Thank you! What a beautiful compliment. :)
There are a lot more voices competing to be heard today, for sure, though there's also more room to be - whereas in the past, there were a very limited few "big" names in every creative industry, there's now all sorts of nooks and crannies for smaller voices to blossom. Lucky us, huh.
Instead of writing from the heart I was trying to anticipate what people wanted to read and that sent me down some dead-end paths.
I've noticed the same thing! Can't think of a worse thing for creativity tbh, I'm glad you got out of that :) It's a very volatile line of work, isn't it. In other jobs, it's sort of set - I offer X amount/quality of work and you pay me Y, but with creative endeavors it's ever-changing and can be quite anxiety-inducing. Demons indeed.
You're welcome It's so true that there's more room to be now. In most ways it's easier to pursue a creative profession now. There are so many directions you can go. You just have to find ways to keep pace with technology and use it to your advantage.
I truly believe that following any creative career path is like "boot camp for the soul". It just forces you to deal with so many internal and external challenges. I wouldn't trade it for anything though because if you can make it through the confidence building stage without becoming too traumatized then you can accomplish almost anything.