As Long as the Topic isn't "Other Talents"

by Giselle Renarde

My grandmother is terribly proud of the new kitchen light my uncle installed for her. "He's such a perfectionist," she told me. "But he takes his time. He enjoys the work."

"He could make some extra money as a handyman now that he's retired," my mother said.

"No, no. He'd never do that. If this was a real job with pay and clients, then it would feel like work and he wouldn't want to do it anymore."

Same thing with me and graphic design.

I've mentioned before that cover art was, in my mind, a barrier to entry to the world of self-publishing. I knew I couldn't afford to commission quality cover art, but I also didn't know how to create it myself.

That was a big hurdle, but the less I earned in royalties from small presses, the more I realized I needed to make a change--and self-publishing was the best change for me.

I'm a self-taught cover designer. It's a skill I've acquired by trial and error. I won't say it's a "talent" necessarily, because I know some spectacular graphic designers and my covers really don't stack up.

From time to time, I do commission covers from people I consider "real" graphic designers, but the truth is that I've grown to love playing with my design program. Even after four years using it, I learn something new with every cover I create.

I was an artist, as a kid. Teachers told me I'd grow up to be a writer but I never believed them. I only wrote stories so I could draw pictures to go along with them. Maybe cover art is my adult version of book illustrations.

But there's a reason I don't offer up my skills for cash. There's a reason I gave premade covers away for free in December. And it's the same reason my uncle will only do handiwork around my grandmother's house and his own: once you're working for pay, working for clients, it's a job rather than a pleasure.

I want to retain graphic design as my pleasure. I want to keep learning and keep enjoying.

And I'll tell you one thing: when my lesbian novel The Other Side of Ruth came out in the fall, readers (and writers) came out of the woodwork to tell me how much they loved the cover--a cover I'd designed myself. It made me almost as proud of the cover art as I was of the book itself.

What Other Skills?

The theme of this fortnight is "other skills" and, well, I have to admit I'm kind of reaching here.  I guess I have some skills, like your standard skills, because I'm good at my day-job, I'm a good listener, I'm a decent cook, I generally rock at Dr. Mario and Yoshi's Story on the original Nintendo, but... like... do I really have skills so good they're worth dedicating a whole blog post about?  I dunno.

It's not that I'm being defeatist or self-deprecating.  I think it's me recognizing where my strengths lie.  And, I believe, my main strength is in writing.  I don't just write erotica under the name Cameron D. James -- I actually have multiple pen names and I write more than one genre.

Last year, I wrote almost 370,000 words.  That's about the equivalent of four full-length novels.  And I really wasn't taking writing too seriously until the late summer.  (Until the summer, I had only my one pen name, this one, and in the summer I expanded to two, and later in the year I picked up a couple more.)  So, most of those 370,000 happened in the latter half of 2015.

Am I perfect?  No, of course not.  Like any writer, I look back at some of my older stuff and I cringe. Sometimes with something I'm working on right now, I just can't get the story right, I can't get it to have the right tone or the right feel or whatever.  But it's a skill, it's not a gift.  If it were a gift, it would be effortless and it would be perfect.  Skills need to be honed and improved, they need to be exercised and expressed.  Writing is a skill of mine -- I'm constantly striving to do better and I'm continually working on doing more and more of it.

So, do I have other skills?  Not any worth really sharing here, but since that is the topic for this fortnight... Let's say another skills is an ability to learn.  I love taking on a new challenge and trying to figure it out and then get better at it.  Really, the ability to learn helps me hone other skills, like my writing.

I was able to go from completely clueless about self-publishing a few years ago to being a sort-of expert at it.  I've had a couple other authors turn to me for help when faced with a self-publishing challenge -- and it was always something that just took a few moments of my time.  My ability to learn allows me to try new adventures.  I'm currently learning the violin.  It's not going well. However, I'm willing to learn, to be patient, to ride out the scratchy weeks until I can get a solid note. I know a lot of adult learners of music give up pretty quickly because we put such pressure on ourselves as adults to learn something right away.  Learning is a process, it's not instantaneous.

Anyway, yeah, I guess writing is my main skill.  None of the others are really worth writing home about.  Unless you're a fan of Dr. Mario.  I kick ass at Dr. Mario.



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.