Let's get this ball rolling again...

It's high-time I got this blog in order. The "about" page talks about the circumstances I made this blog under - four years ago. It's unbelievable how different my life is now, and the experience I've gained in that time. Now that I'm looking to break into some kind of professional writing, it might be time to use this blog properly - instead of as the random creative work of David between the ages of 17 and 21 (almost).

Me, circa mid-2018

I link this blog on a few social medias and I've gotten the occasional person actually mention it to me, so the thought occurs I should try to make productive posts on here - discussion on a topic, my feelings on a new technology or thing, or maybe just the kind of essays I would write if I had the ear of the right person. We'll see.

Me, circa late 2020. Okay, a friend of mine photoshopped it, but, you know, close enough

But for now, let's unpack - what has changed? Where am I now? Where am I looking to be? What's the point of maintaining a blog that has probably seen single-digit readership?

First off - when I was 17, I was making Star Wars models (and writing fanfiction about them on here) for pennies as a commissioned 3D modeller. I was with my first girlfriend, hadn't finished my A-Levels, had barely finished my GCSEs, and didn't have a tremendous amount of self-esteem. Life kept on turning. These days I'm near-enough 21, leading award-winning hobbyist game projects, spent two years working in retail (and got promoted to a junior manager before I decided to focus on university work), on my fifth partner (but, I think, the One, now), have nearly finished my degree with a predicted overall 1st, and have a good amount of self-esteem. The key point? Everything I was doing whilst I was 17 is the same as now, but developed, refined, and with a better understanding of where the end goal for these things should be. Most of these is prompted by me taking stock, around the age of 18, and figuring out where I wanted to be when I finished college and then university. A bad relationship in that time - maybe we'll talk about it on this blog, maybe not, but I'm tending towards the latter - also prompted a sort of "self discovery".

So that leaves - where next? My hobbyist projects are still going, seeing good releases, and going down well with people, winning awards and getting good reviews; those I'll keep working on, developing technical and leadership skills. The big thing, right now, is jobs. In around six months, I'm looking to go into professional work. For a while I was really unsure about where or what - I went for technology initially, but realised that writing is my passion, and managing people, too. Technology was always set-dressing to me pursuing creative and personal goals. This put me in a difficult position - follow my passion (writing) and lose out on a liveable job and wage, or pursue the pragmatic path and lose out on my passion?

What I didn't know - until just a few weeks ago - is there's a third path: Copywriting.

For my degree, I picked a module called copywriting - I frankly didn't know what it was about besides "advertising stuff". In one lesson, my understanding was revolutionised. I absorbed literature on the subject like nobody's business and communicate with my tutor several times a week about the subject and about my work. Copywriting switched on a light bulb I didn't know was there - I went from having no clear plan (something both very rare and quite anxious for me) to having a very clear end goal. It's not easy to get into this industry - I'm not sure it's easy to get into any industry anymore, especially in a post-COVID economy - but when I have an end goal, I circumvent whatever issues are in my way to getting there. Copywriting or bust. 2021 is mine again.