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the_gneech"Deleriously happy" was always my favorite answer to that question. "Filthy rich" was a good second choice.
However, over the course of my life, I have had many things I wanted to be.
My earliest one that I remember was "an astronaut." In fact, I wanted to be the first person on Jupiter. (Yes, I know, re: Jupiter. But I was five, okay?)
Around that same time, I started making little illustrated stories about Bambi, based on a "Little, Golden" book I had: Bambi: Friends of the Forest. Besides Bambi, Thumper, and Flower, it also had a random beaver, and compulsive handwashing raccoon, and Chip and Dale. (Chip and Dale? Why Chip and Dale?) Not too long after that, I read Felix Salten's original Bambi: A Life In the Woods (or, I should say, an English translation of it), and was traumatized for years. But that's another story all together.
Anyway, the astronaut idea gradually lost its charm, and I had started gaining more interest in illustration, particularly influenced by "Peanuts." My dad worked at a paper factory and would bring home reams of typing paper, which I used to do two things: draw pictures of Star Trek or of various cartoon characters, or to write, although that mostly came later.
Sometime around age 10, I got typing lessons. My mother had an IBM Selectric that she had brought home for work purposes, but I used it a lot more than she did, so it was decreed that if I was going to be typing, that I should be typing properly. In this same rough era, The Empire Strikes Back came out, and was quite nutty over Star Wars stuff in general ... so I started writing about Star Wars ... and drawing about Star Wars. I created a Star Wars comic book on typing paper, involving Luke, a vaguely Han-like buddy for him of my own creation who was also in Rogue Squadron, and a woman who was the object of their respective affections. (Yes, those of you who read Suburban Jungle, I did write this same kind of stuff when I was ten. Now you know.)
At the time, I was going to a private school, basically because I wasn't socially developed enough to survive public school, and I went through their English curriculum like it was water. By the time I entered high school (back at public school again), I had the equivalent of a college freshman's level English.
At that point, I was more or less assuming that I'd probably be a writer, but then one day I saw "The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- and suddenly I wanted to be a movie star! Specifically, an action hero! I was roughly the shape of Pugsley Addams and had no social skills or even basic hygiene (ew), but I wanted to be an action hero!
So throughout the course of my high school career, I was in theater, figuring that would be the gateway to the movies when I grew up. Except, as time went on, and I began to meet other people who were in theater, I came to dislike what I saw. Everything was about ego; other theater types were flaky, overemotional, self-obsessed social dropouts. And while this made me blend right in, it also made me want to get the hell out. I didn't want to be that way, and I didn't want to hang out with people who were.
So in college, which I started with the intent of studying theater, I wandered around a bit and ended up with a degree in English, with a double-handful of courses in philosophy, and a lot of self-taught knowledge about cartoons, which had kept on bubbling along in the background during high school. (A friend of mine and I had collaborated at lunch and in history class on what could almost be considered a daily comic strip, although it was never published and had a total audience of about ten people.)
During and after college, I decided to give a try to both cartooning and writing as professions, figuring I'd do graphics as a "day job." At first, I couldn't even really get graphics work, either ... I got data entry jobs, which segued to desktop publishing jobs, which segued to graphics. I wrote, wrote, wrote, and drew, drew, drew, while working all the live-long day on Powerpoint presenations and government contractor proposals and newsletters.
Both my graphics and my cartooning hit a peak when I was hired by LifeMinders. Finally, a job that paid what I considered a good, livable wage ... so I could do my cartoons and writing at night and not be combing the want-ads every weekend. It was nice to let my "day" career take a backseat for a while and run itself, and know that all the bills would be paid.
The downside was that LifeMinders was very demanding -- and got more so as the dot-com magic began to wear off. Finally, one day, I had to create 20 banner ads in one day -- after having spent the past month churning out ad after ad after ad, often working 60 hrs/week.
That was the day my graphics ability burned out.
Yes, I am still capable of doing it, and doing it fairly well. But I have no passion for it any more. I don't get excited by a cool layout ... I don't drool over nifty fonts ... I don't care about the intricacies of Helvetica vs. Arial. As long as it doesn't look horrible ... I just don't care. And then, of course, LifeMinders up and pink-slipped me.
I was confident that I could just tutor myself in java, find an entry-level job, and be working again by the end of the summer. I was sure that by this time, I would be making $50k+ as a programmer. But java was harder than I expected, and there were precious few entry-level jobs -- or for that matter, jobs of any kind -- to be found.
So here I am, foaming lattes at Starbucks, once again looking through the want-ads every Sunday, and wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Yes, I want to write; yes, I want to draw. But those haven't paid me a livable wage yet and don't look like they will before the rent comes due again. If they're going to be stuff I do on the side, because they don't have short-term potential, then what am I going to do for a day job?
I've gone through personality-type tests, and they always come back with what I know anyway: Do something creative or artistic. Thanks for the helpful advice. What those tests utterly fail to do is take into account the fact that creative/artistic jobs are few and far between, have tons of people who want them, and only the top 0.005% of them pay the kind of money I want.
Sure, if I was willing to spend my life being a supplemental salary in a family unit I could sell commissions and cartooning books and the occasional roleplaying game module while working on "The Big Novel." But I'm not. I want at least $30k/year, and I want it to start sooner rather than later. Once I have it, it'll pay for me to get some more vocational training or maybe night school to get $50k/year, $60k/year, or more if I can get it. I'll keep drawing, and I'll keep writing -- I always have and I probably always will. But until I get into a good setup again, they've got to take a back seat to this more primary problem.
I need a career that pays. Okay.
So what pays? That I have the ability to do, and can stand to do?
I have no idea.
And I have no idea how to find out, either. Nobody I know makes any money either, except for the guy who sold me on java, a guy who has a job that leaves him constantly stressed out, and an entrepreneur (and I am a rotten entrepreneur).
What do I want to be when I grow up?
The winner of the lottery, I guess. :-`
-The Gneech
However, over the course of my life, I have had many things I wanted to be.
My earliest one that I remember was "an astronaut." In fact, I wanted to be the first person on Jupiter. (Yes, I know, re: Jupiter. But I was five, okay?)
Around that same time, I started making little illustrated stories about Bambi, based on a "Little, Golden" book I had: Bambi: Friends of the Forest. Besides Bambi, Thumper, and Flower, it also had a random beaver, and compulsive handwashing raccoon, and Chip and Dale. (Chip and Dale? Why Chip and Dale?) Not too long after that, I read Felix Salten's original Bambi: A Life In the Woods (or, I should say, an English translation of it), and was traumatized for years. But that's another story all together.Anyway, the astronaut idea gradually lost its charm, and I had started gaining more interest in illustration, particularly influenced by "Peanuts." My dad worked at a paper factory and would bring home reams of typing paper, which I used to do two things: draw pictures of Star Trek or of various cartoon characters, or to write, although that mostly came later.
Sometime around age 10, I got typing lessons. My mother had an IBM Selectric that she had brought home for work purposes, but I used it a lot more than she did, so it was decreed that if I was going to be typing, that I should be typing properly. In this same rough era, The Empire Strikes Back came out, and was quite nutty over Star Wars stuff in general ... so I started writing about Star Wars ... and drawing about Star Wars. I created a Star Wars comic book on typing paper, involving Luke, a vaguely Han-like buddy for him of my own creation who was also in Rogue Squadron, and a woman who was the object of their respective affections. (Yes, those of you who read Suburban Jungle, I did write this same kind of stuff when I was ten. Now you know.)
At the time, I was going to a private school, basically because I wasn't socially developed enough to survive public school, and I went through their English curriculum like it was water. By the time I entered high school (back at public school again), I had the equivalent of a college freshman's level English.
At that point, I was more or less assuming that I'd probably be a writer, but then one day I saw "The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- and suddenly I wanted to be a movie star! Specifically, an action hero! I was roughly the shape of Pugsley Addams and had no social skills or even basic hygiene (ew), but I wanted to be an action hero!
So throughout the course of my high school career, I was in theater, figuring that would be the gateway to the movies when I grew up. Except, as time went on, and I began to meet other people who were in theater, I came to dislike what I saw. Everything was about ego; other theater types were flaky, overemotional, self-obsessed social dropouts. And while this made me blend right in, it also made me want to get the hell out. I didn't want to be that way, and I didn't want to hang out with people who were.
So in college, which I started with the intent of studying theater, I wandered around a bit and ended up with a degree in English, with a double-handful of courses in philosophy, and a lot of self-taught knowledge about cartoons, which had kept on bubbling along in the background during high school. (A friend of mine and I had collaborated at lunch and in history class on what could almost be considered a daily comic strip, although it was never published and had a total audience of about ten people.)
During and after college, I decided to give a try to both cartooning and writing as professions, figuring I'd do graphics as a "day job." At first, I couldn't even really get graphics work, either ... I got data entry jobs, which segued to desktop publishing jobs, which segued to graphics. I wrote, wrote, wrote, and drew, drew, drew, while working all the live-long day on Powerpoint presenations and government contractor proposals and newsletters.
Both my graphics and my cartooning hit a peak when I was hired by LifeMinders. Finally, a job that paid what I considered a good, livable wage ... so I could do my cartoons and writing at night and not be combing the want-ads every weekend. It was nice to let my "day" career take a backseat for a while and run itself, and know that all the bills would be paid.
The downside was that LifeMinders was very demanding -- and got more so as the dot-com magic began to wear off. Finally, one day, I had to create 20 banner ads in one day -- after having spent the past month churning out ad after ad after ad, often working 60 hrs/week.
That was the day my graphics ability burned out.
Yes, I am still capable of doing it, and doing it fairly well. But I have no passion for it any more. I don't get excited by a cool layout ... I don't drool over nifty fonts ... I don't care about the intricacies of Helvetica vs. Arial. As long as it doesn't look horrible ... I just don't care. And then, of course, LifeMinders up and pink-slipped me.
I was confident that I could just tutor myself in java, find an entry-level job, and be working again by the end of the summer. I was sure that by this time, I would be making $50k+ as a programmer. But java was harder than I expected, and there were precious few entry-level jobs -- or for that matter, jobs of any kind -- to be found.
So here I am, foaming lattes at Starbucks, once again looking through the want-ads every Sunday, and wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Yes, I want to write; yes, I want to draw. But those haven't paid me a livable wage yet and don't look like they will before the rent comes due again. If they're going to be stuff I do on the side, because they don't have short-term potential, then what am I going to do for a day job?
I've gone through personality-type tests, and they always come back with what I know anyway: Do something creative or artistic. Thanks for the helpful advice. What those tests utterly fail to do is take into account the fact that creative/artistic jobs are few and far between, have tons of people who want them, and only the top 0.005% of them pay the kind of money I want.
Sure, if I was willing to spend my life being a supplemental salary in a family unit I could sell commissions and cartooning books and the occasional roleplaying game module while working on "The Big Novel." But I'm not. I want at least $30k/year, and I want it to start sooner rather than later. Once I have it, it'll pay for me to get some more vocational training or maybe night school to get $50k/year, $60k/year, or more if I can get it. I'll keep drawing, and I'll keep writing -- I always have and I probably always will. But until I get into a good setup again, they've got to take a back seat to this more primary problem.
I need a career that pays. Okay.
So what pays? That I have the ability to do, and can stand to do?
I have no idea.
And I have no idea how to find out, either. Nobody I know makes any money either, except for the guy who sold me on java, a guy who has a job that leaves him constantly stressed out, and an entrepreneur (and I am a rotten entrepreneur).
What do I want to be when I grow up?
The winner of the lottery, I guess. :-`
-The Gneech
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-19 04:30 pm (UTC)Anyway, something will come up. It just depends on how you go about doing it. And most people don't like doing their passions as their jobs because they become just that: jobs.
-_-
What to be when you grow up...
Date: 2002-03-19 05:11 pm (UTC)*shakeshakeshake his head*
More seriously... it sounds like the best thing to do is to try something a little different. Try designing your dream job from scratch. Imagine what you would do if you had already won the lottery, and you had no worries about money. Try to make the fantasy as specific as possible: how would you spend each day?
Next... how could you make money from that wish?
For example, what have you done to try to sell Suburban Jungle or Never Never to newspapers? Have you made a sample of your best strips, and have you sent them off directly to newspapers? Aside from Plan 9's books, what else have you done to sell them?
no subject
My only I want to be this when I get older, and I do mean my only, was a writer. I had my heart set on that since I was seven. I have come so very little since then that it shames me to think of it. Whatever happened?
I know what happened. So do you. Thank God I'm fixing that. I may be a publishable writer yet. (I know I am a writer just by watching how I behave about it.)
There is so much more that this post of yours makes me think, but I just don't have the time and the inclination to go into them here. Just as well. The world is watching here. (Well, more of it than in my journal anyway) -Frisk
no subject
Date: 2002-03-19 07:09 pm (UTC)Re: What to be when you grow up...
Date: 2002-03-19 07:13 pm (UTC)There have been various feelers put out re: SJ and NN ... but SJ isn't really newspaper material, and NN is going off in directions I don't want to pursue in its current format. I've put more work towards making money with SJ/NN at cons and such, via merchandise etc., but it's been slow going. -TG
no subject
Date: 2002-03-21 08:45 am (UTC)I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up because growing up was an unfathomable concept. I've always wanted to stay in college because I used to be good at academics, but now I think that half the time I spent in college was trying to put off finding myself. Or maybe I was finding myself. Who knows?
The only guy I know of who makes money right now spent 12 years in the educational system being trained to be a doctor. It's not exactly what he wants to be doing right now, either. For some reason, he actually likes to have a little free time...He'd rather test video games for a living, he says. Then I tell him what kind of programming skills he'd have to have for that job.
It really sucks when someone with a viable degree can't find work, but I know that you will come up with something. You have already made sacrifices for your work.
"Deliriously happy" is as good an answer as any. I think most of us have to settle for "emotionally mature", which I see you as, having taken this Starbucks job and doing it to the best of your ability rather than sulking there.
no subject
Date: 2002-03-22 10:51 am (UTC)