2025-04-23
"We humans are not a consistent identity moving through time, but a chain of successive selves, each tangentially linked to, and yet distinct from, the previous and subsequent ones... Our attitudes to our future selves is like our attitude to other people." - Derek Parfit, Philosopher
A trawl through my Obsidian vault this morning unearthed the above quote. I think it's interesting because it explains everything from our current political and ecological problems, to why we smoke or don't exercise or eat bad food.
I'm noodling with the idea of a Department of Works audio series. I have no idea how or when this would happen, but I love the idea of spotlighting some new characters who work several levels below Lairre and Parker; people doing drudge work and maybe stumbling onto something world-threatening, but not having the access to do very much about it. For older readers, imagine The Sandbaggers, but in the DoW.
I'm obsessing over the audio space at the moment, maybe because I can feel my American reps ramping up to make me busy again in TV and film, so I sense a window starting to close and I want to get as much stuff as I can through the gap before it does, enough that it can stake a legitimate claim on my time and sustain itself.
Last night we passed 1,000 sign-ups to the Crowley Kickstarter pre-launch. I don't know what that number means in real terms (I mean, nothing - it's only the pledges that actually count), but it feels very encouraging.
Assuming for a moment that we hit our target and make our first stretch goal, this is what the current plan looks like:
- Write and produce Lovecraft Investigations: Crowley
- Write and produce Mythos 4
- Crowdfund for more Mythos shows, and a Mythos CD Box Set
- Crowdfund for Lovecraft Investigations Season 5
The order of those last two might swap. I don't know where a Department of Works series fits into any of that. It may come about if we set up an audio fiction platform of our own (see 2025-04-18 ). It may be that we get to a stage where, instead of crowdfunding, we are asking people to invest in that audio fiction platform - essentially pre-buying their subscriptions, but with the possibility of that outlay actually returning a profit.
There's a possible version of future-me that earns a living just building these worlds and making these shows, across a variety of media. That could allow other creators to be employed to play in the sandpit and the whole thing would not just be sustainable but profitable, without having to sell out to corporate interests who would want to simplify and commercialise the output. It feels like the seed of something like that is being planted, but how it grows remains to be seen.
One of the things I'm really enjoying about the Cartoon Gravity Club is finding all these like-minded people with different skills who could, in success, become part of this enterprise. There are writers and performers here, obviously, but also artists and game designers and graphic novelists and researchers and librarians and coders and carers and academics... What amazing pathways might open up if we utilised those areas of expertise alongside the more obvious, traditional media routes? And not necessarily just the skills people use in their day-jobs, but the ones they have honed in their hobbies and interests.
It's no great trick to leverage an audience through crowdfunding or straight-up sales, but this new 21st Century possibility of engaging people in the shaping of the thing is really interesting. Obviously it's not for everyone; there are plenty of things that I'm a fan of that I want no hand in producing, simply because I want to be delighted by the output without any foreknowledge. But at least now, in this moment, the possibility exists for people to get involved in surprising, and potentially rewarding, ways.
Anyway, I'm rambling when I should probably be working.
Enjoy Wednesday. Make it a +1 day.