About Me
This is going to feel weird to write, but in case you want to know more about me as a person, this page is for that very purpose.
Small Facts About Me
My full name: James Anthony Frederick Butler (which is the most English name that I've ever heard in my life... After hearing only my name, you can probably have a good idea as to what my accent sounds like.)
My birthday: The twelfth of July, 2005 (12/07/2005, or 07/12/2005 for the Americans.)
My hobbies (which I'll go more in-depth with further down the page): Gaming, reading fiction, working, writing, making/playing/performing music, watching animé.
My debit card number: You can't have that.
My Creative Outlets
I spend a lot of my time working on my creative outlets: writing, narrating, making music- basically, I do anything which I think will be fun and try to monetise it with the hope of being able to make these hobbies into my career. Of course, I know that such a thing is unlikely to happen- it's a one-in-a-million chance, or something- but I'll be happy if I can at least build a small fanbase who can find enjoyment in the things which I do everyday (which sounds a little stalkerish without context, doesn't it?)
So, at the time of writing this, I'm sixteen. I've recently turned sixteen, in fact, meaning that I've basically just started my life. I've graduated high school and I'm getting ready to head into further education with the hopes of balancing my life, school and all of my hobbies. I know that such a thing is unlikely to be perfectly balanced, but at this point, I don't care. The last thing which I want to do is to let go of all of the progress which I've made in regards to my small empire of creative outlets in favour of non-mandatory education when I've already managed to give myself stability with my GCSEs (which I know is probably a bad idea, but I'm stubborn, so that's what I'll go with, trying to force it to work until it does.)
YouTube
Something to note is that my journey of creativity hasn't started recently. In fact, it began at the end of March in 2016 with a YouTube channel. Yes, I wanted to be a YouTuber, something which I still wouldn't mind pursuing as a career, but I reckon that I'd prefer to go ahead with music, writing, narrating and anything else which is added to that list in the future with YouTube as a side hobby. I was ten when I started making videos and it continued all the way until August of 2020, meaning that there was some overlap with my awful, first EP and my YouTube content. I then took about a year off and, as of November of 2021, I've returned to the channel with the old upload schedule and style having been scrapped, now having been replaced with my desire to make amusing and interesting content which entertains me more than anything.
So what did I do on that YouTube channel before rebranding it? Well, gaming videos mostly, but there was the occasional singing cover video, the occasional skit around the middle of the channel's lifespan, the occasional vlog or an update video for my scarce number of subscribers about whatever I needed to tell them (I actually announced the Welcome To The Truth EP, the Golden Night album and A Crash And A Misstep on that channel.) There's an assortment of content there and, though I made videos for four years consistently with at least one video a day for a while (I don't know how I managed to do that) it never took off. I think my peak was three-hundred subscribers- something which sounds decent, though the majority of them weren't active for the largest portion of my content, most of them only clicking on covers, skits, updates, vlogs, things like that, leaving them to stay away from about 90% of the videos which I've released.
Even though it never took off, I did enjoy what I was releasing. It was incredibly invigorating whenever I'd see that someone had enjoyed a video, that I'd get a comment, that I'd even get one or two more views on something which I'd recently released. In fact, that's exactly how I am now with music as streaming it is free, so anyone choosing my stuff over something else gives me SO much dopeamine.
My hobbies
Gaming: I've played video games for as long as I can remember, having started with a PS2 when I was about four (Rayman, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Ty The Tasmanian Tiger and Need for Speed were my childhood- and there are definitely more titles which I can't think of right now which kept my attention for the majority of my time.) Of course, given everything which I'm trying to consistently work on and release, I don't have a lot of time to play games anymore, but I manage to squeeze some amount of gaming into at least every few days.
Reading: I haven't done a lot of reading, to be honest, which is probably quite strange seeing as I'm an author, but from what I have read, I definitely enjoy the activity. I've recently (and by recently, I mean the most recent thing which I've finished, which must have been about three or four months ago) read Michael Grant's Gone series. Books likes those, the Maze Runner series, and others which fit into genres like sci-fi, action-adventure and fantasy tend to have an easy time captivating me, that being the main reason why I've written things like The Secrecy; because books like that excite me, so it's an incredible experience to be able to write a series like that. I also have plans in the works for more books which fit into genres that I love, so look forward to that! :)
Working: It's probably quite strange for me to consider working as one of my hobbies, but I do, probably because of the money-making aspect of it. And, by the way, I'm classing working as something which is seperate from the creative stuff which I do because, honestly, despite how cliché it sounds, being creative doesn't feel like work to me. So, when it comes to doing jobs for my family- which is the only experience I have so far regarding external work- I tend to have fun doing it. There's a pleasant mix of the release of dopeamine for being productive, the feeling of satisfaction for finishing a task and the sense of accomplishment for being paid for doing said task. I tend to enjoy the majority of the process, so I suppose I can consider it as a hobby.
Writing: This is pretty self-explanatory; I enjoy the creative-process, and writing is, I think, the best way to be creative. Not only are you building a world, characters, interactions, events, the tiniest details and the overall atmosphere which you see in a scene, but you build an attachment with what you create. It probably sounds quite odd to people who don't know what I'm talking about, but writing anything fictional- emphasis on anything fictional, ranging from a sloppily-made fanfiction to a professionally-published novel- gives you both a bond with what you've made and, at least for me, an incentive and an urge to improve and to create even more interesting worlds for people to find enjoyment in. The imagination is an amazing thing, and I'm incredibly happy that I not only have the confidence to release my work, but the perseverance to continue to create.
Music: The joys of music are endless. Everyone has a genre of music which they enjoy, an artist whom they're somewhat supportive of and a song which won't get out of their head. That's no different for me. Though, I play a few instruments which I've self-taught myself to play, those being the piano, guitar, electric bass, ukulele, drums and, of course, my voice through singing. If you think that listening to music and singing along to your favourite song is enjoyable, and you haven't played your favourite song on an instrument, you're missing out. Seriously. One of the things which I love the most is sitting with my guitar, playing and singing a song. It's oddly soothing. You hear about people who put everything into a performance, only caring about that moment in that moment. It's like that even when I'm only performing to myself. It sort of flushes all of my emotions, gives me a clean slate when I'm done, almost like I can't remember how I was feeling before if the feeling wasn't incredibly powerful. I love it.
Animé: I watch animé. I got into it simply by falling down the rabbit hole, I suppose. I watched one that I was interested in (dubbed, of course, as I'm sure that's the usual choice for people getting into the medium) and, from there, I watched another... Then another... Then another. As of right now, I think I've watched about sixty different animé, and I think that I've done that over the course of about two years. i love it. I love how free it is in comparison to live-action. With live-action, actors are restricted by the laws of physics. Of course, CGI can help to make any vision into a reality, but, even then, there's simply something encapsulating about the art-style. It's just pleasant to look at. Nothing's inherently ugly unless it's purposefully made to be ugly. It's just a nice break from reality: being able to look into a world which has been drawn.
So, that's a little about me, I guess.