Just Keep Crawling

I had to google what to call the movement of snails and decide whether it they slither, slide, or crawl. Turns out, they crawl.

A few weeks ago I was very close to giving up on Corpse Wax and I didn’t believe I had it in me to keep trying to make something work which was absorbing so many hours, and giving so little in return. Depressingly, the social media rant about giving up was my most engaged with content that I have ever produced. It was very heart-warming to hear that people would care if this strange, fat-obsessed endeavour ceased to be. The best thing that came out of it was my friend Luke (Vile Eight!) giving me a very no-nonsense talking to and far more support than I repay.

What came out of that is this website, and a lot of irons in the fire which will come to fruition in the next few months as I attempt to bring a bit of vibrancy back to this adventure. There are a lot of lessons for me learn and I’m becoming abundantly aware of so many things I am not good at. I have to learn some really boring stuff about search engine optimisation, collaborations, and perhaps more stressfully I have to sort out a mailing list situation.

However, I’ve already made some of the more creative crawls towards a real business model and I’ve formalised how my commission structure is going to work. I’ve had some really enjoyable commissions already, including this fat vampire babe for the next Glorified Cabaret event, “Theatre des Vampires”. That vampire then garnered some more interest in my work and I’ve been able to pick up some good leads and I’ve been approached for more work since.

Why am I sharing all of this? Firstly, I miss writing. It helps me put some perspective into the whirlpool of confusion that is running a business and other things. Mostly, I hope someone else thinking about quitting can read this and come to the same realisation that I did… that maybe you don’t have to quit but you certainly do have to change, and you absolutely have to learn from others who have more skills / experience / talent / practice hours than you.

Surround yourself with people who can do things that you cannot do, and you’ll eventually be inspired to learn (or persuade them to do it for you).

p.s. if you like dark art you NEED to go and see Luke at www.vileeight.com

p.p.s. if you like fat art, nudity and gorgeous people then Glorified Cabaret is the one for you. I’ll see you there too for the Theatre des Vampire event on