Help Wanted

BoRapCoverLast fall, my daughter and I saw the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody one and two-thirds times in the theater. During our first trip, on the opening weekend no less, the theater power glitched, shutting down the movie. The power and video returned almost immediately, but the theater staff worked for almost 45 minutes to restore sound before they gave up and sent us on our way with rain checks.  Bummer.

We ventured to another theater a couple of weeks later to try again. We made it through this time.  So, there’s your one and two-thirds explanation.

The Soundtrack

Heading into the beginning of each year, I usually adopt a theme song for inspiration. For example, in 2016, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” was my choice as I trained all year for a big Boston Marathon qualifying attempt.

Ever since Bohemian Rhapsody, I’ve been on a Queen music high. I even purchased the movie soundtrack, despite having a ton of Queen in my collection already. For my 2019 theme, I didn’t select one song. Instead, I created a soundtrack, consisting entirely of Queen songs. They are:

  • “Under Pressure”
  • “One Vision”
  • “A Kind of Magic”
  • “Radio Ga Ga”
  • “Don’t Stop Me Now”
  • And the grand finale: “I Want to Break Free”

All of these songs provide certain inspirational messages and reminders. Mostly, the inspiration tends to come more from the title of the songs and the beat, rather than the lyrics. I don’t want you watching the ’80’s video for “I Want to Break Free” and have the wrong idea. The line “God knows, got to make it on my own” is the key phrase from “I Want to Break Free.” And, for me, refers to breaking free from the current day job.

Rock The Vote

Photo Credit: brianjmatis Flickr via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: brianjmatis Flickr via Compfight cc

Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed the last few weeks of my blog blitz. If nothing else, it was free, right? Nothing’s really free, though. And now, I could use your help.

Let me explain. I’ve narrowed down the direction of my writing/blogging to two choices, both with the intent of “Breaking Free.”

The first option is a non-fiction focus. The blog would start focusing on how to change the course of your career after age forty if you’re dissatisfied with your work. The emphasis would be on creatives (visual artists, writers, photographers) who figured out how to change it up.

There would likely be two posts a week. The first post would be around teaching/passing along information related to making a career change. The second post would be an interview. This might be in written form or a podcast. The intent of this option is for me to study how people broke free and eventually produce non-fiction ebooks related to this subject.

The second option is a fiction focused route. This blog would likely start out with only one new post per week, which would probably be an accountability posting recapping how my new focus on writing fiction is going that week. I could probably still do a Throwback Thursday post for a while, too.

I’d use the energy currently spent on the daily blog to hammer out the next novel. I’d also like to finish up some short stories that are in progress and perhaps create a serialized piece for the blog.  I don’t have any real data, but I have this gut feeling that to start making a decent side hustle as a fiction author, I need a minimum of five titles out. Doing some simple maths tells me I have a long way to go.

How can you help? Please take a minute (or less!) to fill out this anonymous four-question survey. One of the questions is a vote on the two blog options.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8Q5DW5L

Thanks for reading and taking the survey,

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PS. The message from “Radio Ga Ga?” The phrase “You’ve yet to have your finest hour!”

One Reply to “Help Wanted”

  1. […] If you want to read the background behind the survey, read yesterday’s post: Help Wanted. There’s a link to the survey there as well. […]

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