Chapter 15
Hours passed as I sat at the little desk in my bedroom. I’d dimly noticed as the light in through the window had moved, shadows crawling across the carpeted floor in a steady march until, finally, my fingers paused their drumming across the keyboard.
I stared at the screen in front of me, looking over the white page now filled with digital black ink, and as I stared, I finally became ready to accept an uncomfortable truth.
I had known for some time that I didn’t want to create music anymore. Maybe I never had, despite the years of longing I’d had to do just that.
But I’d never acknowledged – until now – that part of my dream, my want to be a music producer, no longer existed because I didn’t have the talent for it. I’d once believed thst if I worked hard enough, I could get there.
I had done that. I’d worked so hard, in fact, that I’d gotten a First at university. Ceaseless theory study, hundreds of written papers. Countless hours in the studios, endlessly tweaking final submissions until they were finished. But they were never good enough. At least, not for me.
In a way, it had been easy to write it off as something I just didn’t enjoy as much as I thought I would. Admitting that a part of the reason I’d stopped enjoying it was because I wasn’t good at it was a harder pill to swallow, because it naturally led to the question, what was I good at?
What was I good enough at to want to spend the rest of my life doing? No wonder I’d put the question off for so long.
Now though, as I sat and looked at the essay I’d spent the past few hours writing, I finally felt ready to look the truth in the eye.
I would never be as good of a producer as I needed to be to create the music I saw in my head, and that was unacceptable.
I would simply rather not do it, than bring out something that was less than it should be.
I had too much respect for music to do it poorly.
And if I recognised that about myself, other people would, too.
I wouldn’t spend years of my life chipping away at a skill set I did not possess, and did not feel passion for, which was perhaps worse.
The realisation hurt. It felt like a kind of grief to admit that I was well and truly done with music production.
Bitterness coated the back of my tongue as I finally accepted that would not be my path.
But even as I came to that understanding, I looked at the words in front of me, and I began to feel something else. Something new.
I felt spent, creatively speaking.
I was almost dizzy, but also giddy. It was how I’d once envisioned it would feel to finish a piece of music. And actually like what I’d produced.
In letting go of one dream, I had given myself permission to have a new one. Perhaps to acknowledge one that had been in me all this time.
I’d poured myself into this piece.
Observations, commentary, a linear thread of dialogue that I’d meticulously fact-checked and referenced. And above all of the facts and opinions, was the unmistakable ‘me’ in it.
It was a wry commentary on how music formed a kind of societal topography, mapping shifting ideas, culture integration, the feelings of a generation.
A sound-based pH dipstick for any period in history.
It was funny, light-hearted, and wry. It was a reflection of how I felt, and how I observed others felt.
It was a love letter to all the musicians trapped in their apartments who carried their cellos and violins out onto their balconies to serenade entire neighbourhoods.
It was a standing ovation to the DJs splicing anthems from the 90s with euphoric EDM.
It was an outpouring of adoration for those who made music for those that needed it the most.
‘Because if history was a map, music is how we would navigate our way across it.’
I was proud, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been proud of myself, which in itself was a hell of an admission.
I was also a little bit curious to see how it would be received.
My blog wasn’t anything special, just a niche little corner of the internet I’d carved out for myself, back when I’d been a student.
It had started out as rambling posts about bands I loved, albums I’d spent money on – or not – artists I’d seen live, and the 3 am scribbles on how music made me feel.
It had been an outlet I’d poured my passion for music into.
Because it was hosted on a blogging platform, people often found my page because of the tags I’d used, shared interests bringing us together.
As my life evolved, so had my blog. I’d written dozens of entries about moving to LA, working at ‘a recording studio’ and discreetly alluding to the various celebrity encounters I’d had.
I’d loosely documented moving to Korea. I’d never named which company I’d worked for, but I’d described the kind of work I did, and my small adventures around Seoul, like the time I gatecrashed a German tour group.
Some people accused me of making it up, but it seemed to draw more and more people in, until I’d amassed a couple thousand followers.
Mostly though, I posted about music. Music I loved, music I wanted to love, music that made me feel things more complicated than love.
It had even boosted the amount of followers I had on the other social media platforms Becka had bullied me into creating. I only posted occasionally, but going off the comments and usernames, at least some of them had found me from my blog, which was kind of wild.
They were people I didn’t know, people from all over the world. It was bizarre, but cool.
And so, it was with a tired, but content feeling, that I published the essay on my blog.
I called Jihoon afterwards. He was about to go to bed, but he made time to speak with me, listening patiently as I excitedly described what I’d written about.
When I got to the part about how watching his dance practice had inspired me, he shook his head.
“Ky, you should take credit for this, not us,” he said.
Warmth bloomed in my belly, and I looked away, hiding my smile.
“It’s only a blog,” I said quietly.
“Nothing you do is ever ‘only’ something,” he insisted. “You are good at this. You write well.”
I frowned. “Have you been reading my blog?”
Jihoon scoffed before a yawn took over, forcing his jaw so wide I heard the crack through the phone.
“Jagiya, of course I have. You thought I did not notice all the time you spent writing? I have eyes, and they’re usually looking at you.”
I didn’t bother hiding my grin that time.
Days later
Each day, I watched in fascination as the visitor count on my blog went up, and up.
I’d cross-posted it to my socials that first day, just to see what happened.
I’d never done that before, it had always felt weird, like I was advertising myself, or something.
But I was proud of this piece. I wanted people to see it.
To my surprise, it kind of… went off.
Naturally, I’d used K-Pop as one of the examples I’d discussed, using it to highlight how carefully designed perfection led to a piece of music that transcended culture and language.
Gave us icons to get behind, and how what often starts as a curated image could grow into something more organic, turning icons into heroes.
Then I had reeled it back in. Discussing western music that was universally agreed upon to be so moving that it stood the test of time and became the blueprint for what a ‘good’ ballad, or anthem looked like. Edifices of popular music that brought all kinds of demographics under the same umbrella.
To my shock, people began having discussions in the comments.
Actual conversations. They were sharing it, too.
By the third day, my social media post had hit a million views.
A ludicrous amount, several hundred thousand past what I’d achieved before – including that one time I went semi-viral for joining a clownish dance trend.
It didn’t even matter that most of that number weren’t moving to my actual blog from the social media post, enough of them were that my little blog gained thousands of new followers.
A week after I published the essay, I’d opened my emails to find one from someone called James Macowski.
It was brief, but opening the email had the same effect I imagined opening a spring-loaded glitter bomb might have had.
Subject: Loved your blog – let’s talk.
Hey Kaiya,
I came across the piece you wrote recently and was really impressed. You have an interesting take on things, and your writing is very engaging.
I’m an editor at The Loop, and we’re always looking for fresh perspectives. Would you be interested in freelancing a short piece for us?
Let me know if you’d be open to chatting.
Best,
James Macowski
Freelance Editor, The Loop
I lay down in bed, trying to reconcile the email with real life. I kept going back to it, checking the sender address, trying to find any obvious phishing lures, but it seemed genuine. Next, I Googled the name of the publication, though I had heard of The Loop.
I checked the editor’s professional social media – the same email address was listed on The Loop’s website, and on the professional account.
I checked everything I could think of, until I had to concede that this email, this completely out-of-the-blue proposition was… real.
I let the email sit there for hours as I went about my day, treating it like something too good to be true.
In my mind, if it was still there later, it was real. If it had magically disappeared, well, that would have made about as much sense as a popular publication reaching out to me off the strength off one accidentally viral essay, high on the inspiration of watching a dance practice.
It was a completely irrational reaction, but I needed to let it marinate in my mind, I needed it to settle so I could approach it with more than just a knee-jerk reaction, because stuff like this didn’t happen, surely?
People didn’t get yanked off the street to become journalists – freelance, or otherwise. Right?
Except, maybe they did, sometimes.
By late afternoon, I had come to the conclusion it wasn’t a trick.
The more I thought about how this was a real email, from a real person, from a real and reputable publication, the more excited I became. I forwarded the email to Becka with a few exclamation marks. She responded almost immediately with a photo of herself screaming, which made me laugh.
Giddy, I reached for my phone to call Joon, only to stop, finger hovering over the contact list, as I saw the Seoul clock next to the UK one. Just after 1 am.
I locked my phone and put it down, feeling deflated.
I hadn’t spoken to him since late last night.
He’d been too locked into rehearsals for the online concert, and I’d been distracted watching the comments flood in.
I hadn’t even told him about it. It had felt silly.
In light of what he was doing. Inconsequential.
Now that it was something more, now that something might come from it that felt consequential, I couldn’t talk to him. He was so far away.
A world apart.