Archive for the ‘Life as a Creative’ Category

There is something that we do, as geeks in the community, that if sit-coms are to be trusted is stereotypically masculine: we present solutions to problems before we actually understand the problem.

Stop that. You’re helping no one.

Too often, fruitful discussion of problems is derailed by proposed solutions and then argument over the solution’s foreseen effects. Sometimes, that leads to further understanding of the problem, but just as often it turns into a pointless waste of energy in the form of a flame war.

It also creates a situation where “I see a problem and want to talk about it” is unhealthy, because the discussion desired is not the discussion created. And then those sorts of conversation seeds are less often planted, which hurts us all (if, like me, you believe that discourse is how we elevate our communities).

Next time someone presents a problem, take a moment to understand it. Set aside your assumptions as best you can — especially when those assumptions are counter to the problem. Like countering someone saying “I don’t like playing games like Burning Wheel because they’re too crunchy for me” with “Well, it isn’t for me” as though the human being you’re replying to is the problem.[2] Ask questions. Get some sense of what is behind the problem.

I understand the desire to immediately problem solve, because that is for many of us its own reward cycle. And I understand the impulse to be the first to post a new solution online, because then maybe you look smart and that’s yet another form of reward. But slow your roll and take some time to understand problems, and you’ll get something even better out of it:

You’ll become one of the sharpest people in the room, for having come to understand so many viewpoints. And you’ll be one of the more appreciated people in the room, because instead of being an assuming cockbite with fast, vacant answers, yours are thoughtful and are themselves worthy conversation seeds.

So, if you cannot bring yourself to slowing down and understanding someone else for the good of others and the community overall, consider the rather selfish ones I just stated. :)

- Ryan

[2] If you say that, punch yourself in the face right now. That’s pretty damned insulting to immediately suggest the other person is him or herself the problem.

As I take a momentary break from working on Mythender, after hitting a couple of epiphanies about presentation & content, I am reminded of something that, frankly, I could use more reminding of: there is no replacement for just doing the work.[1]

Thinking about the work will help you answer questions you know, so it’s good to chill and think outside of the actual moment of working. But in doing the work, writing or designing or whatever, something interesting happens: you discover questions you didn’t expect, and — more importantly — you discover answers you didn’t expect.

I’m changing Mythender’s character creation up a bit, to make it faster for convention play. If you’ve seen the character creation from before, you’ll see that there are different questions for your Heart and for your History (now called Past). They were open-ended questions. Some people dug them. Some people stalled. So I decided to just have three stock answers to chose from for each.[2]

Which, by the way, is a fuckton of content to make up.

The other thing you had to make up before, which I’m now putting on as choices, are what your Weapons are. I wasn’t sure how to do that; a couple months of mild thinking about this didn’t answer the question, and since I’m running this in a couple days, I had to just sit down and do it wrong just to have it done.

In doing that, the solution presented itself: the Weapons you choose come from the choices you pick for those questions. Now, that seems obvious, but it wasn’t obvious when I wasn’t sitting down and actually doing the work.

(Why I wasn’t doing the work? Making up 108 answers felt daunting, even though I know the way I should have done it is to do a little at a time. Sometimes, I’m a damned moron. :)

I’ve felt that way project after project, and if I need reminding of it, I’m sure others do to. So, if you’re stuck, and taking a moment hasn’t unstuck you, sit down and just be willing to do it wrong. You’ll discover unexpected answers in that path.

- Ryan

[1] I stumbled upon this old post recently, which I never followed up on with Part II. Or my blog is an ongoing Part II. I’ll go with the latter.

[2] For those who liked filling in the blank, that still exists. It’s now called “Advanced Character Creation,” and the text for that is pretty much “The questions are there. Pick your own answers & Weapons.”

At times, if you’re anything like me, you think: “Man, if only I can get a moment to fucking breathe.” Life seems to come at you from all sides, you’re struggling with this thing or that, and you feel like you can’t really push or get pushed further.

Here’s the thing: life isn’t going to give you those moments. At least, it won’t when you need them. (Frankly, you probably get them more often than you think, and don’t notice them. But that’s a digression.)

I will digress a little further, and make a gaming analogy.[1] In Don’t Rest Your Head, as the GM spends Coins of Despair, they turn into Coins of Hope for the players. The players may, when their characters are in a moment of rest or calm, spend one of those Hope to heal their character.

And as the GM, it’s not my fucking job to give you those moments. You want to heal? You want to breathe? Make that moment happen.

The same with life. You need to make those moments happen when you need them. Sometimes that means pushing to accomplish something pressing harder than you otherwise might. But sometimes it means being honest with your capacity as a human being and carve out a time where you can breathe despite the feeling that the walls are closing in.

I cannot tell you which is right for you, because it’s all situational. I have to deal with a bunch of pressing health stuff right now, which cannot wait long. But once I accomplish the next goal with that, I can give myself a day or two to breathe. On the other hand, sometimes I need to give myself the day off of freelance work, because the pressure causes me to become subpar with the work. And evaluating which is which is a skill that I’ve only started to hone, and am far from mastering.

When these moments happen, I try to ask myself (though the wording is not quite like this in the moment in my mind): What is the most pressing problem? What’s needed to deal with this? Will pushing on it be a detriment to my short-term or long-term sanity?

And when I deem I need to, I force moments in time for me to breathe. Because no one is going to hand those to me.

That I didn’t do this enough in 2010 is why I crashed hard, burning business relationships and some friendships, and why I slowed down in 2011. After all, sometimes the reason we need those moments to breathe, sometimes we feel like we’re being pushed too hard, that’s because we’re doing it to ourselves.

I encourage everyone who works with me on projects to do the same thing, and I try to recognize (when I’m able, like when we’re working in the same office) when people need and aren’t themselves recognizing it or feeling the ability to ask. Because sometimes we need some help from allies to make those moments happen. No one’s an island, etc.

- Ryan

[1] Which breaks my rule for analogies: stick to food, relationships, or sex. Other analogies, including sports, don’t always translate. (Which reminds me of a story that Paul Tevis told me about baseball analogies not translating to his Swiss coworkers.)

I was talking with Will Hindmarch about this idea last month, and decided it’s worth talking about on my blog. We were discussing, among other things, my approach to working with Evil Hat Productions.

I strive to be unnecessary, on my terms.

This might sound weird, but when I come onto a project, it’s because my skills are needed. Same reason anyone comes on board something, ideally. Some of my jobs at Evil Hat involve figuring out what resources we have for our Fate & Dresden projects, project a publication date, and then figure out deadlines to get to that point (or revise the publication date because the deadlines are unreasonable). I talk with writers & editors to figure out how the hell we do this thing. And I talk with Fred about what his needs as a publisher are.

That was my job when I came on board for Dresden, because that didn’t exist. Amanda Valentine was attempting that, but she was fighting a hard battle, between gaining rapport & trust with the crew and Evil Hat growing as a company & learning to, well, be something more than a three-man band, it wasn’t working. At one point, I said “okay, my turn” and I started coordinating with everyone. I had a decent rapport with most of the people involved, and I have the sort of personality that worked in that moment to get the project moving.

Today, Amanda’s that person on the Paranet Papers, and I’m happy. Why? Because I made myself unnecessary for that role. (I am, of course, still doing that for Don’t Hack This Game.) I don’t just want to bring my skills, I want to transfer them. I want others to learn from whatever I’m doing — good and bad — just as I want to learn from them. And in doing so, a really cool thing happens:

I become free to grow and try other stuff.

I grew up in a world of people who became necessary, became core to the place where they worked. That is, until they got laid off, and then they struggled to find relevance in a job market that changed on them. As a third-generation software developer, I grew up in this world, watching us move for jobs or struggle in unemployment, vague memories I don’t quite understand because I was young. When you become too important to a place, growth is stifled. When you work 50+ hours a week, the time & energy to develope professionally for the future is cut short.

So, I try to make myself unnecessary, on my terms. I still strive to be useful & highly skilled, but not so core to something that I am lost when life happens and I’m suddenly out of a job. And not so core to something that if I’m hit by a truck, people who depended on me are now totally fucked over.

That’s what I mean when I say “on my terms.” When I’m in control of how I keep myself from becoming to necessary to something, then I have the flexibility to adapt to life changes. I know many people who fear this state of being, because they see no security there. But having worked in government service, I see such security as an illusion; no one can provide security to you but you.

This is likely a ramble to most people, but it’s been on my mind since I’ve re-entered unemployment.

- Ryan

Dare. Dare to try. Dare to be loud. Dare to be seen.

The people you admire have two things in common: they dared to try something that seemed too big for them, and when they failed they dared again and again.

Being awesome is partly learning how to soar, and partly learning how to take a fall. You can’t do either if you stay in your safe little nest.

Normally I write a bit more on these things, but fuck it, stop reading this and just dare already!

- Ryan