Pen to Paper

This weekend has felt a bit odd. Yesterday morning I went to my church’s work day, and helped with cleaning.  Note: windows located over/behind large plants tend to be covered in small sap droplets.

Tonight I pulled the plug on a sort of failed experiment.  A couple weeks ago I made a second user for my laptop, moved all my writing/trying to be productive stuff over to it, and basically set up a cyber-work-environment free of distractions.  The catch was that then whenever I had a quick idea or inspiration to note down, I wasn’t doing anything with it because that would require shutting down everything on one user, loading another, and then switching back. So now it’s all in one spot again, and I already feel better.

It makes me wish I had a newer version of OSX, though; spaces would be great for the distraction control.

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher, and noticed it’s had an odd effect on my thinking.  The narrative follows four men who (I think) are in their mid- to late-thirties, who spend a decent amount of time remembering their middle and high school days.  This morning, I caught myself thinking “I was just a kid, back then,” before realizing the events I was thinking of were just a few years ago.  As far as my future is concerned, with its wide-open unlimited possibilities, I still am a kid.  Sure, maybe I have to be an adult when it comes to responsibility, but I haven’t crossed the “giving up on dreams and settling for what I have” threshold yet.

I refuse to give up on my dreams so long as they are my dreams.  I see no reason to give up just because I haven’t succeeded yet.  If what I want to do changes, that’s another thing; but I’m not going to settle for being a good little member of society just to meet someone’s idea of what they think I should be.  Anything great was accomplished by people who never gave up on their dreams.

I think these thoughts are part of me processing the conversation I had last Tues.  I think that I felt like someone else’s goals were being imposed on me; I think that I went along with it for a bit.  I think I’m getting my head back on straight.

So dreams, look out.  I’m coming for you.

I read a blog post by Richard Smith of Simply Syndicated yesterday in which he discussed some of the things holding podcasting back from becoming mainstream (original post available here). On first reading I agreed with most of what he said, and after a short Twitter conversation with Smith I found the only bit I had questions about was due to my own misunderstanding.

One of the problems Smith identifies is “normal people who fancy a go at it.” At first I was afraid this meant “someone who’s just starting out,” but this turned out to be incorrect – instead, I now think he means people who produce rubbish shows and just don’t care – the podcasting equivalent of putting your home videos on television.

My first reaction got me thinking, though. I can’t emphasize enough that this wasn’t what Richard Smith was saying, but what I thought he meant is something I’ve seen or heard explicitly in a few different places and contexts. The gist of the complaint is, “our medium would have mainstream respect if it weren’t for all these amateurs glutting the market and keeping the public from finding the good stuff.”

I’ve heard this applied to webcomics, books, web series, art, music, even community theatre. What’s funny is that it’s usually coming from someone who thinks he/she would be more successful if the “amateurs” weren’t getting all the attention.  To that person, I’d point out that people like what they like. Your competition isn’t preventing potential audiences from reaching you, which means you’re the only obstacle to your own success.

The flipside of the coin is that there’s only one way to gain experience, and that by necessity requires starting from inexperience. When a writer, musician, artist, or anyone else is just starting out the quality will be less than after they have a few years of experience. The key is using your experience, combined with role models, mentors, and other learning experiences to develop and grow in your art.

Have you ever heard a successful writer talk about his first book few books? I mean an author who’s been writing for 20, 30, 40, or more years. Most of the time, these experienced authors will say it’s painful reading their first book, even if it is a fan-favorite. This is because they’ve been growing as a writer continually for decades, and now they see their own early works as “amateur.”

What’s the takeaway from that? Don’t worry about making your first work perfect. It won’t be. Just do something now, make it as good as you can, and put it out there. Then get feedback, find ways to improve, learn from the experience, and do it again – but better. Before long, your quality will be up to a respectable level.

And maybe 40 years down the road you’ll be able to look back and say, “that wasn’t my best, but I’m glad I did it.”

Nominees for the 2009 Writer’s Guild Awards for televisions, radio, et al were announced today.  I just wanted to point out how many shows were on pay-per-view networks, or even standard cable.  I remember growing up with it being a given that anything worth watching would be on network television.  Since HBO and Showtime are essentially selling tickets directly to viewers, though, they’ve had to set the bar pretty high for themselves in order to compete.

As long as they keep giving me shows like Dexter, I’ll be happy.