The Cardinal Fuck-Up of Trying To Turn A Hobby Into A Job

The thing about me, right, is that I do an awful lot of things, creatively.

I play a couple instruments, I write, I draw, I paint, I make clothes, I take photographs, I do a lot of social-media type stuff, I cook, I take an interest in other people's art and food and social media-type stuff.

But I don't really do any of these things very well, very often, or very consistently. Most of them don't even qualify as hobbies because a hobby is something that you actually do with something resembling regularity.

But I do enjoy all of these things, and I wish I could do them all more, and better, but I can't because if I try and focus on music I'll get distracted and start making a dress, and if I start making a dress, all of a sudden I'll wanna go write a short story. This is a cruel chain of events that usually ends up with me cleaning my room and drinking lots of tea and going on the internet.

But filmmaking is obviously different. Because I decided to turn a hobby into a career (I hope), and study it at college, there's a pressure there. A huge amount of dedication is required in order to keep up and really get the most out of the experience. And the main problem, the thing that's worrying me most:

It's all starting to feel a bit like work.

Of course I enjoy making films and learning about how to do it properly and I enjoy writing scripts and I enjoy reading about the various things that I need to read about for my course. I just don't enjoy it as much when I have to have it done by a certain time and be graded. And, like I said, I have creative ADD. It's tough to stick to something this completely for this long.

I'm hoping I haven't fucked myself over. I'm hoping that by the time I get my degree I won't be so exasperated by the whole thing that I never want to pick up a camera again. I'm hoping that over the summer I'll get to do my own thing, filmically (it is a word, I checked) and fall back in love with it. If not I'll get some boring desk job and not really care about it and do all my creative type hobbies on the side. But that's not exactly what I'd like to happen.

I need to stop worrying so much.