The Day After and the Days To Come

Wikipedia defines the word “career” as a person’s journey through learning, work, and other aspects of life, while the Oxford Dictionary defines it similarly as the course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life).

I find that especially encouraging today, the idea that a career isn’t just your work, its also your life, the learning process… a journey unto the whole person. Taken from that perspective, I can say with resounding happiness that my Career as a Storyteller is going rather well. I have worked for many years to gain the experience, comrades, battle scars, and perspective that I enjoy today. The film Ember Days was released on DVD yesterday, and has been met with a strong positive response. The journey of that film is far from over, though I feel that yesterday was a powerful start. People believe in this movie, with all of its flaws and all of its awesomeness, the whole epic melodrama. I am moved by this, to see my tribe and my community support the film and the people who worked to make it happen. Success is about so much more than money, though for the first time in my career as a storyteller, there is money present in the mix. Though I take much personal fulfillment in the simple acts of working as an artisan storyteller, be it as an author or filmmaker, there is a tangible measure of progress in the packing & shipping of DVDs to people who cared enough about the project to pay for a copy. It emboldens me to dare to dream of the next community funded & created film project, a transformative journey story we are presently calling ‘Werewood’, and I find myself filled with confidence and renewed determination to keep carrying the fire that filled us all during the Ember Days.