Disasterpeace wrote:Also, it's important to recognize your own energy. Some people can iterate like 12 times a day *COUGH*little-scale*COUGH* but some people simply can't. If you have endless reserves of creative energy to dedicate, writing music for a living might be for you. It's also a rewarding challenge to try to write great music inside of other peoples' limitations (sound familiar?)
I've been writing music for video games and it's really fantastic. The only downside is always having to be around the computer so much. I wish I had a piano and could write music on paper easily!
I think the more important part is, at least for me, preserving the feeling of freedom you have with hobbies. Certainly, doing comissioned work can be fun (mostly for the challenges involved, as you mentioned) and the reward of seeing it comming together is very satisfying.
However, I'm easily being stressed by pressure of commitment, which can build up pretty fast when your creativity decides to ignore the outlines of a project completely and wanders off to something different instead (which mine is prone to do). The fun always, always ends once money is involved