I got a very detailed email feedback letter yesterday from a nationally-known, independent radio producer. Other than reading too fast, he really liked my demo CD and encouraged me to plow ahead.
I met early this morning with my local independent producer friend Paul. We just seem to jell, as our ideas fed into one another continuously as we brainstormed about what the pilot could include, based on what the show & Real Joe might be in five years. We decided to have a planning meeting in the next two weeks, with five other local guys who’ve expressed interest in helping on the pilot.
Later in the morning, I got an email reply back from an editor at Transom.org, saying my CD was circulating among the editorial team. It occurred to me that it might be helpful for them to see the email feedback from the independent producer so I phoned him to get his permission, he approved, and off it went.
And then this afternoon, I met with a guy who co-produced a series of 1 hour radio reports on spirituality last fall for the very same outfit that turned me down for seed funding last week. He’s got two more in the works, but then the foundation money runs out and he’s waiting to hear on other sources of funding. We seemed to hit it off, and even talked at length about the recent deaths of our fathers. He seemed very interested in what I was up to with Real Joe so I gave him a bunch of background material, including the CD. If he continues to be interested, I’m not sure where to take it. Maybe it would be brainstorming on how to relight the plan for a show demo with the committee. Or maybe there might be interest from a foundation in funding a Real Joe radio pilot. The guy who’s trying to find foundation money for his project is the very same guy I had lunch with two weeks ago to talk about a project related to my current consulting gig. We seemed to hit it off as well, so maybe if the three of us got together…
Anyway, I’m psyched about all these developments today, even though I have considerable anxiety about where my income will be coming from after May 1. I guess I’ll just have to make room in my head for both and try not to let either one diminish the other.