This is a guest post by Matt Hammond from Seattle Geekly. He was first featured here with his better half Shannon in an interview about their passion for producing their weekly podcast. Matt’s post is an excellent follow-up to that interview, and something to think about for anyone who has ever doubted their own dedication. Not sure you’ve really found your passion? Try quitting! A big thank you to Matt for this first ever guest post on Another Passion.

Pursuing your passion is a lot of work. On top of that, unless you are one of the very lucky few, chances are good that when you are starting out and struggling to build your audience or your business that you will be doing that hard work for very little in the way of tangible rewards. Almost inevitably there will be times when you are absolutely drowning in work, with more to do than there are hours in the day. During those times it is only natural to wonder if it is all worth it and to entertain thoughts of just giving it all up.

I went through a period like this myself recently and I was surprised to find that taking inventory of all the things I would no longer need to do if I gave up on the projects I am working on was finally what motivated me to keep going.

I co-host and help produce a weekly podcast and maintain the associated website and thinking about giving that project up made me stop and think about all the intangible benefits that come from doing it. Generating content and getting a show out every week is close to a full time job and at this point it isn’t coming close to covering expenses, much less turning a profit. What it does do, though, is give me an excuse to talk to interesting people, research topics I like and, in some small way, contribute to a community that I enjoy being a part of.

The specifics of what you get out of whatever work you do are as varied and individual as the nature of the work itself but there is always something. Madeleine L’Engle said “if something deep within even the most tentative and minor of artists didn’t think his work was good he would stop forever”. There is a satisfaction that comes from doing work you believe in even if the impact of the work isn’t quite to the level you might hope for yet. Giving up on a project may give you a lot more rest and free time but it also means you are denying yourself the opportunity to create something that is better than anything you have done before.

But even beyond that is one more reason to keep working at your passion. Thinking of this was, ultimately, what persuaded me that I couldn’t just quit. Being a podcaster and part of the “new media” has become a big part of my identity and if I gave up doing it I would lose that part of myself. I see this as being the positive side to the cliché of the waiter who insists that they are really an actor or the office worker with the pile of unpublished manuscripts that tells everyone they are a writer. They may not be on the path to fame and fortune through their acting and writing but the one certain and undeniable reward of doing creative work is that as long as you are working you can claim that identity, even in the absence of any other compensation or recognition.

All that being said, sometimes you have no choice but to make some compromises. We live in the real world and the necessities of life need to be provided for but Time-lines can be adjusted and big, ambitious projects can be scaled back somewhat. Ray Bradbury said of writing that “you only fail if you stop” and I think that can be generalized to any work people do that they are passionate about.

I met with Shannon and Matt at Arcane Comics in Ballard, Seattle. They are regulars here, I found out as they entered the tiny boutique and the clerk lit up in a smile and a “I have your stack of comics ready!” But I wouldn’t be surprised if the store owners are proud to count this couple among their costumers. They are after all the producers of “Seattle Geekly”, a weekly podcast about all things geek. That includes comics but also things like movies, games and news from the community.

They regularly interview guests on their show, and it was a little surprising to see them turn a little shy at first, once they were the ones in the hotseat. Within a few minutes though, they were picking out their favorite super heroes and goofing off in front of the camera. I got the sense that this was a brilliant example, of a couple who had made it their shared activity to dive into and talk about the things they enjoy the most.

AP: What does it mean to be a geek to you, and why is it important enough to share with the world?

SG: The best definition for geekdom that we’ve come up with is really an analogy – Geeks are to culture what nerds are to technology.  In broader terms we tend to view geekiness as the quality of having a particular fondness for certain kinds of media, books (especially genre fiction), movies (once again of the genre category), video games, boardgames, etc.

There are a couple reasons we decided to share our geekiness with the world.  First on a personal level it was a really good excuse to get us out of the house and to some of the cool events that happen in the area.  Also, being a geek can be kind of lonely sometimes.  A lot of the activities geeks enjoy are, or can be, pretty solitary.  We wanted to get the word out that there are great opportunities to go and socialize with other geeks.  There really is a community and we want people to know about it.

AP: You ask listeners to dare you to watch bad movies, you have contests, do interviews and feature fellow geeks of all kinds. What do you take back from interacting with the community like this?

SG: For the bad movies, those are things that Shannon would probably end up watching anyway and it made a good bit for the podcast.  For the rest we really wanted to be as interactive as possible.  It gets back to promoting the geek community, we like meeting new and interesting people and we like sharing the things we enjoy with our little corner of the world.

A great example of the community that is out there was our first trivia night at Neptune Coffee.  We host one trivia night a month on various geeky topics and the first one we did covered the works of Joss Whedon.  The turnout was much higher than we expected, 25 or 30 people, and everyone had a great time.  There are communities like that made up of fans of just about any tv show, game or movie and we’re just trying to let people know about them.

AP: As a couple, how has the making and success of your podcast affected your relationship?

SG:  Minus time spent at our day jobs we’re pretty much together 24/7.  As we said before, the podcast gives us a great excuse to go out and do things together which is geat! We have really come to realize that neither of us could do the podcast alone, there just aren’t enough hours in the week for one person to do it.  It’s given us a shared project that we both enjoy and can be proud of.

AP: How do you share the work?

SG: We brainstorm ideas for shows together and we usually have things planned out 1-2 months in advance.  Shannon takes care of coordinating interviews and writes the show notes, Matt manages the website, gathers news and keeps the event and convention calendars we have on our site.

AP: With all the time and effort put into the site and podcast, are you able to make it pay for itself or better yet, your mortgage?

SG: The short answer is no.  The long answer is noooooo.  Even though we have it structured like a business we really view it as a hobby.  If we had gone into this project with the idea of making money we would have been horribly disappointed.  We’re certainly open to the idea of turning Seattle Geekly into a major media empire that could support the two of us full time but realistically we’re happy with a few people buying t-shirts or hitting our paypal donate button.

We have a business license and we have seperate e-mail and physical mailing addresses for “geekly” business.  We try and keep things as professional as we can when we’re “on the clock” at events and conventions, but of course we’re geeks too so the fanboy/girl in us frequently shows through.

AP: Any chance you might go beyond podcasting to feature articles, regular video or even expand the number of contributors to go beyond just the two of you? What are your plans for the future of Seattle Geekly?

SG: We’re actually working on doing some things with video.  Of course we’ll be using borrowed equipment and technical expertise but we’re going to try it!  We’d love to have regular articles, but we’re about at the limit of what the two of us can do in terms of generating content.  We’re certainly open to the idea of contributing bloggers.  If anyone wants to contribute articles we’d be happy to turn into editors and post content from other people.  Of course we can’t pay anyone for anything they do, but we’d be happy to have additions to the Seattle Geekly circle.

Our plans for the future are kind of undefined.  We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing of course and we’re trying to be mindful of potential opportunities to increase our audience and add new features.

Be sure to check out Seattle-Geekly.com, get the podcast straight from iTunes and follow @seattlegeekly on twitter.

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Tracy Record is almost half an hour late to our meeting, but I was expecting that. She apologizes and explains that three stories were all happening at the same time, and that time just slipped away. With her schedule, I’m happy she found time to meet with me at all. Tracy is a busy lady, covering every local event, meeting, accident and yard sale for her own West Seattle Blog, a hyperlocal news outlet that’s taken Seattle by storm.

West Seattle Blog (WSB) is not your average weblog. In 2009 it ranked number 5 on Google’s list of hottest search terms in the Seattle area, beating all the major networks and traditional media outlets. But Tracy Record is no stranger to success. She has a distinguished career behind her in television, newspapers and radio and three Emmy Awards to prove it. Still, Tracy threw all that away for a blog about the goings on of just a single neighborhood.

Today, WSB has a small staff of contributing freelancers, but Tracy and her businesspartner/husband – Patrick Sand – remain in full control over what can only be described as a driving community force. Did I mention that they were awarded a Citizen Appreciation Award by the Seattle Police Department in 2008?

Tracy checks her Twitter, blog and e-mail almost in real time.

AP: What is it about hyperlocal news that makes it worth dedicating your time to?

TR: I have spent two-thirds of my life delivering information to people, in a variety of ways. This is the most meaningful way yet. To be able to directly report on, answer questions for, share information about/from my community, and make a living doing it, is a joy. So much different from all my years in citywide/regional news, when we managers/producers would sit in a room and often wind up having to send someone off to whatever the most shocking crime du jour in the region happened to be, parachute in, parachute out, on to the next Big Story.

We cover crime, of course, but from the standpoint of sharing information that helps people protect themselves and figure out how to fight back, particularly against property crime like burglaries, auto thefts and vandalism. Yet though “hard news” is a huge area of coverage for us, I also adore being able to publish orca sightings, pretty sunsets, parade previews, Christmas Ship video!

AP: What were your considerations before taking the jump from mainstream media to starting on your own?

TR: It was clear by the time we got to fall 2007 that there was a huge need in the community for real-time information and neighborhood-issue coverage, and we had found ourselves trying to help fill it, since the December 2006 windstorm/power outages, when we started getting e-mail from people saying “we can’t find out ANYTHING about when the power’s going to be back, can you guys find something out?”.

The only real consideration was whether we could support ourselves doing this – would enough local businesses and organizations choose to sponsor WSB to add up to what we needed for business expenses and a modest lifestyle. I had absolutely no concern otherwise about leaving my longtime corporate-news-media career – the TV business didn’t interest me much any more for a variety of reasons, and it felt wrong to collect a paycheck for something I didn’t feel passionate about.

AP: In 2007, WSB held a pledge to get a feel for the level of support amongst your readers. That went so well, you turned it into an actual business. Could you share a little about that transition, the plans and concerns you had, compared to how it actually went?

TR: The “pledge day” wasn’t actually a barometer of support for whether we could make a go of it as a business. We already knew from the readership, through site stats and through e-mail and other feedback/communication, that there were enough people finding value in being part of WSB every day. In fact, the percentage of people who chose to donate was relatively low, maybe 3%, and that is one of the reasons I don’t believe an operation like ours could operate on a subscription-only basis, which some have suggested we try.

Of course I’m not downplaying the amazing generosity of the 3% who did choose to give us money; it added up to almost $2,000, which we used to set up the business (licenses, a business-only cell phone, etc.) and buy our first video camera. At the time we had the “pledge day” in August 2007, we still weren’t even sure we might try to take the leap and start selling ads – keep in mind, we not only didn’t sell ads at that point, we didn’t even engage in the common practice of running Google AdSense text ads on the site. We were wholly noncommercial. But there were a couple local businesspeople who actually kept urging us to offer ads, so we did some research and made some plans and Patrick started going out on sales calls in October.

We had no idea if we would be able to sell 2 ads or 20. But after about six weeks, the interest was strong enough that it seemed worth taking the risk to try working on it fulltime. The only financial backup we had was my 401k, and a huge factor in the decision to quit was when I learned that you could withdraw from it as long as you paid a penalty … until then I had thought that money was completely inaccessible. But I withdrew as little as possible — we lived even more frugally than before — and haven’t touched it in a year and a half – our business is 100 percent financially self-sustaining, which is still not that common for independent local news sites.

Tools of the trade: Flip camcorder, battleworn digital camera and a cracked iPhone.

AP: You are constantly attending meetings, markets and other events; you keep long hours and have a family at the same time. How do you keep the energy up?

TR: I have been a night owl all my life and have managed to do OK on five or so hours sleep. These days, three-hour nights are more common than five-hour nights, though, and I tend to nod off in the living-room chair while trying to finish that one last story that it always comes down to around 2, 3 am.

What keeps me going the times the energy just lags, is the fact that people tell us what we are doing – with their help! – matters. But the real hero is my husband Patrick, who not only works full-time as our business development director, but also goes out to breaking-news scenes to call in info and send photos, and to meetings on nights when there are two that need to be covered, and also engages in good old-fashioned community relations, meeting and talking with people.

AP: What have been the biggest obstacles for you, in starting and running this project, and what have you done to overcome them?

TR: I have never been so singleminded about anything. I have been focused, I have been devoted, I’ve done things like work many days in a row on a big project like producing election coverage or a special broadcast, but never before has one job, one task been so all-consuming for so many days, weeks, months. I know that we will eventually get to a point where we will have a paid staff – right now we pay freelancers, which is a start – and then the 20-hour days will just be a memory … we’ll be able to cut back to 16-hour days, ha.

I have also become an even-more serious person than I already was, have just never been the kind of person who could just go out and cut loose anyway, but now even if I was, there is no time. And last but not least, I have lost a lot of fear.

Becoming a mother tends to boost you to a certain stage of fearlessness, because you know you have walked through fire to bring that child into the world and you would walk through fire to protect him if need be … and becoming self-employed takes you to another level, knowing there is no safety net, there is no semi-guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, there’s no big boss looking over your shoulder to tell you you screwed up bigtime or maybe even catch you before you make a big mistake. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, and each day of it that you survive, you feel a little tougher, a little prouder.

Would you like to know more about Tracy Record? Check out West Seattle Blog, her twitter account (@westseattleblog) or this interview from April 2009.