The script is complete for The Seamstress Who Wove the Moon. Granted, it has been complete for a couple months now. The next steps, recording and editing and sound design, has been stalled. On the one end; it is one of the hardest parts of creating a podcast for me. But it is also because I have been overwhelmed by one of the other storyteller plagues — being overworked and underpaid.
This is something I have been told to watch out for on my journey. I was so afraid that this entire experiment (not just the Storyteller Project but this whole freelancer/full time creator thing) was going to fail. I was afraid of being unprofitable, or not being profitable quickly enough. Add that to my own mound of insecurities and the entire recession that everyone except for the 1% is going through and that is a recipe for self-sabotage.
Instead of trusting in myself and my community and my work, earlier this year I began multiple, on-going part-time jobs that would pay me a survival rate and overloaded my schedule with them.
It’s funny, isn’t it? The whole point to this entire project was to explore options and challenge assumptions about being a storyteller in community. It was meant to test alternative models to not just create something precious for the collective, but to be paid for the work we do.
I scared myself so badly at simply testing this idea that I abandoned it emotionally and mentally.
I understand this is hard work. All of this labor, whether it is a part-time job to pay the bills or a creation of a new folk tale, is hard work. And I want to provide a wonderful story for you all. So instead of freaking out about trying to find time to sound design and edit all of this, I am going to be chunking out Seamstress into three, raw and (mostly) unedited, parts. Because I, personally, need to keep moving. I want to do more folk tales! I absolutely LOVE the live collective tarot reading! I love the moodboards, and I love the writing and the performing. My sound design anxiety is what is stopping multiple projects at this point. And this is an experiment, after all. Let’s see what happens.
Don’t worry, I will make sure it’s not totally un-listenable. But I think the community deserves this story. I made it for you, and I should offer it–raw, unprofitable, and all.
Stay tuned for The Seamstress Who Wove the Moon: Part One in your podcast feeds this week.
Your friendly neighborhood storyteller,
Lisette Alvarez
The Storyteller Project invites you to find your own fire. You can follow this project via your own particular hearth: Email, Tumblr, Discord, Facebook, Patreon, and more.