Two Words to Define Your Career: Custom and Collaborative

Your life is custom. It is unique regardless of where you went to school, or how many other people share the same job title as you. No one lives as you have.

Likewise, your life is collaborative. No matter how much you have achieved because of your own experience, wisdom, and grit, much of it is created with others.

Custom and collaborative are two words I have been thinking a lot about in terms of how one finds success as a creative professional. How, in order to create a meaningful body of work, you have to both forge your own path, while constantly engaging with others.

Too often, people seek best practices to provide an easier path, perhaps to guide them, and as a gauge of whether they are ‘doing it right.’ Each culture seems to provide it’s own model for these paths in certain careers… usually implying that if you do well as a junior administrative associate in a certain job, that you will eventually advance through the ranks to senior administrative associate.

But most people get stuck the place that Dwight Schrute did in the TV show The Office: where his actual job title was “Assistant to the Regional Manager,” but he would constantly introduce himself as “Assistant Regional Manager.” He felt he earned the higher title, even though he has not truly advanced into that role.

Likewise, creative professionals sometimes seek the almost romantic notion of ‘going it alone.’ This can be based on an act of rebellion, rejecting other options laid before you, exploring territory that no one has ever prepared you for, or even encouraged. Other times, going it alone is due to scant financial resources, or because working with others can be complex, requiring trust, interpersonal awareness, deft communication, negotiation, and compromise. Perhaps these things can seem to remove freedom and potential from one’s vision of the work they are creating.

Yet, again and again, when I look around at the success that writers I work with achieve, their path is always custom, and always collaborative. So today, I would like to explore each.

The process I encourage many creative professionals to develop is one where they hone their craft, not backing away when they experience fear of the unknown. This less about creating a product (a book, an album, etc), and more about someone living as a craftsperson, a professional, and an artist. The skills and experience you develop on this journey becomes a story unto itself, and one worth talking about.

BEST PRACTICES ARE CHEAP, BUT CUSTOM IS EXPENSIVE

I have written previously about my skepticism for best practices (here, here, and here), and how they can seem like shortcuts, but often promise outsized results using tactics that only worked well a handful of times three years ago.

Of course, I don’t want to be too unreasonable in this regard – I use ‘best practices’ all the time, and much of the work we create is an amalgamation of practices that have come before us.

I suppose I discourage seeking and leaning on best practices too much is because I prefer to see creative professionals explore their vision in their own way, and LOVE the diversity that this process creates in the world. That some of the most exhilarating things that are created are by those who are ‘off trend’ – not to be cool, but because that is what is in their heart as a creator.

In this process of forging ones own path is where valuable experience and wisdom comes from.

CUSTOM IS A PROCESS, NOT A PRODUCT

The floors at the Apple retail stores have as much attention to detail put into them as any of Apple’s products. Years ago, Steve Jobs obsessed over using only a certain stone from a single family-owned quarry in Italy, as well as the complex task of matching nuances of colors in the stone when laid out.

Recently, Apple seems to be experimenting with a floors for their stores using a synthetic material that has a wavy appearance. As I obsessively read through any articles I could find on this, I remember a comment thread (that I can no longer find) where one commenter expressed concern over a seeming lack of quality in Apple moving from stone floors cut in standard 76cm x 76cm panels, to a new synthetic floor. The implication was that anything natural (such as stone) was a higher standard, and anything synthetic wasn’t.

Another commenter responded making the point that the new synthetic floors are custom designed and cut to exactly match their intended use. Specifically that each piece is cut and placed to fit exactly under product tables so that the placement of seams on the floor becomes as much about how a customer experiences Apple products as anything else. That this is CUSTOM, and custom is expensive, regardless of whether it is natural stone or synthetic material. There is a process hidden from view of the ability to value attention to detail, weigh options, design custom solutions, test and fabricate unique materials, and install custom floors that is separate from the material itself.

CUSTOM IS ABOUT CARING

I have been reflecting on this distinction in other ways as well. How some stuff you buy is ‘standard’ – the inexpensive stuff that delivers middling value of “it’s just good enough” – to other products that are ‘custom’ – expensive, well-crafted, and hard to find.

For more than a year now, I have been obsessed with this idea for a Halloween costume: a screen-accurate Luke Skywalker as X-Wing pilot from Star Wars. (yes, I am a total nerd.) I began my research in the summer of 2013, and then put the project on hold as my wife and I put our focus and purchasing and renovating our home.

This year, I pulled the trigger on moving ahead with the costume, and was shocked at what I found in the process. It turns out: you can’t easily buy a decent X-Wing pilot costume. Sure, there are plenty of the market – but many are cheaply made, and you are actually not even 100% sure what you are getting until you open up the package. Yes, they ‘get the job done’ – they are perfectly adequate for representing the character. But they have mixed reviews, yet still cost $60-100.

As I looked through these options, I became enamored with the concept of “screen accurate” – the attention to detail in sourcing a costume that is exactly as worn in the movies.

Knowing that there is an active community online around Star Wars, I began looking for other options. It turns out, there is a thriving prop and costume industry out there, where individual artisans obsess over every detail to create a screen accurate costume, basing them off of not just movie stills, but the original material used to create them for the movie, and surviving movie props.

I scoured fan forums, and actually created a spreadsheet outlining the many pieces of the costume, individuals I was finding in fan forums that crafted each piece, prices and quality.

In the end, I had to order twelve individual costume elements from five different sellers, from all over the US, plus South America.

As I explored all of this, I received help from fellow fans in the community, and got to know each of the suppliers. The base of the costume in an orange flight suit. The person I am buying mine from custom makes the flight suit for each order. He asked for 27 measurements to ensure it was the perfect fit for me. After I emailed the measurements to him, he then asked for 10 more measurements JUST for the gloves!

What I have found is that the depth of caring that goes into this can clearly not be mass produced. It has to be created by fans and craftspeople who care enough to make small runs or do custom orders. The process was also very collaborative, with lots of advice, ideas, and encouragement provided from others in the fan community along the way. I loved seeing the cottage industry that exists – how fans are able to earn part of their living from making screen accurate costume replicas.

I have to say, I started off looking for a costume, and now genuinely feel more a part of a community as a result of the experience.

WHO YOU PARTNER WITH MATTERS

Who you partner with matters, and this is inherently filled with risk. One of my all-time favorite movies is the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which tracks the career and process of master sushi chef Jiro Ono in Japan.

I was listening to the director’s commentary track to the movie the other week (did I mention I was obsessive?), and he mentioned how Jiro was constantly talking about how much he relies on the expertise of his vendors. That he purchases shrimp from a very specific shrimp expert; rice from only one rice vendor; tuna from the tuna person; etc. That every aspect of Jiro’s ability to craft sushi is collaborative, and that even though Jiro himself gets much of the accolades, he couldn’t possibly do it alone.

In fact, one of the main points the movie makes is something so intriguing. First it builds up our awareness of, and respect for Jiro himself: his lifelong honing of the craft in preparing sushi. But then, you become aware that his son, his apprentices, and his vendors are absolutely essential parts of the process Jiro has established. Jiro alone could do none of this.

NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE CUSTOM

Does everything you create, everything you buy, everything you experience NEED to be custom? Nope! You can buy consumer electronics in a store without amazing floors; purchase a $30 Star Wars costume and still have a nice time; eat sushi for $10 and still feel it was delicious.

Not every brand has to be as beloved as Harley Davidson, as obsessive as Apple, or as devoted to customer service as Zappos. And surprise! Cheap wine is cheap.

Some things need to be the cheap yet effective option; need to become a baseline standard of “good enough”; need to become a “best practice” to help people develop their skills. Each of these things serve a much needed function, and most of our lives are a big mix of ‘standard’ and ‘custom.’

THE CHOICE OF CUSTOM AND COLLABORATIVE

The writers I work with face so many choices of how to improve their craft of writing; how to publish; how to connect their work to an engaged readership. Many writers I speak to define their state of being as “overwhelmed” because of this.

I have said before that you can only prepare for, but not plan, for success. That oftentimes, no one knows what efforts will actually work, and this can lead many creative professionals to pursuing the “safer” and options of following best practices, rather than more complex “custom” solutions that have to forge new paths.

Obviously, a balance is what in order, but the trick of deciding what is best pracice, and what is custom is the difficult decision. I think one thing to be wary of is making these decisions based on cost alone. I remember talking to someone once who chose to not setup an email list for their business purely because they felt that $19 per month for an email service provider was too much. From what I gleaned, they made a business decision about how they engage with their customers based solely on $19, not on the long-term value of email as a communication channel. And that was shocking to me.

Regardless of what choices you make, your life is custom. Regardless of simple distinctions of “indie vs traditional,” “published or unpublished,” “best seller or not,” or so many others – your writing career is custom.

In what ways have you found your career to be either custom or collaborative?

Thanks.
-Dan

The Success of Starting

Many authors and creative professionals I meet express two feelings:

  1. They are overwhelmed juggling personal life, professional life, and writing life.
  2. They desperately want to feel a sense of momentum in their writing life.

I have been launching some new courses recently, and am reviewing feedback from writers who have been through them. Their words have encouraged me to reflect on their decision to sign up for the course, and the VALUE OF STARTING. So many of us dream, we plan, we analyze. But starting is a tenuous, hopeful moment all its own.

For many of these writers, they likely felt a lot of resistance to actually starting – to make the decision to sign up for a course:

  1. It is a commitment that they likely felt wouldn’t fit into their already busy life.
  2. Concern over if there would be enough return on investment to justify spending their time & energy with it.
  3. Perhaps their money would be better spent elsewhere.
  4. Putting themselves in the role of “student” when most people desperately want validation for the experience and wisdom they have already earned.
  5. If, in asking for help, they wondered if this defined them as an amateur when they see themselves as a professional.
  6. Can this work be done with integrity?
  7. Were they ready to do the work – truly ready to commit to deadlines.

That last one is a core part of STARTING and in encouraging any kind of momentum. This is the kind of feedback I love hearing in the early days of a course:

“This is a great lesson: inspiring and scary as heck! I’m going to give it a go.”
– Michael Purcell

That can be an invigorating place. I love how emotional all of this is – how it has both inspired someone to consider the good possibilities, but it also challenges them in a deep way. Risk is involved in this – and I encourage people to not shy away from that place.

A core part of my role is to carefully do both of these things at once: to push writers when needed, but in a way where they are truly developing the momentum they want as a creative professional.

The result? Often feedback such as this:

“I decided that this whole course exercise is pushing out of my comfort zone, so I bucked down and did it. Well, it’s already paying me back for the effort.”
– Carrie Ann Lahain

I focus on the emotional aspect of what prevents people from creating momentum in developing an audience and honing their craft. There is a reality I never want to sugar-coat: this stuff isn’t easy. I can’t (and no one can) make your anxiety magically disappear. I can’t (and no one can) give you amazing results with the most minimal of efforts.

Instead, I focus on the very real steps of starting, of developing momentum, and of honing your skills and processes to find real growth. A writer who went through a course of mine put it this way:

“I completed Dan’s course, focused on finding and connecting with readers. While my fears about this process still remain, and I suspect they always will, their voices are not quite as loud as they were before. And I’m pretty determined to not let them win.”
– Karyn Henley

What can I help with? This:

“Working with you, Dan, has really helped me COMMIT and focus.”
– Kelly Dumar

“I love how Dan offers common sense approaches to build readership without compromising your integrity.”
– Juliet Freyermuth

This is an entire process of taking risks – of identifying and working past boundaries that we often tend to avoid getting very close to. Yes, it can be a scary process, which is why I find it tends to be so meaningful. And yes, I try to make it fun too!

But really, this is the ultimate goal I have for the writers I work with: to provide momentum that in turn, allows them to focus on craft:

“I loved our work together because you focus on practical ways to simplify my life so I can fit in more writing.”
– Tanya Savko

My next course begins next week: Get Read: Find Readers and Build Your Author Platform, and if you think this may help you build momentum in your life, you can reserve your spot now.

Thanks!
-Dan

Getting Help: What I Learned in Hiring & Working With Interns

InternsI need help. And let’s face it, we can all use some help.

This year I have taken active steps to learn how to better integrate others into the things I am creating. A primary way I have done this is by hiring summer interns. I wrote about the process of finding an intern here, and provided a mid-summer update here. I hired three people (seen on the right): Diane Krause, Kathi Gadow, and Rachel Burns.

Now that the summer is over, I wanted to reflect on what I learned from the process of hiring & working with interns, and on other aspects of what it means to “get help” to develop momentum in your life as a creative professional.

ASKING FOR HELP IS AN EMOTIONAL HURDLE

There is the stereotype of the man who is lost and refuses to stop and ask for directions out of an obstinate sense of pride. I don’t know if this is why I have resisted getting help for so long, or for some of these other reasons that may (or may not) feel familiar to you:

  • You can’t convince yourself of the return on investment. EG: if you pay someone $100 to do something, if you aren’t completely convinced you will get at least $101 worth of value of out of it, then you put it off.
  • You can’t make the time. There is this compelling feeling that “it will just be quicker to do it myself, than to teach someone else how to do it.”
  • A voice of pride that says: “No one can do it better than me!” 🙂 This
    speaks to the fear of someone who has a profound sense of caring & ownership of their work, such as an author or any creative professional. When you are creating something on your own out of passion, you tend to invest loads of detail-oriented work – to the point of obsession. The fear here is that someone else may just view it as “a job” and not put in the TLC that you will.

  • Fear of commitment: you don’t want to be forced to do anything. When you involve others, you are essentially making commitments to do something, and/or to be responsible to them for doing it. There can be a sense of perceived freedom in just ‘going it alone,’ because it allows you to make every decision an emotional decision instead of creating a plan you are committed to.

The common part of many of these things is that EMOTIONS drive action, or in this case: INACTION to get help. Another is this: the fear of change. Few people like change, and asking for help sometimes FORCES change.

For many people who fear change of any sort, they tend to make an adjustment that they are emotionally comfortable with, sometimes precisely because it LOOKS like progress, but requires no real change to their comfortable habits.

TAKE A RISK

Getting help means taking a risk. I have seen so many people identify that they need help, but then stall because they convince themselves that they are working on a PLAN to get help, and just need to work through all the details.

For instance, if you are hiring someone to help, WHO to hire can become a task that becomes arduous and takes months or years. And it’s easy to justify that delay since it is hard to feel 100% guaranteed that you find the right person – so you just keep waiting and searching.

But progress requires risk.

And with risk is learning.

Even if you stumble because of a bad initial decision, you can apply what you learn to the next iteration.

Don’t get crushed in the process of creating a plan of how to move forward, or use the “plan” as a barrier to making actual change.

To make this process safer, put boundaries on it. For hiring interns, I did this in several ways:

  • I asked advice from people who had practical experience with interns, and people I inherently trusted. This meant that instead of me doing general broad research, then deciding what I trusted, I was able to hear advice from someone I trust, and then just ACT on their advice. This is an incredible time saver. Likewise, because I talked to these friends, they were able to speak to and assuage any fear I had. It wasn’t all objective stuff – it was comfort level stuff.
  • Even though my long-term goal is to have people who are permanent members of the WeGrowMedia team, I crafted internships as a 3-month engagement. In fact, I originally started this process not as looking for interns, but as wanting to hire someone as a part-time employee. The friends I reached out to convinced me to instead start with interns.
     

    The nice thing about limiting the time commitment is that you avoid any awkward discussions of “Um, well, maybe we should part ways.” You define the end date at the beginning. But there’s more…

    You can always EXTEND the time you work together if you both want to. This is exactly what I am doing. One intern will be working with me for (at least) the next 3 months, and likely with more hours each week. The other interns will both continue on into the Fall in a limited capacity. I have REALLY enjoyed working with all three of these interns, so I’m trying to find ways to be able to work with them when it fits with their needs, desires, and schedules.

  • I was able to make the financial commitment feel safer by also limiting the number of hours each intern worked per week. As I wrote about in a previous post, my original intention was to hire one intern, but I hired three. I managed this financially by only offering a very limited number of hours per week. Since each of these interns also had other jobs, and because this is a virtual internship (that they do all work from at home), it totally worked for their needs. It also meant I could set my budget in the beginning and never worry for a moment after that about how much this may cost me. Let’s face it, our relationship with finances tends to be HIGHLY emotional, so I wanted to not have that fear bleed into my daily work with these interns.

STOP COUNTING PENNIES

Since we are already talking about financial stuff, let’s dig into something that was another big hurdle for me to get past. To not try to justify how the investment in hiring an intern will equate to specific dollars and cents return on investment. Instead, I focused on the larger need for me to learn how to manage staff and integrate others into my business.

As I created a budget for summer interns (and now for extending these relationships into the Fall) I am setting a reasonable budget, but never for a moment doing what I used to do: obsessing over it. At no point am I saying “Gee, I could instead use this money to pay for that attic fan we need.” Or “Could I get 12% more return on investment by instead purchasing Facebook ads?” I know that the skills I am developing, the ways that this process is increasing the capacity and quality of what WeGrowMedia provides, and the fact that I am now helping each of these interns earn a living far outweighs some percentage point of return on investment in terms of dollars and cents.

I suppose I view the budget for these interns almost as I view how I would invest in education. I am learning SO MUCH about how to have others be a part of WeGrowMedia that the value can only be fully appreciated as one considers the value of paying for college. I am investing in capacity, skills, and relationships.

As someone who runs a small business which is responsible for supporting my family, this was a big hurdle to get over. What I have found is that this has pushed me into amazing new directions, and I have been blown away by how many good things have come from it already.

SHUT UP AND LISTEN

So for years now, I have this voice in my head whose job it is to say one thing to myself:

“Shut the f*ck up, Dan.”

Sorry if this sounds crazy. But I love this voice, it is the voice that encourages me to shut up and just listen. Patiently listen. Listen, even when someone is enthusiastically describing something you already know. Listen, even when you think you “get it,” but the person who is speaking isn’t finished yet. Listen, because in between the words, in between what you THINK they are telling you, is the wisdom that you may not expect.

“Shut up and listen” has been a primary focus for me this summer – to give each interns as much freedom as possible, and when they came back with their research or their recommendations to do this:

  • Thank them (recognize their work)
  • Listen to them explain it (and ask any questions I had)
  • Ask for clear recommendations
  • Take their recommendations and turn it into action
  • Illustrate the results of their work as clearly as possible

This may sound basic, this may sound like “management 101” to you experienced managers, but it has been something I have been obsessing over.

Why? Because I have sat in too many corporate meetings where the tone of the meeting is that it is being driven exclusively by the emotional needs of the person with the highest rank. That they would ask for help from others, but then when they received that help, they would reject it, diminish it, or if they liked it, quickly add the cherry on top and abscond with it.

There was SO MUCH WISDOM in what each of the interns provided this summer. And it was so critical for me to listen for it, to provide enough space in my own head to carefully consider their recommendations.

The bottom line: each of these interns made WeGrowMedia better at serving writers.

PEOPLE FOCUS CREATIVE ENERGY

Each intern had their own project, and this helped me focus on pushing long-overdue tasks forward. For months now I have been wanting to launch a course on email newsletters, and because of Rachel’s work, it launched this summer. I am now mid-way through the course with the first group of writers.

I have had a laundry list of ideas to add to my consulting process to make it even stronger, and because of Diane’s work, we implemented so many of them. This allows me to provide more value not only to future clients, but we were also immediately were able to integrate new ideas into my daily & weekly workflow with existing clients. That felt awesome.

Kathi helped me reframe an online event I am planning for later this year. When she started, I had a vague vision of what I wanted, and she has been instrumental in vetting these ideas, doing loads of research, and giving us a firmer footing to begin development of the event in earnest.

I have no doubt that without Diane, Rachel, and Kathi, I would not have moved forward with these projects this summer. Not just because of the incredible work they did, but because working WITH them focused my own energy to push forward. Having deadlines and being accountable matters, but even more than that…

WORKING WITH OTHERS IS FUN!

Can I just tell you how much more fun it is to work with others on projects you are passionate about? I know this from the work I do with writers – that when they partner with me – they feel less overwhelmed, have more resources, and are able to push forward more quickly. But it was so wonderful to experience that for myself with Diane, Kathi, and Rachel.

I now have three amazing COLLEAGUES who offer their own unique experience and skills to the mission of WeGrowMedia. And perhaps, for the first time, this feels a bit more like “WeGrowMedia” – a company – instead of just “Dan Blank.” Which is a direction I have been slowly working towards for years.

OTHER WAYS YOU CAN GET HELP

Most writers I know are overwhelmed and juggling so many responsibilities in addition to their writing. As I consider the idea of “getting help,” I wanted to explore other ways to consider doing so:

  • Hire people to take non-creative tasks off your plate: this is a bit of the flip side of what I did with these interns, who helped in very creative ways. For instance, you could hire a cleaning company to clean your home each week, freeing up hours of time so that you can write or develop your career. Or you could hire a landscaping company to mow your lawn and manage the outside of your home, all for the same purpose. Can you justify spending $50 or $100 per week to experiment with these options? You may not know until you try.
  • Getting more energy. I have often stated that your energy (and how you use it) is usually as important (if not more important) than how you use your time. So perhaps you invest in getting more energy by getting healthier. This could involve joining a gym, paying for a personal trainer, hiring a nutritionist, or doing what I have been doing recently which is going to physical therapy to deal with a lingering back issue. It is easy to reject these ideas because of time or money – but what I find is that when you invest in yourself, new opportunities open up.

    Also: as I mentioned above, when you turn these processes into SOCIAL processes, you are more likely to actually go through with them. This is part of the value of having a personal trainer: when someone is waiting for you at the gym: you show up. In the past I have written about how this is one of the many reasons that Weight Watchers is so effective.

  • Deal with the fear. You could hire a life coach to help you deal with creating momentum in your home and work life. Or go to a therapist to confront deep emotional barriers that hold you back. Or hire a book coach to help you learn the craft and habits of getting your writing done. So much of this is about confronting the fear that you have – and moving forward in spite of it.
  • Partner with others. This could be formal or informal, with financial arrangements or without. But finding someone to share your passion and pool your resources is something worth exploring. Some obvious partners in the publishing process would be getting an agent, or a publisher, and you can even consider a retailer (such as Amazon) as a partner, but there are so many other ways to consider partnerships.
  • Hire a consultant. Some of these are obvious: hiring a developmental editor, a copy editor, a publicist – people who have a very specific professional task to increase the quality of, or the scale of your work.
  • Join a group of like-minded folks with the same goals. This could be a writing group or a mastermind group you join, or it could involve you creating a group such as a group of beta readers or a
    street team. This could also be more informal, such as becoming very active in an online community, such as the good folks over at WriterUnboxed.com.

This is not an exhaustive list, and when I asked a group of writers I know about how they have “gotten help,” they mentioned even more: from the value of generosity (that when you lend assistance, you tend to receive assistance); joining organizations such as Romance Writers of America; books; conferences & events; engaging with specific communities in social media, such as groups on Facebook or Google+.

What has worked for you in terms of “getting help” so that you can create momentum in your life and career?

Thanks.
-Dan

Closing the Gap Between Your Taste & the Quality of Your Craft

Craft. To me, there is no more foundational of a word to describe the PROCESS of not only becoming a better writer, but becoming better at communicating with and connecting to the world. Craft is a skill set (or series of skill sets) that you hone slowly, often over the course of years.

Craft isn’t a trick, isn’t a shortcut, isn’t a ‘best practice.’ It is experience and the wisdom that comes with it. (Along with, let’s face it: loads of small failures & frustrations!)

I have been thinking a lot about the other essential ingredient that filters into what makes great work: TASTE. And how craft and taste are interrelated. Today, I want to reflect on how three masters of the creative process frame the value of taste…

Ira Glass: The Gap Between Taste, And Great Work

Ira Glass explains this infinitely better than I ever could:

“All of us who do creative work get into it because you have good taste. There is stuff that you just love. But there is a gap, where for the first couple years you are making stuff, what you are making isn’t so good. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good.”

“But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, like you can tell it is still sort of crappy. A lot of people never get past that phase, a lot of people at that point, they quit.”

“The thing I would say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, but they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be, it fell short. It didn’t have that special thing we wanted it to have. Everybody goes through that, and if you are going through it right now, you got to know that it’s totally normal, and the most important thing you can possibly do, is to do a lot of work, do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline.”

“It’s only by going through a volume of work that you are going to actually catch up and close that gap, and the work you are making will be as good as your ambitions.”

In the video, Ira goes on to critique his own work from early on in his career in public radio – taking apart how bad his own writing and delivery is on air. He underscores the point that it took him way longer than others to begin to get good.

The work he is critiquing is from his EIGHTH year in public radio – imagine publicly reviewing your work after EIGHT YEARS of effort, and calling it “moronic” and saying it was “executed in the worst possible way.” By actually hearing the tape he plays, you experience two things at once:

  • An earnest and hard working reporter trying to do their very best.
  • Proof that their work is failing on many levels

Too often, because one has good taste, they feel that work must obviously reflect the quality of their taste. Yet very often, it doesn’t, and that is where CRAFT comes in. The years of honing, of effort, of experience, of feedback, of experiments, of small failures, of small successes.

Taste is what is embodied in the WORK you craft as a writer or creative professional. But more and more, it is a choice you have in how you connect your work to the world. Whether this is “marketing,” or simply how you choose to engage with colleagues or readers of your work. Taste is key decision point in everything. It is also the decision of what you choose NOT to do.

Here are two example from my own experience this year – where I tried to change my habits in order to match up my taste with what the world experiences of my work:

Steve Jobs: Taste is Understanding the Subtly of Better Things

Steve Jobs reflects on the value of taste in this 1995 interview. The context is how he describes Microsoft:

“The only problem with Microsoft is that they just have no taste. They don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their product. Their products have no spirit of enlightenment about them.”

What is so compelling about this interview is that it happened in 1995, before Steve Jobs’ famous “second act,” before the iMac, iPod, iPad, iPhone, App Store and so much else. And in the interview, you do not hear from a man who is trying to get back on top. He was not about to retake Apple, he is a man who seems comfortable knowing that his biggest accomplishments were behind him. Yet, his comments are almost premonitions as far as consumer products go, and his role in them for the next 15 years:

“The way that we are going to ratchet up our species, is to take the best, and to spread it around to everybody, and everybody grows up with better things, and starts to understand the subtly of these better things.”

Now, it is arguable about Apple’s products being “better things,” but I think that the biggest thing that Steve & Apple contributed broadly to culture is an appreciation of TASTE. Even if you reject Apple’s products, likely that choice is based on a deeper appreciation of taste as it comes to product design and function – DUE to Apple’s affect on our culture. Perhaps you prefer open source mobile operating systems, or a design set that Google provides you over Apple. Awesome! That level of appreciation to detail did not exist as broadly in 1995 as it does in 2014, thanks to Steve.

John Cleese: Creativity is Not a Talent. It is a Way of Operating

While taste and creativity are different topics, I do feel they are related in this context. John Cleese adds something to this conversation that both supports what Ira and Steve said:

“Creativity is Not a Talent. It is a Way of Operating”

He expands it to consider the tone of how one creates a large body of work (as Ira encourages) and how one challenges every detail (as Steve encourages):

“Creativity is not an ability you have or do not have. It is an ability to play – to be able to play with ideas, to explore them, not for any immediate practical purpose, but just for enjoyment. Play for it’s own sake.”

He talks about different modes of operating: closed and open, and the value of each, including the ability to move back and forth fluidly between them. Here is the full talk:

Selling Out

Whenever you work in the creative arts, there is often a sensitivity to the concept of “selling out.” In this context, I would say that oftentimes we lose taste when we make decisions solely for economic purposes.

For instance, when a new store opens, the owner often creates a front counter that is sparse and spotless. It is elegant, and with good taste. Over time, it get crowded with more products encouraging last-minute impulse-buys.

In the beginning they made counter-design decisions based on taste. “This looks elegant and professional.” Over time, the realities of the economics of running a shop took over: “Getting more revenue makes this entire venture sustainable.”

And I think that for writers, musicians, artists and other types of creators, this gets further confused with the distinction of what is economically successful is not always in good taste or of high quality. We seek validation, but that validation may exist outside of our own personal barometers of taste and craft.

I never said any of this was simple.

Developing Your Taste

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I feel that taste and craft are closely linked, and that for writers who want to be read, there is more than one craft at work here. Clearly, there is the craft of creating wonderful stories and writing. That is primary.

But there is also the craft of producing a great book – a physically great object – as well as the craft that I focus on with authors – of how they connect to the world in a way that is meaningful to both them personally, that does justice to the work itself, ensuring it has an effect on the lives of their readers.

A lot of writers resist anything having to do with connecting themselves to readers because they are worried about becoming over-promotional. What is sometimes going on here is that their TASTE is to be elegant and unobtrusive. They fight the idea of taking an active role in developing their audience by saying statements such as “shouldn’t a writer JUST write?!” Now, clearly, that is a personal choice. But for those who want to develop their audience, they have to establish the CRAFT of connecting their writing to the world in a way that is meaningful, and not overly promotional.

As Ira, Steve, and John all talked about: the craft of good work takes time. I have written about this topic in the past in a variety of ways:

What has your experience been of trying to close the gap between your taste and the quality of your craft?

Thanks.
-Dan

Forgoing the “New and Shiny”

I saw something a couple months back, that I can’t get out of my head. It’s something that reminded me of how – too often – we get distracted by the “new and shiny,” forgetting work of skill, craft, and meaning. But, I’ll get back to what that thing was in a moment…

I see this a lot with writers and other creative entrepreneurs: how new apps, social media, systems, buttons, marketing tactics, etc – seem to make us feel:

  • Clever when we find it; cutting edge when we share it.
  • Hopeful that there is an easier path – a shortcut – to success.
  • Relevant and contemporary by knowing about this new thing.
  • Validated. (ooohh, this is a biggie)

And in our everyday lives, this plays out in a variety of ways, writ large via social media: Tweets, links, giveaways, blogs, videos, lists, podcasts, etc. And endless list of “Have you heard about this amazing new trick?! Click here!”

I get less excited by this stuff for a lot of reasons. Perhaps primarily because I have found that the stuff that really works – the foundational ways the people learn about things, feel connected to them, and take action – works really well, but are difficult to master. And yet, in learning THIS craft – how to better communicate, how to better identify and understand your audience, how to better connect with others in a way that is meaningful, not promotional – something more interesting is created.

Okay, back to the beginning of this post. What was the thing that I saw that reminded me of all of this? A 75 year old dance number from a movie that astounded me, the Nicholas brothers from the 1943 film Stormy Weather:

About half-way through the video, just when you think “wow, this is pretty impressive, I’ve seen enough,” they duo raises the stakes. It’s worth watching the entire three minutes.

Fred Astair reportedly said that this was the finest piece of tap dancing ever filmed.

When I looked up the Nicholas brothers, it was neat to learn that each of them lived to see the turn of the century. I found this documentary on them that includes interviews with both brothers.

I suppose my concern over the “new and shiny” is about two things; The first is overlooking the amazing culture and accomplishments from our past. For instance, how many of these top rated documentaries have you heard of? I knew of surprisingly few of them. There are decades worth of top documentaries waiting for me to discover them.

The second thing is that the term that I hear most often from writers is: “OVERWHELMED.”

They are, plainly put: overwhelmed by trying to balance their regular lives, crafting their books & stories, the publishing process, and the desire/pressure to ensure it reaches readers. And, like all click-able headlines (“10 amazing ways to use Pinterest to launch your book!”) this tends to encourage the behavior of looking for shortcuts and new and shiny ways of doing more with less effort.

And I can’t blame them for wanting this type of thing. But I think that shortcuts of the new and shiny remove the wisdom of the journey. That there is something important to be experienced when you explore goal setting that leads to action; small steps that build momentum; hone and test messaging which leads to true engagement with readers; establish a proper strategy and communication channels that WORK, instead of just juggling a million social networks.

That, for all the shortcuts and new and shiny things that distract us everyday, there is something lost – perhaps a lack of diversity of efforts & experience when we all look for the same mindless best practices.

I watched a documentary this week, Finding Vivian Maier, of a woman who spent a lifetime taking incredible photographs, but never shared them with anyone. They were found after she passed away, and the story of who she was and what she saw is as intriguing as the photographs themselves.

In the context of this post though, what I love is that we are discovering an artist who focused on the basics – deeply communicative photographs of the human experience. And the fact that we discover her decades after she created most of her work, simply underscores that value is found not just in things that are new, things that are shiny, but things that are universal, well-crafted, and timeless.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed? How do you keep yourself motivated to focus on the foundations, not the new & shiny?

Thank you.
-Dan