It's funny how art reaches people. I started releasing a novella series called "Confessions of the Damaged" 3 years ago, and at first nobody read it. Aside from 4-5 of my best friends at Hive, I didn't get an ounce of feedback for months.
Since then, it's been trickling in. About 6 months ago, I started getting real feedback about my writing from a variety of friends and people I hadn't even met.
First I got a message from a Chinese digital artist I had met twice at a cafe/bar I frequent. My book was on sale there and apparently she was attracted by the cover @vincentnijman provided me and when the owner told her who I was and she realized she had met me she decided to buy it.
A few weeks later, a girl who I see as a baby sister in Hong Kong asked if I could send her a copy. I sent it over and she gave a lengthy response to every single chapter, telling me she cried multiple times throughout the story.
About a month ago at a music studio/bar, I talked to the bartender who happens to be from Georgia. I told her my name and she got really excited. "You are Zack!? I just read your book, it's amazing!!!" Apparently, she had received it as a present from the girl who first bought it at my friends house.
We ended up talking for 2 hours about the artistic process and our experiences and she related everything back to my writing. It was an amazing conversation.
Yesterday, the bar owner friend from Indonesia told me that he had been reading chapters from the sample in his shop and asked me if he could film me for an experimental film loosely based off the themes in my book among other things.
This kind of feedback lit me up so much. It's not about getting praise, it's feeling that my hard work actually reached someone, actually enjoying the ripples that I sent out into the ocean, and seeing that they had the intended effect, at least on a handful of people.
We all know that there are many artists who don't become famous until way after their death. It's a very strange think to ponder. Imagine thinking your life amounts to nothing when you die, only for the entire world to know your name a few decades after you are gone.
I am not all that concerned with having my name echo through eternity, and I am not really seeking to defeat death through any kind of legacy. I just think that life is beautiful and there is a lot I want to share...
...I want to make life more fun and enjoyable and meaningful. I want to create that positive feedback loop with life where the love I put out can compound and do more good, for me, for others, for whoever it's meant for.
This is the joy of creation. You throw a rock into the water and watch the wave ripple outward, without expectation of what it will turn into, just knowing that it was the rock you wanted to throw in the place you wanted to throw it and in the moment you threw it.
It's especially fun to create with other people. I never imagined that one of the most fun aspects of writing would be trying to decide which artist would be the best fit for each part of this series, then talking to them back and forth about what the cover should look like and seeing what the story inspires them to create.
Each artist has a very different process and it's incredible to see how they work behind the scenes and to feed them ideas along the way.
I got permission from these three amazing artists (including @vincentnijman from hive) to make merchandise with their designs.
I am not sure I'll make much money with these products, I'd have to sell a whole lot of them, but it's just another way for both my work and their work to ripple outward. If one person discovers the stories from asking a friend what their bag design is, or if one person discovers the artists other work because of a mention of them in the product description, then it's worth making this merchandise.
Since everything is 20% off at Redbubble right now, I might as well let everyone know about it.
First came the bags:
I+Everything Merch
The first design (part 3) is by an Indonesian NFT artist (@masimulus on instagram), the second (part 2) by a Chinese painter and tattoo artist friend (@wei.go on instagram), and the third is by good friend filmmaker and author and Hive All Star @vincentnijman.
This past month I realized the designs would go perfectly on socks and so I set everything up and got a few pairs delivered to my house:
The Socks of Destiny! for $14.06 plus shipping!
So sorry that in the end, this post ended up being a plug for some merch that I'm selling. In the beginning it was going to a pretty straightforward plug, but I thought that wouldn't be fun and would feel a bit more like spam to me, so I decided to fill a post with appreciation for the people who have read or given feedback on my work and the artists who made them as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside.
I appreciate you for reading this too! Even if you don't buy a thing. Thanks for being along for the ride and letting my ripples move you in whatever way they do, even if it's just for a tiny flicker of a moment in the vast ocean of infinite.
Love you all!
Novels/music/merch/social media/patreon:
https://linktr.ee/selfhelp4trolls
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Confessions of the Damaged 1.1-1.3 on Amazon