Meta Obliviana #2 -- 1/15/02

Meta Obliviana #2
1/15/02
by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana

Well, the year is barely 2 weeks old, and both of the projects I am working on have hit "roadblocks". But I must be patient. Gotta keep on moving. Gotta keep working on 209 and Severe Repair.

I tellya, I'm stuck in a maze with Obliviana. And there's one aspect of the whole thing that I want to address: the concept of getting an audience and making money. In my vision of Obliviana, I see Obliviana gaining an audience, and making me enough money that I can quit my day job to work on Obliviana full-time. But in these days of mass media domination by a few companies, and with the failure of "Internet publishing", I see little chance that I could make money, or get an audience, with Obliviana.

Let's rewind 16 years, to 1986. The me of that time would have no such doubts. I was convinced I could gain wealth and fame via my creative genius. 16 years later, I am still struggling, though I have produced a plethora of material that I myself, if no one else, am a fan of.

A few years ago I developed a boardgame which was really good. I did research into getting it published. The bottom line: invest at least $30,000 to publish it yourself, with almost no chance of any success. The other option, which I took, was to do nothing. This was after doing a great deal of research, and learning that game companies do not accept submissions, etc.

Now, thinking along these lines, the impossibility of it all... it brings to mind some interesting and disturbing thoughts. Here I am, with all these creative abilities, and all this cool stuff that I create, and I cannot get anywhere with it. Because I need an audience. And I can't seem to get it. And maybe it's because the mass media is shielding the audience from me. I know that I myself am shielded from others like me by the mass media.

And let me revisit the subject of Bluffcosm for a moment. I love Bluffcosm, but without a huge amount of investment, I don't think I would have any chance of getting any kind of an audience for Bluffcosm. It's just the way the world of people is set up these days.

Okay. As it happens, Bluffcosm is not one of my current projects. So let's look at my current projects.

Severe Repair. Get the Severe Repair novel published. This is a goal that is within the realm of possibility. Over the course of, say, 5 years, with a lot of effort, I think that my chances of getting Severe Repair published by a respectable publisher is probably better than 50-50. As far as how popular it gets, that's a toss-up. But it is possible that Severe Repair could bring me some success, of course on the terms of the mass media, who I would be dealing with.

I am working toward getting Severe Repair published. I want to try. It will mean a lot to me to put a legitimate effort into getting it published, whether or not it produces any results.

Yeah, I guess I'm pessimistic. The world of entertainment has been taken over by big companies. People have been programmed to consume entertainment from big companies. I know I have. And it has its good points. It provides people with a common ground. But it also shuts out people like me.

Of course, I haven't been very good at selling or promoting, or of creating things that people can get into. Yeah, that's a problem, too.

Anyway, the Internet appeared, a few years ago, to have the potential to get to people directly, without having to go through the mass media. But this dream has thus far been a failure. Mass media still rules.

Okay. So that brings us to the issue of 209. I am currently working on 209. What prospects does 209 have?

Well, quite simply, it has the very real potential to break thru all the bullshit, and get me an audience, and get me money, and get me success, for real. It is the only thing I have like this.

I think that if I can stay the course with 209, it will make my vision real.

And I have to think about all this when I get frustrated and want to just focus on Bluffcosm or whatever. Because yes, I love Bluffcosm, but it has very little potential to get me success. 209 has huge potential.

I think that if I stay the course with 209, I have a very good chance of "making it big". Of course, the real trick is gonna be staying the course. But it will be easier as long as I remind myself that 209 is the only way to make Obliviana a reality.