We Are The Art

Building a queer theatre streaming platform is its own art form…

Happy news: I got the privilege of guesting on Gender Stories to talk about Shakespeare, gender, and the inspiration for adding VIP opportunities to RGS.

You can find it here as well as on any podcast listening platform, including Spotify, Apple, Google, iHeart, Pandora, etc. It is also on YouTube here!

I recently watched Brandon Sanderson's talk on why he rebels against AI art.

I highly recommend the whole thing, but here's the TLDR in relation to my epiphany:

We are the art. Part of why we create art is because we grow in the process. The artist is impacted by the art as they make it in way a machine cannot.

This perspective connected to my business as I delved into rewrites for my debut novel, Desert Phoenixes.

I've been working on this novel for...five or six years? A while. Multiple rounds of beta readers & revisions before I finally got feedback last year saying, "This is ready to publish."

So I sent it out.

Months of quiet.

And then my impatience got me.

I self-published it. Ordered a couple print copies. Even tried to read it live on YouTube for a while.

Then, I heard back from a publisher who I'd thought was a no. They were incredibly interested in publishing!

So I pivoted. Took the self-published listing down, accepted rewrites.

All the while, I've been managing my impatience around growing my business so that its revenue can support me full-time.

Hearing Sanderson's point about how the journey makes art of the artist made me pause this week.

I started to think, what if I approached my business the way I approach writing long-form?

Because I don't get upset with myself for revising based on feedback.

Stories grow in layers, but it doesn't make the previous layer bad or worthless.

Quality improves over time, but you have to start with what you've got and follow its growth.

I'm so grateful for each one of you who's reading this.

You're getting to see the early drafts, the ones most authors don't share.

And I can't wait to see what the next draft looks like.

When you're ready to see yourself in our story:

You're loved. You're not alone. Welcome to the RGS story.

Remember, you're loved. You're not alone.

Sending hugs,

Roen