PROLOGUE

The text below describes my situation when I first set up this blog a couple of months ago(then, I had this published on my "about" page). Well, all the hopes I had then have come to fruition - so I've written a new "About" text, and the story below serves now as a "prologue" to the story that is happening right at this moment.

July 2012
I'm a songwriter - among other things. I've been writing songs on and off for 30 years. I've not made a career of it - sometimes I wish I had, mostly I'm content with the life I've led. The last 10 years I've not written anything new, I felt I'd said everything I wanted to say in song for the time being. Instead I took to writing on the web: blogs, personal stuff, articles. Most of my writing covered the same themes as most of my songs: living your own life, being conscious of your choices to be who you want to be... obviously I wasn't finished with my themes, just gave them a new voice.

I'm also an illustrator of childrens picturebooks - I've been doing that for 5 years alongside a "normal" job as school concierge, but it's the closest I've come to having a career. Lately I quit my day job and set up a website called OTTO PrentenBoeken (Otto picturebooks). What I do now is write and illustrate my own kids stories and publish them as videofilms, which means they're digital books which can be purchased from my site. It's a new endeavor and it's going to take a while before it provides a decent income.

But writing kids stories doesn't fulfill my creative/writing needs completely - there's something missing. And alongside all the writing I do for my site, I still find myself needing to write about the thoughts and feelings that keep me continually busy... my life themes.

Perchance I stumbled upon an article on the web over a storytelling phenomenon in New York, and it got me excited. I checked if there was anything like it happening in Amsterdam and there was, at a venue called the Mezrab - and they had an English storytelling evening planned for the following day. This I had to see.

I had an image in my mind of how such an evening would be, filled with interesting friendly people, entertaining storytellers, comradeship, an intellectual atmosphere, singing, laughing, drinking... I was hoping to find a place where I felt at home, among people I would want as friends. Well... I wasn't disappointed. It was all this and more. It was a place that gave me the feeling that I'd found what I'd always been looking for... whatever that might have been. I was immediately hooked and reeled in.

I have the tendency to flip from one passion to another - I want to do a lot of things in my life, but nothing grabs me strongly enough that I stick with it long enough to make something of it. You see, I don't want a job, I don't want a career... I want a lifestyle. Trouble is that without a job or a career, realizing that lifestyle is difficult.

I thought I had an answer when I started illustrating books for publishers - if I did it full-time I'd be free to work my own hours and pretty much anywhere I wanted. But there is a downside working on commission basis: ridiculously short deadlines, very little payment, enormous competition, and publishers who often expect you to adapt your creativity and style to suit them.  

And then the pressure to find the next commission, and hopefully illustrate a book that you like yourself. 
Cue Mezrab... and live, true-story, storytelling.


I feel like I've found my calling. There's a minstrel and raconteur in me screaming to get out, to travel the world and gather tales and share them with others, in story form and in song. I always said that if I lived in the middle-ages I'd have been a travelling minstrel. Ho Hey! I can do it here and now. I can be a writer, a musician, a songwriter, a performing artist, a traveler, an observer, a poet, a philosopher, an artist... I can live my dream lifestyle.


And so this blog, and the inspiration to start writing songs again... songs with real stories in them. Initially I thought this would be just a platform to share my own true stories and songs. But the world of storytelling is much too exciting to leave it at that. I want to make video interviews with other storytellers and writers and musicians and poets... I want to share this new passion of mine with others who feel the same way. I don't want to be a bystander, I want to be involved.


I run the danger now of losing interest in my childrensbook site, but maybe I just need to put it in the right position, the right role, so it becomes a part of my "bigger picture" activity. We'll see how that develops. But this blog and the path it's taking me on is my passion now. And I don't intend it to become a victim of my flippant nature... this is here to stay.