Daily Inspiration: Meet David W Donner

Today we’d like to introduce you to David W Donner.

Hi David W, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I guess I could title my answer to this “My Creative Half-Life” or maybe “Finding the Balance.”

Although I lived in CA when I was very young, I grew up mostly on the east-coast of Florida, in a place where creative pursuits were seen as something distant, exotic, and almost unattainable. Since my return, I’ve lived in and around Southern CA for over two decades. During that time my creative journey has evolved and expanded, with many twists and turns along the way.

My adventure in LA began all those years ago when I moved to Hollywood and attended the Musicians Institute. In Florida I’d already received an associate music degree, in performance with focus on Spanish classical guitar, but studied music production at MI. In between those two stints, I earned a technical degree, and have since bounced between two lives—the practical and the creative—but since both worlds highly value recent experience, those bounces were rarely smooth. Yes, I tend to struggle finding the balance in life.

Before moving to SoCal, I’d played guitar in a few different indie-rock bands, but the motivation to move to the world’s film capital, was to pursue getting instrumental compositions into video productions.

Eventually I was able to compose music for a number of independent films, but by that time, I’d ran out of the money I’d saved, and many of those jobs were unpaid, and even those that were, came around too rarely to constitute “making a living.” Well, I’m not revealing any great mystery by saying that creative pursuits are difficult. Everyone knows this. Sometimes though, it’s the way things are difficult that we don’t expect. I didn’t anticipate how difficult It would be to find “filler work” or a steady job that allowed enough time and energy to still be creative. Yes, there’s a reason for the starving artist stereotype.

Regardless, It’s all been a learning experience!

One gig that helped out with the life-balance, at least for a while, was for the Buddhist-based relief organization Tzu Chi. For the US version of their Tzu Chi 360 documentary series, I composed the intro, outro and bumper scores. Although those compositions were one-offs, I was also hired as an audio editor for the series.

During the film score pursuits—waiting for the next video composing gig—I started recording my own guitar-based acoustic songs and instrumental compositions. I ended up signing as a New Age music artist with Heart Dance Records, an independent label. This was a learning experience too, mostly from having an actual producer, as opposed to someone who merely pressed the record button or took audio files and processed them.

Yet music wasn’t the only art form I had in my heart and mind to share with the world. In addition to writing music, I always wrote stories and essays about spiritual and philosophical topics—since before I ever learned to play a musical instrument in fact—though many of those ideas remained unfinished, vague outlines, or snippets.

Although I focused on music for a very long time, I never completely abandoned literary efforts. They were always in the background. Indeed I’d also gone to writing critique groups throughout my time in southern CA. One of the great things about living here, is that it’s allowed me to explore creative outlets in much greater depth than I otherwise would have. This is, after all, a place where creative people gather, and with that comes resources, connections, community, and a level of professionalism you don’t find in a lot of places.

After getting enough music out there that I could point to and say “that’s my creation,” I began concentrating on transforming some of my incomplete writing ideas into cohesive finished products. That effort has led to my first published fiction novel (novella-length), The Child on the Playground, a story drawn from events in my own life. I’m now working on an audiobook version, which of course, will include original music composition(s). I also have a Science Fiction epic I call The State that’s in the works!

Realizing the through line for all these efforts is multimedia, I changed my business name from d-Squared Productions, to Serendipity Media. If you read my novel, you’ll see why I chose the word “serendipity.” Although the effort put forth for this pursuit is far greater than the part time status it has, time put into creative passions are always a worthwhile venture.

No, I can’t say I’ve completely found the balance, but I’ve gotten closer, and one way or another, I’ll continue to share the creations I have in my heart with the world.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There’ve been plenty of struggles. I mentioned a couple already, but I suppose I could expound a bit. So I mentioned running out of money; a common occurrence I’m sure, but the thing is that I thought I had a lot more ‘reserves’ than I did. Well, I actually would have, except for what I thought were investments that turned out to be, well, the opposite. That was the 2008 crash–yep, I was a victim of that! It’s just tough when I realized that if I did things differently I’d’ve had a lot more time and leverage to work on my creative pursuits, without the immense stress of paying the bills.

Another struggle was finding direction. As you can see, I have a wide range of interests, even within music and writing. That can be both a good and bad thing. I ended up spending far too much time figuring out what direction to go without making headway in any one. Back in the rock band days it was easy–I played guitar, co-wrote some songs, and that was that. Once on my own, it felt like I was left alone in the middle of nowhere without a compass. Before moving out here, I even traveled back and forth to Nashville to pitch Country songs (and found out that, even though I grew up listening to that music, I was definitely not a country songwriter!)

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’d say what sets me apart, is that my artistry is both unique and niche, but at the same time, universal in it’s scope.
Some exemplars of that:
My song Grounded off the album Timeless.
My book, The Child on the Playground.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
There’s so many, but I’ll point out a few that seem relevant to this article.

Music/Film:
One of the first film producers I worked with as a composer after moving to LA was Lance Lindahl. Among other projects, I did some composing for his “Big Highway” project.

Writing:
The CWC, California Writers Club, is an organization I joined a few years back. I’ve made a lot of good connections there. Among them is the group within the group, Indie Author Co op, where we share costs for events and the like.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.davidwdonner.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwdave7/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558283623811
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@davidwdonner7663
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/david-w-donner
• Other: https://www.heartdancerecords.com/david-w-donner