"Waddup all of my MVP's and welcome back to my channel"
… is something I’ve gotten accustomed to saying over my two- year span on YouTube. For those of you who have been following me since I stood teetering from 30-50 YouTube subscribers or for those of you who poked around my website, you’ll know that I have been servicing the online poetry community with tips and advice on how to write poetry. Starting out, I didn’t know how much time it would actually take to make a YouTube video. As like many of you, I thought it was just as easy as turning on the camera and speaking but I didn’t expect how difficult it could be to speak to a lens of a camera and visualize real-life people on the other side listening. I also didn’t account for how hard planning and filming a video would be while studying for my Masters simultaneously. And if this wasn’t enough, I had to learn the heating schedule of my pre-war apartment so I wouldn’t be having a sing-off with my radiator. Because of this, I only produced about 5 videos in 2017.
Finding balance was my biggest challenge while being a graduate student and an artist that was active in my city, and I struggled to be consistent all the way up until I graduated in May 2018. Not to mention that I was a YouTuber splitting my identity into a community organizer, professional writer, professor, and substitute teacher. Afterwards, I began to allocate more time to the Youtube channel and had found some helpful ways to make videos on the go. I also was able to put more time into the quality of my videos, which I am still improving every time I turn on the camera. (You’ll be able to notice the difference in lighting, sharpness, and graphics change over time.)
Simply put, multi-tasking, grinding, and learning was the inspiration for what followed on the channel. My vlogs, interviews, and recordings of other events became different facets of my channel that started to serve the growing online community in a different way:
Individuals that thought the life of a writer was a mystery would be able to watch my vlogs and see just how a poet navigates a piece of their day.
They were also able to see poets in communication with one another, answering the burning questions everyone aspiring to be a poet ponders.
2018 was a very successful
YouTube year and will only get better!
I began exploring different avenues and created a Patreon account where I will be concentrating on writing routines in 2019.
And I released POETRY SWAG earlier this year.
Click on the photos to go to those sites.
As this year draws to a close I’ll be introducing my blog on all of my other platforms to continue expanding. With an ample amount of shared tips, vlogs talking about a-day-in-the-life-of-a-poet, performances, interviews of other poets, and mini poetry classes, I plan on writing all of that information out so it can be printed and unpacked.
Additionally, I’ll be updating the content and including infographics and more links.
(As I continue to advance in my career, I’ll be getting more knowledge every step of the way.)
I hope you are coming here ready to learn! Because I’m going to be serving you poetic vibrations and literary goodness!