Culture, Career, How-To | Grassroots Media for Artists & Indies | AI-Free
Culture, Career, How-To | Grassroots Media for Artists & Indies | AI-Free
Monica Schley is a musician & poet living in Seattle, Washington. Her poetry has appeared in Burnside Review, Cranky, Cream City Review, Seattle’s Poetry on Buses and KNOCK. Her poetry chapbook “Black Eden: Nocturnes” (Pudding House Press) was published in 2010. As a classically trained harpist, she steadily works on recording, teaching, playing private events and public shows. She has performed with jazz luminaries, pop stars and indie rockers. She sings and composes for her band The Daphnes and she’s also a Certified Clinical Musician.
If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will either. Do your work with conviction and authenticity, and what is more, be true to your word. You don’t have to be a perfectionist, you just have to do what you say you are going to do.
In one year’s time, I’d say I’m not as rosey-eyed.
If music is something you want to have in your life, your child will have to blend into this lifestyle, not be separate from it.
I’m embracing the fact that though my time to work on my craft has diminished, the quality and focus of it seems to have improved.
I would hear the self-doubt in the back my head saying I wasn’t good enough. Or that I was foolish. Or that music can’t be a career.
Here’s what I’ve gleaned in the past decade or so of doing this sort of work.
The temptation is very real as a freelancer to work like crazy all the time, fueled by passion and the necessity to pay the bills.