Hello, everyone! Thank you for finding time in your busy day to spend a few minutes discussing the state of music journalism with us. We never set out to spend the week talking to writers directly, but that trend certainly seems to be emerging. If you’re not upset, neither are we.
The post you’re about to enjoy is a guest piece from Geoff Burns, who reached out early last week and told us he had some thoughts he would like to share with our readers. We told Geoff to submit his work, which he did, and upon review we knew it had to run here on the Haulix company blog.
This site exists to promote the future of the entertainment industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your entertainment-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
As a recent college graduate without cementing a professional career as of yet, it’s easy to feel unsuccessful. Especially if your part-time job consists of wrapping hamburgers and dealing with impatient customers. Every. Single. Day. The only motivation to stay focused in trying to one day secure that “dream job” is to drown my thoughts in music. More importantly, to stay focused on the ultimate goal of being able to support yourself financially as a music writer, you need to make time to actually do just that.
Many times each week I find myself questioning what it is I’m actually doing with my life. Is working at a fast food restaurant as a college graduate really worth going for the goal of getting that dream job as a music writer, even if it may never happen? The answer is yes, of course it is. But it’s difficult to keep reminding myself this after working 40 hours a week and still having the motivation to write each night. As long as you have the willingness to set aside 30 minutes of any kind of writing a night, that’s better than not writing at all.
Another factor that plays into struggling with motivation to write is the people you are constantly surrounded by. You need to find people who have aspirations and goals in life, people who always want to keep moving forward. As long as you can find that certain kind of positivity, writing might seem easier after a long day of the “real life” job you’re only working at to just get by. If you don’t have any of these people in your life and only the ones who care about thing like alcohol and drugs, then go to a quiet room and force yourself to type words. I know this is easy to read but hard to do, but once you get those first couple of word written, there’s nothing that can stop you from there.
It doesn’t matter what kind of job you have to pay your bills right now because after a long work day let’s face it, we’re all extremely tired. There’s nothing like taking a long shower after work and kicking your feet up on the couch trying to relax. It always seems like the perfect way of how I want to spend my time after a long day. But there’s always music to turn to. Whether it’s a single on the radio or your favorite album from when you were younger, you need to find that certain song or album that provides you with motivation and purpose and write about it.
I know it’s extremely difficult to keep wanting to write every day. It’s like having homework even when you’ve been out of school for years. The answer is simple. If you really want to land your dream job, you need to go out and actually work for it. As sadly as this sounds, the job isn’t going to knock on your front door tomorrow morning and offer you a position. Whatever job you have right now is worth it because you’re either paying bills, student loans and anything else you need to survive. It’s allowing time for you to sit down and write words. So keep your chin up and keep striving because that day will come no matter what.
