lot of awesome stuff, but lately (and I mean over the last two years or so) I’ve been writing for a paycheck. I’ve been doing something that I used to do for free and thinking entirely about the money versus what I was writing about. Where I once viewed myself as some sort of bugle call for all the good music out there, I instead just turned into an old, washed up (and perpetually late on her deadlines) whore.
It took realizing that I was a whore to make me want to stop doing it. I’m not saying that I’m going to stop freelancing forever, but I am going to stop putting out feelers for new work. I am going to stop answering the emails of publicists. Just for a while. I’m just going to write here on this blog and at home for fun. I’m tired of doing something I love and trying to turn it into money. Money ruins shit, and I don’t want it to ruin any more of my shit.
I’ve been playing music with two (now three!) very wonderful friends. The music we play is awesome, different and completely devoid of pretense. We have talked about recording what we do or playing a show, but we’re still not sure if that is what we are doing it for. My thought- and one that I’ve heard at least two other guys articulate in the practice room- is that what we do is less about “being a band” as it is just being creative and hanging out with each other. We don’t want to “make it” or get recognition for what we do. Instead we are just having fun, and we don’t particularly care if anyone ever hears us. We know that we play together well, why should it matter to anyone else?
It took playing music to make me realize the same thing about my writing. The very fact that the guys I play with are all good enough musicians to decide to just phone it in and try to learn a few covers and play dive bars for fifty bucks a night and yet they still choose not to is such a refreshing feeling.
So if I’m willing to do this for my music, why wouldn’t I treat my writing the same way? I guess in a way I feel like I’ve sacrificed a bit of my integrity (I think that’s the right word) in the name of a few extra dollars is pretty damning to me. I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I thought that my definition of integrity was never doing anything that you are ashamed of for money. During the last two years I’ve done plenty.
I just don’t want to do that anymore.
Instead, I want to have fun. I’ve found a job where I like and feel like I’m doing some good within the community and it affords me enough of a financial cushion to where I don’t have to whore out my art so that Jessie and I can eat spaghetti one night instead of leftovers. Hopefully when I’m done at the end of a workday I can sit down at my computer and write a few paragraphs. Maybe something about a super hero or maybe just a long rant about my neighbors, the possibilities are endless.
I’m sure that in three weeks I’ll probably change my mind, but for right now, if you are reading this blog, it’s the only place where I’ll be writing for right now. Readers of The Bugg Blog will get one hundred percent of what I decide to put out on the internet, complete with ill-thought-out missives, typo-laden odes to profanity, sweet drunken posts about my wife, oddly obsessive screeds about my pets, and even a few character assassination attempts directed at Chad Nesbitt (who is a cunt).
I just hope that people are into the ride.
Jobs and Jason Bugg to the Xpress UPDATE!
Yeah, between this image and the WWE NXT entries I know that I’m recycling a lot of images around here, but I figured that it’d be a neat way to keep the images thematically tied together. Sue me if you don’t like it. Actually, don’t. I’d rather not go to court (the seats aren’t comfortable there).
Help Jason Bugg become gainfully employed
The dream began a few years ago: Jason Bugg (or for the purposes of this blog entry “I”, “me”, or “myself”) was working a dead-end job at an Asheville-based coffee shop (which has long since been closed). An old friend from back in high school frequented the place for his semi-hourly regimen of caffeine. I knew that he was working at the Mountain Xpress, and for the heck of it, I assaulted him with article ideas (not for me to write, mind you, but for him or someone at the paper- after all, I wasn’t a writer). He surprised me by telling me to shoot him an email about one. When I did, he then told me that I could write the article and get paid for it. With that, I was a freelance writer.
Time moved fast. I sold article after article to his paper and to out of town papers, all because of this guy taking a risk with the overeager barista and the paper he worked for agreeing to publish it. Soon the staffer assumed the editor’s position at the Xpress and I received even more work. So much work that coupled with the out of town stuff that I was doing I was able to live the dream: I was a full time writer.
But things change. The editor left his position and (as it often goes in the tumultuous world of Alt-weekly freelance writing) I fell out of favor with the incoming editor. Our styles did anything but meld. Eventually (due to personal differences- namely my mouth and my inability to ever back down from saying the wrong thing when it feels so right) we agreed to work together.
No big deal, right?
Well, it was a big deal. The money dried up. That’s sort of okay, because to a degree the money was nice but it wasn’t what I wanted out of writing. Writing gave me purpose, and when I couldn’t show my special purpose to the people in the town that I lived in, I was lost, hurt and sad. I said a few choice things about the paper that I truly felt, and once again didn’t back down.
Now I’m here to admit that my mouth can get me into trouble sometimes. Now I’m here to say that the one thing that always brought me joy as a writer was being able to write for my hometown paper.
So imagine my surprise today when I stumbled upon a twitter tweet (or whatever you call it) from an Xpress staffer announcing that if anyone is interested in writing for the Xpress to contact them. (more…)
Blocking out the bad
Sunday after work I came home in a terrible mood; nothing I’d done all day seemed to work out for me, work was awful and reminding me again why I want out of there and the aforementioned job kept me inside on what was a gorgeous day that was hard-earned after what has felt like three straight months of sub-freezing temperatures.
I came home, gave my wife (whom I hadn’t seen since late Friday night) a big long hug and sat down on the couch.
Suddenly, everything got better.
Tethered
Last night I stayed up way too late thinking about all of the things that I was going to do today. I sat in my bed with a my notebook that I usually write comic book scripts and story ideas in and made a list of things that I was planning on doing today, and began to think that today (Wednesday) was the last day this week that I could work on my writing for any sustained period of time. The weekend would be here, and with that came me trying as hard as I could to spend as much time with Jessie as I could while making the hour-long drive to work. I’m tired just thinking about it.
It was in those late hours trying to organize my day into shifts of writing that I wanted to do for money and writing that I wanted to do for myself that I realized something.
I realized that I hate my job. That’s a frightening feeling.
Exile on Tunnel Road
artist's rendering-not an actual bookstore
And now, a statement I can make with complete and total certainty: I have a pretty damn amazing sense of timing. It’s true, and I’ll supply an example: three years ago, I sold my first article as a freelance writer, and while that $65 article made me realize what I wanted to do with my life, it also was around the time that print media started its decline and leading into the meltdown that I’ve experienced over the last year. I’ve gone from living comfortably to living rather desperately within twelve months. It’s been harrowing and incredible.
Because of this, I’ve had to return to the workforce in a part-time capacity. I won’t say what the name of the company I am working for is, but I will say that it is a large retail establishment that deals primarily with books. It’s not my preferred job, but it brings in enough money to hold me over until I can figure out a way to make more money at writing. It’s also done a few good things for me- including getting me out of the house a few days a week, getting me a chance just to talk to people in person, and also to revisit why I love and hate working retail.
First of all, there’s nothing “fun” about retail- its mindless work that forces you to be nice when you don’t feel like being nice and encourages you to work hard at mindless busywork that will ultimately make someone else richer at your expense. But there is something about it that is just fun for me. Maybe it’s some sort of sick desire to talk to strangers I have, but I actually like it. I like dealing with customers and trying to figure out what they are reading and enjoying. I like the spare moments I have to sneak away from the counter and browse through books in the store, and I like having a strange story to tell at the end of the day. These are the good things about retail.
The bad thing about retail is at times, I feel like I am slipping back into that snobby clerk that I was when I worked in record stores. You know the type: jaded by years of customer service, enabled with an employee discount, a boredom with any music older than two months and a disdain for 99% of all customers simple because their taste is inferior to your own- the counter snob. There are moments-right now just fleeting- where I find myself judging people who come into the store looking for diet books or Dr. Phil books, but I have to keep reminding myself that these people are still reading, after all. It could be worse. It’s like my brain and my cynicism are in a constant death match, and retail is some sort of Bobby “the Brain” Heenan sitting outside of the ring handing cynical Jason a steel chair while my Rational Mind Referee has his back turned. Hopefully, good will triumph over evil and Good Natured Jason will win. I’m rooted for him.
The other thing that I love about my exile into retail is that get to interact with the customers all day, which is always interesting. Sure it can be banal at times, but the uber-sexy world of freelance writing is quite banal also, so at least I’m getting paid for the monotony. Today I dealt with a crying World War II veteran, a psychotic religious football fan and a wife of a man who is coming to terms with his childhood sexual abuse. Pretty heady stuff for a part-time job, but it’s nice. The veteran was especially trying and I plan on writing about him sometime soon. He was so interesting and sad at the same time.
But this is a warning and a promise to myself: I’m not going to get lazier about writing because it’s no longer my only income, instead I’m going to discipline myself to work harder at blogging more often, sending out pitches and working on Fuzztone at night, and working on my fiction for at least an hour a day. My days are about to get jam packed, and maybe that’s what I need to light a fire underneath me. Well, that and a heroin problem.
Until later, be good.
