This is where the rubber meets the road and stops to consider the fork. My day job is spent as a self-employed software developer. I started the business on the downward trough of a recession and the effects are finally throwing me up onto the beach. A recurrent question throughout my adulthood has been "what do I want to be when I grow up", and the answer is typically "I don't want to grow up, so that's a stupid question!" The rat raced IT realm requires that you continue learning, pushing the envelope, and lowering your rates to compete with foreigners doing the same thing for one fifth what you charge. Declining budgets and software life cycle spirals (at least for Lotus Notes) have handed me plenty of free time.
With that free time I have invested in recording equipment to work on a "project". It is 7 years in the making. Season after season brings sparks of creativity followed by the small (yet overwhelming) voice saying "no one will care - this is mediocrity at best". I'm putting the noise-cancelling headphones on and plugging ahead for the sake of the idea, not the audience. A friend of mine recently told me that there shouldn't be a confidence killer because if I really believed that God provided a gift, He's not going to let me fail, especially if I am singing to Him. He is the audience.
I've got a couple gigs lined up and will be looking at doing more. Time is no friend though. Without a decent line-up of original tunes, I need to fall back on covers. Learning covers takes time and takes time away from the original songs.
Right now I'm down, but not broken. Open to anything but not discouraged.
Ready for what this test brings - especially the outcome.
