"Comes a Time, When You're Drifting..."

I can't tell you how many times, since I graduated from college a few years ago, that someone has come up to me with a pat on the shoulder, a smile on his or her face, and said, "Do what you love." For a living, that is. Good advice, right? Well, sure, until you actually enter into the real world and you find that it's not all pixie dust and Splash Mountain.

Still, "do what you love" is the kind of thing that I look at as a goal in life, more than real, practical advice for a working professional. I mean, think about the one thing in life that you love to do more than anything else.

And then think about that thing being your job. Your profession. The thing what pays them bills.

And that's pretty cool, and nice, and whatever, but (at least for me, at this moment in my life) it's pretty much a pastoral poem, if you know what I mean. It's idyllic and wonderful and it's...well, it's just a long ways off, is all.

And I guess that's fine and I can deal with it for now, but only if every day (Every. Single. Day.) I keep in mind that there's Something Else in the distance. There's a publishing house with my name on it, or a comic book with my name on it, or well, anything besides a police report, with my name on it.

That keeps me going, it really does. With this economy, everything's pretty scary right now. And I know it's (finally) showing signs of turning a corner, but I dunno about you, I haven't seen anything even resembling something better at this point.

Having said that, a few months ago I decided to start a business. Yep, I am a small business owner in America. The company is incorporated, and everything! And truth be told, getting it that way was pretty easy. The planning and organizing and putting the business model into practice...yeah, that's been the tough part. But, slowly and steadily, the company has launched, and we have actual, real life clients.

And we're always looking for more, we're always pushing to get our name out there, we're always looking to keep moving forward.

Which is why my posts lately may seem a bit scatter-brained. In addition to my regular job, this new company is keeping me up and about at all hours. I don't have much time to do the things I really enjoy doing, such as talk to friends, or go out ("go out" as in doing something other than a company function, that is), or even reading as much as I'd like to.

When the day job's done, the second job begins, and it lasts until I fall asleep. I get phone calls that last for hours--sometimes right smack in the middle of the day, sometimes right when I'm about to go to bed for the night. Weekends are the same way. Always promoting, always working, always trying to get ahead.

Actually, my one saving grace during the week is that hour-long visit to my LCS, where I really do just disappear into the funny books.

And that's fine. I'm one of those people who has to keep doing stuff because I get bored so incredibly quickly.

But the point I'm trying to make is, this new company is a step towards doing what I love. This new company involves something I love, but it's not comics. And for this moment, for right now, I think that's OK. Because I'm learning how to do things I never even knew had to be done.

And that can only help me when it comes time to open that publishing house down the road.

But for now, I will happily toil on (and try not to go bankrupt in the process).

(Oh, and bonus points for anyone who gets where the title of this post comes from.)