What is My Plan?

I remember this one interview that Lil Yachty did and the guy was asking him, “what do you want from hip-hop?” and Lil Yachty was confused why the guy was pressing him. He was thinking “I just like making music with my friends, I don’t have any higher agendas”.

That is surely one way to go about something, and I’m not sure that there’s anything wrong with that. However, I think way too much about everything and I indeed have a goal with everything. If something is worth my time then it has to have a pretty good purpose. Maybe that is too utilitarian of me, I like to joke that it is the German in me (I’m half German). I simply want to do something justice. If I call myself a writer and put books out into the world, I want to have a good “why”.

So…what is my “why”? What is my plan? Honestly my end goal is to make a living off of writing and be able to put my full energy and focus into it as my full-time job. I want to write everything from blog posts, to devotionals, to novels, to poetry, to children’s books. I have no shortage of goals for a writing career. Another big plus is that I plan on raising and establishing a family with my wife and I would love to be able to work from home. I want to be there with my kids, not away at an office everyday. That is partly why the degree that I am currently pursuing is Project Management, because I heard that there are many remote Project Management positions.

So we know that I want a writing career and to be able to live off of that, but why? Well I have another blog post dedicated to why I like writing that you can read here:

But the bigger goal? I want to uplift others. I want others to be inspired by my work, find comfort in it, and most importantly I want it to lead you to sit with hard questions. I want to write about the real real. I want to lay out all of my human emotions, thoughts, and fears. My faith, my pitfalls, my personal growth, my observations.

If I write poems I want you to relate to my words and find comfort in that. If I write children’s books, I want the lessons in those pages to stick with the readers for decades to come. If I write a devotional I want it to lead to breakthrough in someone’s spiritual life.

Those are a lot of big goals.

So how am I working towards that right now?

Well, being that I work full time and am a full time student online, I don’t have as much time as it seems. I still want to nurture the marriage that I have been blessed with, be a good steward of my home, take care of my body, spend time with others, and entertain my other hobbies. That is quite a lot, so where does writing fit in?

Right now my goal is to write during the summers. This summer I took a break from classes until the fall, so I have all of the time that I would normally spend on school that I can now use towards my writing projects. This summer I built this website, wrote and soon-to-be-published my new book, Overpour, and have continued to polish my socials to better represent me as a “brand”. I am kind of learning all of this on my own for the first time so there is a lot of experimenting involved.

The traditional way that authors become authors is writing a manuscript, pitching it to a book press, getting a deal, so on and so forth. Kind of like musical artists and record labels. The problem is that this is highly competitive and also a lot to navigate on my own. I don’t really want the trouble of finding a literary agent that can pitch me to several publishing houses. I also have yet to come up with a work that I would deem worthy of such effort, if I’m being honest.

My first two books are beautiful in my eyes and I am so proud that I wrote them because they are the genesis to this whole thing. My first steps, but that’s the thing - my first steps. They aren’t the most refined, polished, and powerful things ever. They are learning experiences that lead me to that next project.

I also have seen too many stories of artists who sign contracts then feel creatively restricted. Since this is kind of like a hobby to me for the moment, I might as well retain all of my creative control and be able to make literally whatever I want. That is such a great opportunity and position to be in, in my humble opinion. Right now I would rather that nobody reads this article or buys my books as long as I am still proud of what I did. I don’t want to sell out just to get more sales!

So…writing in the summer, publishing and promoting during the fall/spring, and in the meantime running my author website (this one!) and staying somewhat active on Instagram. That’s really all I can worry about right now. I have a backlog to get through and God-willing a lot of time to work on it.

I’m excited to see how I evolve as an author and as an artist. If more people find me and follow me or buy my books, then I will be very grateful and very happy. If I grow towards a publishing deal in the future, yippy! If neither of those happen, at least I will have remained who I am and I will be very content with the action I took on a dear passion of mine.