Recently, I've gone through a lot of changes in my life. Without boring anyone with the details of those, I just want to share the one insight that came out of all those changes, and it's this: The more complexity you have in your life, the more difficult it is to adapt to change.
On some level, I always knew this was true, but it was really proven to me in the past couple of months. So, I'm on a mission to further simplify my already simple life, and that mission extends to the online world.
I have a tendency to stretch myself thin, and so I'm going to be reversing that trend by shutting down this blog, and moving the content over to my other blog. The posts in the archives of 52SS have already been added to the archives of adamdistefano.com under the category "Creativity." New posts that cover the topics that I used to cover here will also go under that category in the future.
The move makes sense to me as the blog that's hosted on my personal domain should, I would think, reflect my personal interests, and writing and creativity fall into that category. This also means that I will have only one site to update, and that one site will get updated more frequently.
I'll continue to write fiction, but this blog stopped being about the actual 52 short story experiment a long time ago, and has been about creativity pretty much since the beginning. As such, I don't think there will be a whole lot lost in this transition.
I hope you'll come on over to adamdistefano.com and continue reading my thoughts over there, and if you want to avoid the posts on marketing and business, just ignore them, and focus on the ones that will be categorized "Creativity."
See you on the flip side.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Education and Creativity
I've been reading and talking about education a lot lately. The Next Great Generation, a site which I'm an editor for, is having a whole week about the topic, so for some in depth thoughts on it from some bright young minds, I think you should take a look. I also have a long-winded piece coming up on that site about the topic, but I wanted to give a quick look into how western education systems affect creativity.
I went through a very normal public school education. I feel like I have a good picture of what a decent public school education looks like, and all I can say is that as far as fostering creativity goes, it sucks. How do I know this? Because I was great at school. Seriously, I was really, really good at school. I was the kid you hate because he doesn't even try and still gets A's. Where'd it get me? Into an academic advisor's office that kept pushing me to do pre-med even though I hated all physical sciences. Once I finally decided to ignore that advice, where did my good grades get me? Law school. Fat lot of good that did me.
Do you see the problem here? Our best students are getting pushed towards careers that are completely empirical, and leave no room for creativity. We don't need more lawyers and accountants. Yes, we need more doctors, but maybe if there were people coming up with creative solutions to the underlying causes of illness, we wouldn't.
I'm not suggesting that our society will improve dramatically if we have more dance instructors or sculptors. I'm suggesting that every single function in society could be well-served with an injection of creativity. Let's stop teaching people how to do things, and let's encourage them to figure out their own way of doing things.
And one last thing, a $40,000+ piece of paper doesn't prove anything other than that you can memorize information and regurgitate it onto a page. So, I beg you, if you're one of those people who tries to impress others with his degrees, stop. Just stop. Please.
I went through a very normal public school education. I feel like I have a good picture of what a decent public school education looks like, and all I can say is that as far as fostering creativity goes, it sucks. How do I know this? Because I was great at school. Seriously, I was really, really good at school. I was the kid you hate because he doesn't even try and still gets A's. Where'd it get me? Into an academic advisor's office that kept pushing me to do pre-med even though I hated all physical sciences. Once I finally decided to ignore that advice, where did my good grades get me? Law school. Fat lot of good that did me.
Do you see the problem here? Our best students are getting pushed towards careers that are completely empirical, and leave no room for creativity. We don't need more lawyers and accountants. Yes, we need more doctors, but maybe if there were people coming up with creative solutions to the underlying causes of illness, we wouldn't.
I'm not suggesting that our society will improve dramatically if we have more dance instructors or sculptors. I'm suggesting that every single function in society could be well-served with an injection of creativity. Let's stop teaching people how to do things, and let's encourage them to figure out their own way of doing things.
And one last thing, a $40,000+ piece of paper doesn't prove anything other than that you can memorize information and regurgitate it onto a page. So, I beg you, if you're one of those people who tries to impress others with his degrees, stop. Just stop. Please.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Marketers are Artists and Artists are Marketers
Please note that this is a cross-post with my other blog: AdamDiStefano.com
Last week, I wrote about the story behind launching my new side project, iL-Logic the webcomic. However, I thought of myself as a writer long before I launched iL-Logic with Paul. I’ve been writing outside of work and school for pleasure or for money since the age of about fourteen. While I’m much more satisfied with my career now than I was upon graduating law school, it’s still a far cry from the artist’s lifestyle that I fantasized about as a teen, and yet, I wonder if I didn’t end up exactly where I needed to be.
As much as any artist will tell you that the work itself is the reward, there’s still a big part of himself (that he’s probably buried) that longs to have his work in front of hundreds of eyeballs. That’s why many aspiring artists end up giving up their craft. They never get there.
I’ll use the launch of iL-Logic as an example. On March 1st, the day the webcomic was launched, it went quasi-viral. Before I could announce it on Facebook or Twitter, or even tell friends about it, someone had come across it and submitted it to social bookmarking site Stumbleupon. On that first day, Stumbleupon accounted for 80% of the site’s traffic, and that first day saw twice as much traffic than my best day on any of my other sites. If you don’t think Paul and I were elated by that day because we were just doing it for the art, you have too high an opinion of us, and probably of all artists. The bottom line is that all artists get off on seeing their work in front of others.
And what’s the best way to get content in front of eyeballs? That’s right, marketing.
With the highly competitive nature of just about every industry, the main differentiator between two options will always be the quality of the content, product, service, etc. The best people to create great content and products are the artists and craftsmen (and the best craftsmen are artists). But even a great product needs attention, and for that, artists must once again rely on marketers.
Marketing is becoming a numbers-based science, and that’s a great step for advertisers. Advertisers are sure to get their money’s worth when they’re paying for performance, rather than conjecture. However, it’s not very appealing to artists, who generally speaking don’t love numbers. Talk to a lot of old school ad men, and I bet that a fair bit of them are nostalgic for the times when clients like John Wanamaker knew that, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." That’s because old school ad men were artists at heart, trapped in the bodies of marketers.
Still, “true” artists have always had a certain disdain for marketing. Whether this stems from a mistaken belief that commercial marketing cheapens the work, or that it equates to “selling out,” or simply because marketing was associated with business, and business was not art. And so, artists have traditionally stuck to making art, and letting someone else sell it for them.
Agents, publishers, galleries, and other entities whose goal is to take the work of artists and sell it have left most artists poor and desolate. Unless an artist becomes a part of the top 1% in his field, he is unlikely to make a middle-class living off his art using the traditional models. This is simply because the entities that have existed to sell artists’ works on their behalf have become so bloated that they absorb all of the revenues of the work.
As an example, a writer who spends a year of his life writing a novel can expect to get a paltry advance of perhaps $5,000 to $10,000 on the book, and then will receive royalties, that if he’s lucky may go as high as 10%. This means the publisher, who is taking the expense of marketing the book keeps 90% of the revenues. The writer’s agent will then keep 10-15% of whatever the writer makes. Despite this model, publishers are going out of business, and writers can’t find anyone to publish their work. The model is broken.
The good news is there are alternatives. There are so many examples of artists doing well for themselves by embracing online marketing techniques: Hazel Dooney, Hugh Macleod, and John T. Unger, JC Hutchins. To name only a few whose stories I’m familiar with. These artists have stepped away from the traditional model and market their own work. They are both artist and marketer. In so doing, they turn the traditional model on its head, and make it so that the person producing the work is actually receiving the majority of the revenues from its sale.
They are not doing anything magical. They are simply taking advantage of the cheap publishing platform that the internet has given them and used marketing techniques, many of which are the same ones I write about on a weekly basis, and have enjoyed the fruits of their own labours.
Doesn’t it only make sense that artists should be the marketers? Who knows the target audience better than the author of a work? Who is best suited to sell it, if not the person creating it? If artists want to thrive, they need to become marketers. Not only will it benefit their work, but their previous work as artists will make them better marketers than the rest - their imagination and craft will set them apart.
If you’re a writer, painter, sculptor, photographer, designer, or any other kind of artist, drop me a line. I’d love to discuss what you’re doing to market your work.
Last week, I wrote about the story behind launching my new side project, iL-Logic the webcomic. However, I thought of myself as a writer long before I launched iL-Logic with Paul. I’ve been writing outside of work and school for pleasure or for money since the age of about fourteen. While I’m much more satisfied with my career now than I was upon graduating law school, it’s still a far cry from the artist’s lifestyle that I fantasized about as a teen, and yet, I wonder if I didn’t end up exactly where I needed to be.
As much as any artist will tell you that the work itself is the reward, there’s still a big part of himself (that he’s probably buried) that longs to have his work in front of hundreds of eyeballs. That’s why many aspiring artists end up giving up their craft. They never get there.
I’ll use the launch of iL-Logic as an example. On March 1st, the day the webcomic was launched, it went quasi-viral. Before I could announce it on Facebook or Twitter, or even tell friends about it, someone had come across it and submitted it to social bookmarking site Stumbleupon. On that first day, Stumbleupon accounted for 80% of the site’s traffic, and that first day saw twice as much traffic than my best day on any of my other sites. If you don’t think Paul and I were elated by that day because we were just doing it for the art, you have too high an opinion of us, and probably of all artists. The bottom line is that all artists get off on seeing their work in front of others.
And what’s the best way to get content in front of eyeballs? That’s right, marketing.
With the highly competitive nature of just about every industry, the main differentiator between two options will always be the quality of the content, product, service, etc. The best people to create great content and products are the artists and craftsmen (and the best craftsmen are artists). But even a great product needs attention, and for that, artists must once again rely on marketers.
Marketing is becoming a numbers-based science, and that’s a great step for advertisers. Advertisers are sure to get their money’s worth when they’re paying for performance, rather than conjecture. However, it’s not very appealing to artists, who generally speaking don’t love numbers. Talk to a lot of old school ad men, and I bet that a fair bit of them are nostalgic for the times when clients like John Wanamaker knew that, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." That’s because old school ad men were artists at heart, trapped in the bodies of marketers.
Still, “true” artists have always had a certain disdain for marketing. Whether this stems from a mistaken belief that commercial marketing cheapens the work, or that it equates to “selling out,” or simply because marketing was associated with business, and business was not art. And so, artists have traditionally stuck to making art, and letting someone else sell it for them.
Agents, publishers, galleries, and other entities whose goal is to take the work of artists and sell it have left most artists poor and desolate. Unless an artist becomes a part of the top 1% in his field, he is unlikely to make a middle-class living off his art using the traditional models. This is simply because the entities that have existed to sell artists’ works on their behalf have become so bloated that they absorb all of the revenues of the work.
As an example, a writer who spends a year of his life writing a novel can expect to get a paltry advance of perhaps $5,000 to $10,000 on the book, and then will receive royalties, that if he’s lucky may go as high as 10%. This means the publisher, who is taking the expense of marketing the book keeps 90% of the revenues. The writer’s agent will then keep 10-15% of whatever the writer makes. Despite this model, publishers are going out of business, and writers can’t find anyone to publish their work. The model is broken.
The good news is there are alternatives. There are so many examples of artists doing well for themselves by embracing online marketing techniques: Hazel Dooney, Hugh Macleod, and John T. Unger, JC Hutchins. To name only a few whose stories I’m familiar with. These artists have stepped away from the traditional model and market their own work. They are both artist and marketer. In so doing, they turn the traditional model on its head, and make it so that the person producing the work is actually receiving the majority of the revenues from its sale.
They are not doing anything magical. They are simply taking advantage of the cheap publishing platform that the internet has given them and used marketing techniques, many of which are the same ones I write about on a weekly basis, and have enjoyed the fruits of their own labours.
Doesn’t it only make sense that artists should be the marketers? Who knows the target audience better than the author of a work? Who is best suited to sell it, if not the person creating it? If artists want to thrive, they need to become marketers. Not only will it benefit their work, but their previous work as artists will make them better marketers than the rest - their imagination and craft will set them apart.
If you’re a writer, painter, sculptor, photographer, designer, or any other kind of artist, drop me a line. I’d love to discuss what you’re doing to market your work.
Monday, March 15, 2010
iL-Logic: The Newest Side Project
If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or pretty much anywhere other than this blog, then you know that on March 1st, I launched iL-Logic with friend and artist, Paul Selman. iL-Logic is a webcomic that publishes every Monday and Thursday. I write it, and Paul does the art.
There are a million webcomics out there. Many of them even seem to resemble iL-Logic in tone and premise. I've already committed myself to writing more short stories than I seem to be able to keep up with. I maintain two blogs, and now contribute regularly to two other websites. So why did I decide to do it? Am I really so masochistic that I continue to spread myself ever thinner? Yes and no.
To understand why I'm doing iL-Logic, I'm going to share with you some history behind the project. On his blog, Paul gives a behind the scenes tour of the art in the comic, and it's absolutely fantastic (even I learn stuff from reading it, and I write the damn thing). So, this post is going to be my behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the concept.
iL-Logic's first strip opens with Edan, our protagonist, returning from a trip to France. About five years ago, I spent a summer in Spain. When I got back, I had a desire to do a webcomic. To say that Edan is loosely based on myself five years ago, and the rest of the cast is loosely based on my close circle of friends at the time would not be far-fetched. The webcomic never came off five years ago for the very simple reason that I was doing the writing and the art, and I was getting too frustrated by my rusty art skills. So, after scripting the first 20 or so strips, and drawing the first 3 or 4, iL-Logic literally went into a drawer for five years.
I've known Paul for over five years, but only really got to know his art in the past year, since he started his art blog. One morning, late last year, I woke up and thought to myself, "what if Paul did the art for iL-Logic?"
Why this thought occurred to me, i have no idea. I hadn't thought about the project in years. And yet, here was this thought, fresh in my mind. I started thinking about this possibility more and more, and I started pacing around my apartment, which is what I do when I get excited about an idea or a concept. I sat down at my desk, and started jotting story notes, and plotlines, and promotional plans, and website designs, and notes for an email to Paul, all in one jumbled mess. I got to work late that day.
iL-Logic was on my mind that entire morning. I kept thinking what a great fit it would be if Paul did the art. So, I wrote Paul a long, rambling e-mail outlining what I wanted to do, what I was proposing, all the reasons we should do it, and the main reason we shouldn't: it was slightly insane. Then I waited.
Part of me hoped that Paul would be rational and say, "Mate, you've gone bonkers. Neither of us has the time for this." But another part of me really hoped that he would agree. I got home from work that night, checked my e-mail and there was Paul's answer. He was interested. I immediately sent Paul my completed scripts, my notes on the project, and the original iL-Logic strips that I had drawn years earlier.
For days, e-mails (really long ones) flew back and forth as we discussed the concept. Paul, bless him, didn't make fun of my old artwork too much, and had his own ideas about the art, that had me incredibly excited, because it would be something that no other webcomic I knew of was doing.
For my part, I took a long hard look at the story for iL-Logic and decided that part of the reason that I was so interested in doing this, was because here was a story based on the person I was five years ago. I was interested in seeing how far I'd grown since first putting this idea together. So, I set out to be just as ambitious in my writing as Paul was going to be in his art.
The original iL-Logic followed the misadventures of a group of 20-somethings (and a koala), and generally poked fun at every day life. The iL-Logic that launched on March 1st is a whole different animal. Yes, the cast remains a group of 20-somethings (and a koala), but the story is far more ambitious. How ambitious? The iL-Logic story is a 3-act story that will span several hundred strips (not sure if I've mentioned this to Paul, yet). The story has a distinct beginning, middle and end. The strips will still be humourous, but the story also involves looking at socio-political issues in a very serious way. The characters will grow over time so that the characters you see in strip #1 will not be the same characters that you will see in the story's final strip. Just as I am not the same person I was five years ago, Edan will not be the same person in five years.
I have never written a comic before. Aside from reading a couple of webcomics on a regular basis, and having read comic books as a teen, I'm not even much of a comic guy. Despite this fact, I still think that we can make iL-Logic the best comic on the web. I intend to put just as much care into writing iL-Logic as I would put into writing a short story or a novel, and Paul has already demonstrated that every panel of iL-Logic is a work of art. iL-Logic is a labour of love. It's a challenge, and it's an opportunity.
So, if the question remains, what possessed me to do a webcomic? All I can say is that it's something I just had to do.
You can check out iL-Logic the webcomic at il-logic.com, and you can check out Paul's art blog (including behind-the-scenes looks at the comic) at www.pauldselman.com.
Questions about iL-Logic? Drop them below in the comments and let's chat about it.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Responding to Genius
The word genius gets thrown around way too often these days. Genius is a word that should be reserved for the truly exceptional, the rarest of works or thoughts.
And yet, a couple of weeks ago I finished reading a book, that without a doubt in my mind, was a masterpiece, penned by a genius. That book was Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace (Amazon affiliate link). I'll admit to never having read anything by Wallace before, and to really not knowing anything about him other than maybe his name. As such, perhaps tackling a 1000 page book, with 100 pages of end notes (that yes, you MUST read) was not the ideal introduction to his work. This, especially when you consider that I'm not a huge fan ofne of my favourite novels, and it obsessed me during the time that I read it in a way that was unl long novels, and I'm a sucker for the brevity of Hemingway. Nonetheless, this has become oike any other novel.
This isn't a book review, so why am I telling you this? Because I'm not interested so much in the book itself, but in the way people respond to genius. At various times, to various works, I've responded to genius in one of two ways.
The first was to be inspired. This is generally what happens to me when I witness something that I consider genius in a field other than writing. It inspires me to head to my desk and start playing with words and crafting stories. It's an emotional response to the positive feeling I get from observing the work.
The second way I've responded to genius, and this, generally, is for pieces of writing, is to get mildly depressed. Unlike the first response, where the positive feeling I got inspired me, this appreciation of the greatness of a piece of writing makes me feel inadequate in comparison. "I'll never be able to write like that." This is a childish response, but again, it is emotional and not rational. Nonetheless, it leads to a dent in confidence, and a writer with no confidence will have a hard time putting words to a page.
So, in order to avoid these two extremes, I'm searching for a 3rd alternative, and I may have accidentally stumbled upon it while reading Infinite Jest. You can either accept that genius is innate, or you can believe that it can be achieved through hard work. I choose to believe the latter because it means there's hope that one day I might produce something that might be considered genius. When faced with two options, might as well go with the one that gives you hope.
This means that the logical response to a great work is actually to study it to find out what makes it so great so that you can learn from it. Unlike, the two previous responses, this isn't emotional; it's a rational response. Also, it doesn't necessarily preclude the first two responses. Nonetheless, if faced with the option of being in awe of something and then being entirely incapable of producing my own work, or taking some kind of action that might allow me to benefit from that awe, I think I'll go with option B.
Normally, I don't re-read books. My general feeling towards re-reading is, "There's too many other great ones out there to re-read the ones I already know." However,t at some point soon, I'm going to be re-reading Infinite Jest, this time as a student. David Foster Wallace may have left us, but he did leave great material for us to learn from, and I intend to do so.
How do you respond to works of genius? Do they inspire? Depress? Neither? Drop a note in the comments, and let's talk about it.
And yet, a couple of weeks ago I finished reading a book, that without a doubt in my mind, was a masterpiece, penned by a genius. That book was Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace (Amazon affiliate link). I'll admit to never having read anything by Wallace before, and to really not knowing anything about him other than maybe his name. As such, perhaps tackling a 1000 page book, with 100 pages of end notes (that yes, you MUST read) was not the ideal introduction to his work. This, especially when you consider that I'm not a huge fan ofne of my favourite novels, and it obsessed me during the time that I read it in a way that was unl long novels, and I'm a sucker for the brevity of Hemingway. Nonetheless, this has become oike any other novel.
This isn't a book review, so why am I telling you this? Because I'm not interested so much in the book itself, but in the way people respond to genius. At various times, to various works, I've responded to genius in one of two ways.
The first was to be inspired. This is generally what happens to me when I witness something that I consider genius in a field other than writing. It inspires me to head to my desk and start playing with words and crafting stories. It's an emotional response to the positive feeling I get from observing the work.
The second way I've responded to genius, and this, generally, is for pieces of writing, is to get mildly depressed. Unlike the first response, where the positive feeling I got inspired me, this appreciation of the greatness of a piece of writing makes me feel inadequate in comparison. "I'll never be able to write like that." This is a childish response, but again, it is emotional and not rational. Nonetheless, it leads to a dent in confidence, and a writer with no confidence will have a hard time putting words to a page.
So, in order to avoid these two extremes, I'm searching for a 3rd alternative, and I may have accidentally stumbled upon it while reading Infinite Jest. You can either accept that genius is innate, or you can believe that it can be achieved through hard work. I choose to believe the latter because it means there's hope that one day I might produce something that might be considered genius. When faced with two options, might as well go with the one that gives you hope.
This means that the logical response to a great work is actually to study it to find out what makes it so great so that you can learn from it. Unlike, the two previous responses, this isn't emotional; it's a rational response. Also, it doesn't necessarily preclude the first two responses. Nonetheless, if faced with the option of being in awe of something and then being entirely incapable of producing my own work, or taking some kind of action that might allow me to benefit from that awe, I think I'll go with option B.
Normally, I don't re-read books. My general feeling towards re-reading is, "There's too many other great ones out there to re-read the ones I already know." However,t at some point soon, I'm going to be re-reading Infinite Jest, this time as a student. David Foster Wallace may have left us, but he did leave great material for us to learn from, and I intend to do so.
How do you respond to works of genius? Do they inspire? Depress? Neither? Drop a note in the comments, and let's talk about it.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Goals, resolutions & flexibility
"What's the point of making resolutions if you know you're just going to break them anyway?" - Everyone and their dog
I closed out 2009 with a post about my various failures and successes for the year that just ended. You can only succeed or fail at something if you deliberately undertook doing it. No one can ever accuse me of failing to swim across the Atlantic because I never said I would attempt it (and because there are sharks). Similarly, if I one day break the world record for pacing, I will not have succeeded at anything because I never undertook the challenge of breaking a world record for pacing (I just pace a lot).
To succeed or fail, a person needs goals. If you never set yourself goals, you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. I like setting goals even if it means I fail sometimes. There are a lot of arguments for why people should have goals, but for my purposes, I'll simply say that I need them, otherwise I'm unhappy. As a result, I'm constantly setting goals for myself. Short-term, mid-term, long-term, etc. It's borderline obsessive behaviour.
My habit of creating goals is the reason why I haven't had an official New Year's resolution for a couple of years. A New Year's resolution is just a name for a goal that you set for yourself for a given year on January 1st of that year. By that token, you could say that writing 52 short stories in a single year was my New Year's resolution for 2009. I didn't think of it that way, but it fits.
Around now, there are a lot of numbers being crunched about how many people make resolutions, and how many stick to them. The numbers aren't pretty. But, the biggest reason that more people don't stick to their resolutions is because they're not used to goal setting. Goal setting's been distilled to a science by some, but it's at the very least an art, with those who practice it most getting better at it than those who don't.
Today I asked a handful of people if they made New Year's resolutions, all of them told me they don't make resolutions anymore because they never stick to them anyway. I really don't think a history of failing to meet goals means that you should stop setting them. Instead, I think it's an excellent opportunity to set goals differently. General goals are important, but they should be refined with smaller milestones, that can be measured, and that have shorter deadlines.
If your goal for 2010 is to exercise more, that's great, but break it down. By the end of March, maybe you want to be averaging 2 hours of exercise a week. By the end of June, maybe you want that up to 4 hours a week. By the end of September, you're up to 8. By the end of the year, you're averaging 12 hours a week of exercise. Now you've got milestones. If three month chunks are still too big to swallow, you can break it down to monthly or weekly. This is how I'm breaking down my goals for 2010.
Another thing that I can't really understand is why people seem to think that they have to have their goals laid out by January 1. If you're not sure what your goal is, don't arbitrarily rush it just to say that you have a resolution.
Flexibility is underrated in goal setting. My writing goals for 2010 are mapped out, and I know what I want to accomplish, but I also have about 4 or 5 non-writing goals for 2010. Rather than take them all on and fail at all of them, I'd rather focus on 1 or 2, and actually stand a chance at success. Unfortunately, I can't decide what to cut, so I'm going to give myself some extra time to decide what's most important.
That being said, this is my writing blog, so here are my 2010 writing goals:
The other notable difference between this year and last is that I'm planning to do a lot more outside work. Last year, just about all my writing was done for myself and for my blogs. This year, I'll be writing for others, and collaborating with others. This is something that I did more of in years past, and came to realize over the course of the past year that I missed it, so I will be doing more of it.
And what about you? What are your goals for 2010, or even just for this month? Writing or otherwise? What do you do to make sure you stick to your goals?
I closed out 2009 with a post about my various failures and successes for the year that just ended. You can only succeed or fail at something if you deliberately undertook doing it. No one can ever accuse me of failing to swim across the Atlantic because I never said I would attempt it (and because there are sharks). Similarly, if I one day break the world record for pacing, I will not have succeeded at anything because I never undertook the challenge of breaking a world record for pacing (I just pace a lot).
To succeed or fail, a person needs goals. If you never set yourself goals, you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. I like setting goals even if it means I fail sometimes. There are a lot of arguments for why people should have goals, but for my purposes, I'll simply say that I need them, otherwise I'm unhappy. As a result, I'm constantly setting goals for myself. Short-term, mid-term, long-term, etc. It's borderline obsessive behaviour.
My habit of creating goals is the reason why I haven't had an official New Year's resolution for a couple of years. A New Year's resolution is just a name for a goal that you set for yourself for a given year on January 1st of that year. By that token, you could say that writing 52 short stories in a single year was my New Year's resolution for 2009. I didn't think of it that way, but it fits.
Around now, there are a lot of numbers being crunched about how many people make resolutions, and how many stick to them. The numbers aren't pretty. But, the biggest reason that more people don't stick to their resolutions is because they're not used to goal setting. Goal setting's been distilled to a science by some, but it's at the very least an art, with those who practice it most getting better at it than those who don't.
Today I asked a handful of people if they made New Year's resolutions, all of them told me they don't make resolutions anymore because they never stick to them anyway. I really don't think a history of failing to meet goals means that you should stop setting them. Instead, I think it's an excellent opportunity to set goals differently. General goals are important, but they should be refined with smaller milestones, that can be measured, and that have shorter deadlines.
If your goal for 2010 is to exercise more, that's great, but break it down. By the end of March, maybe you want to be averaging 2 hours of exercise a week. By the end of June, maybe you want that up to 4 hours a week. By the end of September, you're up to 8. By the end of the year, you're averaging 12 hours a week of exercise. Now you've got milestones. If three month chunks are still too big to swallow, you can break it down to monthly or weekly. This is how I'm breaking down my goals for 2010.
Another thing that I can't really understand is why people seem to think that they have to have their goals laid out by January 1. If you're not sure what your goal is, don't arbitrarily rush it just to say that you have a resolution.
Flexibility is underrated in goal setting. My writing goals for 2010 are mapped out, and I know what I want to accomplish, but I also have about 4 or 5 non-writing goals for 2010. Rather than take them all on and fail at all of them, I'd rather focus on 1 or 2, and actually stand a chance at success. Unfortunately, I can't decide what to cut, so I'm going to give myself some extra time to decide what's most important.
That being said, this is my writing blog, so here are my 2010 writing goals:
- 30 short stories
- 20 blog posts on 52SS
- 45 blog posts on AdamDiStefano.com
- 12 articles for TheNextGreatGeneration.com
- 20 articles for sites that I don't currently write for
- 2 Top Secret projects (both of which are writing intensive)
The other notable difference between this year and last is that I'm planning to do a lot more outside work. Last year, just about all my writing was done for myself and for my blogs. This year, I'll be writing for others, and collaborating with others. This is something that I did more of in years past, and came to realize over the course of the past year that I missed it, so I will be doing more of it.
And what about you? What are your goals for 2010, or even just for this month? Writing or otherwise? What do you do to make sure you stick to your goals?
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Year in Review
It's the end of December, and the internet is flush with year-in-review blog posts. As much as I despise being a conformist, this blog WAS a one-year experiment that started a year ago. As such, a review of the past year, and an evaluation of how the experiment went is required.
Let's take a look at what my original goal was:
Anyone who's been visiting this page on a quasi-regular basis and looked at the progress tracking sheet in the right navigation bar, will have noticed that it hasn't been updated since the end of April, after the 14th story was completed. Luckily, that tracking table isn't representative. In truth, I stopped updating the tracking sheet when I started getting embarrassed by my lack of ability to stick to my writing schedule of more-or-less-one-story-per-week. Unfortunately, it's not as unrepresentative as I would like
So, how many short stories did I complete in a year? Just under 20. I know what you're thinking: "20 is a far cry from 52. You failed miserably."
But, I disagree, and not just for the sake of being argumentative. While I may have come far from my quantitative short story goal of 52 short stories, the overall goal of this experiment was to get me writing again, and it did. Twenty short stories is twenty more than I produced in 2008. Aside from writing short stories, I did a lot of other writing in 2009.
I also wrote several thousand e-mails, and probably a few dozen proposals and recommendations, but I won't count those.
This blog has always been meant as a place to chronicle my writing journey, and my thoughts on creativity, but I'm also going to use this space to talk about a few other achievements from 2009.
Professional
On the professional front, I continued my young journey in the world of internet marketing by helping my employer, the Yellow Pages Group, move aggressively into the online world. For obvious reasons, I won't say exactly what we did at YPG, but I've been lucky enough to be involved in some exciting high-profile projects that are changing the face of a 100-year old company. I also took a step up the corporate ladder.
Personal Goals/Experiments
I take a bit of an unusual approach to personal goals, I set them up as experiments, sort of like lifestyle design experiments. One example, is the 52SS experiment, but I tried out a few other ones this year.
The Low-Information Diet: I tried this out, and talked about it here (and here, and here). In essence, i cut out a whole lot of the information overload that I've come to believe that I "need." The result was that I had a lot of extra time, and realized that I didn't need most of that information after all. Six+ months later, I may have to repeat this experiment, because it seems that while I got rid of a lot of the information I used to consume, I've replaced it with a whole bunch more.
The 21-Day Holistic Detox: At some point this year, I took stock of my eating habits and realized that they were causing me to wake up in the morning feeling like I had gargled acid all night, causing me to have mid-afternoon energy slumps, and possibly affecting my focus. I decided to try the 21-day detox to see if it would change anything. The results after 3 weeks were enough for me to make a serious change in my eating habits. You can read more about my detox experience here.
Barefoot Running: After several years of trying to become a serious runner, but consistently being held up by minor injuries, I made a purchase this year that changed how I run, changed how much I run, and definitely changed the way people look at me. Vibram Five Fingers are quite possibly the ugliest shoes on the market, but they quickly became my favourite thing to wear on my feet (I am wearing my VFF Sprints as I write this). I highly recommend them if you don't mind strangers whispering things about you as you go by.
Twitter: This year, I hopped on the bandwagon and started using Twitter. It took me a little while, but I eventually got the hang of it, and while I'm far from being an addict, I do enjoy logging in for a few minutes a day to see what's happening. The great thing about Twitter is that its simplicity means the only limit to its usage is your imagination. It can be a tool for businesses, for writers, or just for having fun.
Personal Life/Social
There were no major events in my personal life this year, and I'm okay with that. My relationships, with family, friends and girlfriend remained the same, or got stronger. I realized that the most important people in my life have not changed for at least five years, and most of those, I've known far longer. Change is good, but sometimes, stability is better.
Overall
I may have come short of my goal to write 52 short stories, but in many other ways, in both writing, and outside of writing, 2009 was a good year for me, and I'm going to spend what's left of it being grateful for that.
So, now that the year's over, what happens to 52SS? Well, I think it's going to stick around. I think I'll extend the experiment, and I enjoy having a spot to share my thoughts. Expect the next post to come in the new year, and to talk about what's in store for 52SS, and for me, in 2010.
How was your 2009? I'd love to hear what you're proud of having accomplished in 2009, so please share in the comments.
Let's take a look at what my original goal was:
52 Short Stories is an experiment, in which I will attempt to complete 52 short stories from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009.
Anyone who's been visiting this page on a quasi-regular basis and looked at the progress tracking sheet in the right navigation bar, will have noticed that it hasn't been updated since the end of April, after the 14th story was completed. Luckily, that tracking table isn't representative. In truth, I stopped updating the tracking sheet when I started getting embarrassed by my lack of ability to stick to my writing schedule of more-or-less-one-story-per-week. Unfortunately, it's not as unrepresentative as I would like
So, how many short stories did I complete in a year? Just under 20. I know what you're thinking: "20 is a far cry from 52. You failed miserably."
But, I disagree, and not just for the sake of being argumentative. While I may have come far from my quantitative short story goal of 52 short stories, the overall goal of this experiment was to get me writing again, and it did. Twenty short stories is twenty more than I produced in 2008. Aside from writing short stories, I did a lot of other writing in 2009.
- I launched and wrote 27 posts for this blog
- I launched and wrote 17 posts for my professional blog that focuses on internet marketing for small and medium sized businesses
- I wrote two article for the upstart Gen-Y site The Next Great Generation
- I planned and wrote a substantial amount for a new project that I'll be launching with a co-conspirator in 2010
I also wrote several thousand e-mails, and probably a few dozen proposals and recommendations, but I won't count those.
This blog has always been meant as a place to chronicle my writing journey, and my thoughts on creativity, but I'm also going to use this space to talk about a few other achievements from 2009.
Professional
On the professional front, I continued my young journey in the world of internet marketing by helping my employer, the Yellow Pages Group, move aggressively into the online world. For obvious reasons, I won't say exactly what we did at YPG, but I've been lucky enough to be involved in some exciting high-profile projects that are changing the face of a 100-year old company. I also took a step up the corporate ladder.
Personal Goals/Experiments
I take a bit of an unusual approach to personal goals, I set them up as experiments, sort of like lifestyle design experiments. One example, is the 52SS experiment, but I tried out a few other ones this year.
The 21-Day Holistic Detox: At some point this year, I took stock of my eating habits and realized that they were causing me to wake up in the morning feeling like I had gargled acid all night, causing me to have mid-afternoon energy slumps, and possibly affecting my focus. I decided to try the 21-day detox to see if it would change anything. The results after 3 weeks were enough for me to make a serious change in my eating habits. You can read more about my detox experience here.
Barefoot Running: After several years of trying to become a serious runner, but consistently being held up by minor injuries, I made a purchase this year that changed how I run, changed how much I run, and definitely changed the way people look at me. Vibram Five Fingers are quite possibly the ugliest shoes on the market, but they quickly became my favourite thing to wear on my feet (I am wearing my VFF Sprints as I write this). I highly recommend them if you don't mind strangers whispering things about you as you go by.
Twitter: This year, I hopped on the bandwagon and started using Twitter. It took me a little while, but I eventually got the hang of it, and while I'm far from being an addict, I do enjoy logging in for a few minutes a day to see what's happening. The great thing about Twitter is that its simplicity means the only limit to its usage is your imagination. It can be a tool for businesses, for writers, or just for having fun.
Personal Life/Social
There were no major events in my personal life this year, and I'm okay with that. My relationships, with family, friends and girlfriend remained the same, or got stronger. I realized that the most important people in my life have not changed for at least five years, and most of those, I've known far longer. Change is good, but sometimes, stability is better.
Overall
I may have come short of my goal to write 52 short stories, but in many other ways, in both writing, and outside of writing, 2009 was a good year for me, and I'm going to spend what's left of it being grateful for that.
So, now that the year's over, what happens to 52SS? Well, I think it's going to stick around. I think I'll extend the experiment, and I enjoy having a spot to share my thoughts. Expect the next post to come in the new year, and to talk about what's in store for 52SS, and for me, in 2010.
How was your 2009? I'd love to hear what you're proud of having accomplished in 2009, so please share in the comments.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
