I play music at home, sometimes recording it. I have zero interest in monetizing it. The most I’d like to do is collaborate and make music with others.
I also ran a YouTube channel for a few years. Made about twenty cents from that.
Apart from the YouTube stuff, I’m similar. Writing, arranging, recording, mixing, etc. Simply because I enjoy it.
It’s been a while, though. First came kids and other life-related things to take up most of my time. Plus I migrated to linux fully (as opposed to dual booting) in 2014 or thereabouts. But I recently found a DAW that I like, which also works great on linux, so as soon as I find a decent drum and piano synth I’m back in (not doing) business.
Does your DAW not have those built in or are you after hardware?
There are built in ones, but I want something realistic sounding to go with my (real) guitars and bass.
EDIT: Not sure why you deleted your response, as you made some valid comments, so I’ll just write my response here: Free synths are usually OKish if used properly. But I’m not looking for OKish, I need something that sounds as good as the real thing, and for that I am willing to pay.
Last time around I used pirated stuff. Cakewalk Sonar (although I didn’t like the newer versions), Drumkit From Hell, and misc Edirol stuff mostly focusing on piano and orchestra. After really enjoying a trial version of Bitwig, I’ve decided to go for the full version as the foundation, so now I just need to find modern equivalents to the rest so I can buy them.
Most modern DAWs will have plenty of realistic sounds, it’s getting them to play realistically that’s difficult.
Edit: forgot you use Linux.
I used to write Wikipedia articles and blog posts about music if that counts.
Creating memes…
I cook for the family. It’s not the cooking that’s creativity for me, most of the time, it’s the menu planning that is the hardest to think through.
Omg! I complain about this all the time! Deciding what to make is by fast the hardest part!
Occasionally make movie posters for YouTube videos I download, primarily using low-tech means like cropping, layering, etc.
Mainly because I don’t know how to do the more advanced stuff, but I find it kind of fun though to try to do similar levels of quality with lower-tech tools. Kind of like coding challenges but with Paint.NET. Lol. (BTW, that’s not a link. Lol.)
Did you watch that short movie that someone here made a few months ago? It was about a doc who dresses up for Halloween. It was really good and making a poster for it would be cool.
I actually didn’t! Do you have the link for it?
Thanks! I’ll watch that tonight after I get off work!
It’s about 12 minutes.
…Thanks? I’m sorry; I’m just confused why you would mention that.
Just to let you know that it’s a short film. You don’t have to commit to 2 hours.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/C7lYOkjU03o?feature=shared
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I do calligraphy!
This is visually beautiful but makes me long for a few days ago when the weekend was ahead of me.
I crochet little animals for friends and family.
Unasked, most of the time :)DM/GM from time to time.
Do you have a game of choice? I’ve just finished running a Dresden files accelerated game which was a lot of fun.
D&D and Pathfinder are the main ones, and Genesys sometimes when I can convince my players to give it a try. Currently trying to maybe get something going with Cyberpunk Red.
Tabletop roleplaying
Sigh, I wish I could get paid for it. I absolutely love building a compelling story, but I’m far too nervous with strangers.
Knit, crochet, cannabis edibles.
People want to pay me for my knitting. Too bad for them that the amount they want to pay me is laughable and also there’s no way in hell I’d take the time to knit someone I barely know a sweater.
People have offered to pay me for stuff but i feel i can’t produce the quality that it would require. Like someone else here shared, i mostly make and give things that people don’t ask for- baby sweaters, blankets, scarves, shawls, dog sweaters. I keep a stash of hats and scarves in my car to give away to people on the corners in the winter. I’m a good starter but a terrible finisher. I mostly see a cool pattern, struggle to figure it out, and then when i get the hang of it I wander away and find another cool pattern.
Totally get that. I used to be that way; somewhere along the line I decided that I would not allow myself more than three WIPs at a time, and I’ve mostly been pretty disciplined about that, and it’s helped. I make a lot of sweaters for myself so when people learn that I knit, they know to ask me if I made what I’m wearing, and the answer is often “yes.” The ones who are also crafters just admire the work, but the ones who aren’t start telling me I should sell (big lol) or that they’d pay me to make them one. If I charged an hourly rate, it’d probably mean upwards of a thousand bucks for a single sweater, but they have no concept of that.
Anyway, I hear you on the learning new stitch patterns and then getting bored. I mostly knit while in meetings or watching TV these days, because it got easy. I had to learn something new (sewing) to stretch my brain because knitting wasn’t doing it anymore.
Most people wouldn’t be willing to even cover the cost of the yarn. Good yarn can be crazy expensive!
Decorating my house
Making small games
Writing poetry
Cooking
I do other creative things, but I’ve been paid for most of them at one point or another.
I’m so bad at decorating!! I’ve lived in my house for 20 years and it’s mostly a collection of “i guess i don’t hate that.” I actually hired someone once to help me choose paint colors. Ended up with three different shades of tan.
Music. I’ve played guitar for 30 years, can play drums, bass, piano, etc… never earned a dime. Played shows but I’m still in the hole as far as acquired shit.
I thought I didn’t have much to tell, but turns out, I could have said the same. I did earn a tiny bit at one point when playing local venues and recording demos for local bands back then, but it was basically just gas money for the band most of the time lol
Make skirts!
Cool. Want to share a pic?
Build stuff for burning man
I populate Google Maps. Fill in business names, opening hours, take photos etc. At the start, I was vociferous about it, putting thousands of photos on there. These days, just about everything is there and I only correct stuff and add/remove businesses as they come and go. Oh, and food/menu photos.
Some of my photos have tens of millions of views. Which means people have to see them many times I think. Otherwise every single Australian would have seen the most popular ones, which doesn’t make sense.
I’m used to Google just trusting me and immediately doing what I say. But I really had to convince them that Toys R Us really were closing down. That one took three attempts. The more prominent a place, the higher the rank you need to do major edits to it.
Would you consider contributing to OpenStreetMap?
I did the same of you. I reached a high level as a google guide, was invited to google map meetings and everything.
And then I suddenly realized all my efforts were just helping this company get bigger and achieve more monopoly. The terms of use of google maps state that everything you add becomes property of google.
And then I Found OpenStreetMap.org a lovely community in which you really are building a community effort in which there is no company monopolizing and all data is open. Sadly, you can’t import all the work you’ve done on google maps, because now it is copyright protected by Google. So we have to start again, but it is worth it.
OSM is the future if we are to hope for a fair future in online maps.
I’ve contributed plenty to OSM, but not so much as a creative thing. I rarely upload photos to it. The question was about creative things we do.
While I agree my contributions help Google, I don’t do it for them. I do it for the community. And frankly, they’re mostly using Google maps.
They’re only using Google maps because volunteers like you keep it up to date. Slack on Google and only help out OSM, an eventually the people will come.
I agree. You are helping in the short term, but in the long term, you are not. In the long term, you are empowering a monopoly that steals their freedom.
Please, discover OpenStreetMap.org and stop being an unpaid Google employee, and make your work truly public and free.
