Archive for the ‘Life as a Creative’ Category

As much as I would like to address this to those publishers that are a problem, such things fall on deaf ears. So instead I want to address this to a certain subset of freelancers: those who don’t need the money.

I know quite a few freelancers who just enjoy doing work in a field, and have a great day job or spouse or both, and don’t care about the money they’re getting from some project they’re on. As a result, they don’t put effort into making sure things like contracts are delivered or payment is even relatively prompt.

But from the perspective of publishers who are forming how they’re doing business, what you’re doing hurts your colleagues who do depend on this for money, as there’s no difference to them between freelancers who need the money and freelancers who don’t. Those who do, those who have to struggle to invoke Fuck You, Pay Me, we looks like chumps because we’re sitting alongside you, who isn’t asking for that.

So if you want to help your fellow freelancers, chase after contracts and payment. Help us out by being a constant reminder of that, and of helping us being a unified force — one that doesn’t create incentives to continue hiring people who don’t need the money, and force unscrupulous publishers to shape up or dry up.

- Ryan

(There’s a related post somewhere in me about those freelancers who need the money but are timid about it.)

Yesterday, I mentioned on Twitter that I was violating my 90-minute rule, and the draft I’m working on was suffering for it. The 90-minute rule is “stop working on whatever I’m doing after 90 minutes and take a break.”

The reason I have this rule is partly psychochemical — I have anxiety issues that are linked to the sort of stuff I work on, and the form that takes is that I get tired quickly due to my brain running overtime–especially when I’m editing, as I’m keeping in mind multiple reader viewpoints at once. When I hit around two hours non-stop, I poop out, and the work suffers.

Now, you might ask why not make it a two-hour rule? Because it takes far less time to take a break after 90 minutes to reset myself than it does after two hours. If I can get my brain to relax when it’s not exhausted, it’ll start again faster than if I try that once I am.

This becomes a problem when I’m on deadline, but since the reason I’m working on a project is because of my expertise and skill, I have to choose between getting something done now and have it suffer, or take the pace I need to and risk running the deadline. And since having work suffer is something that’ll haunt me & the work after publication, I end to take the second route.

But because I am, I feel guilty, which then causes me to unconsciously push myself anyway. And then I crash, which can cause me to run the deadline anyway. So it’s sort of a catch-22, but in the moment I’m not thinking about that.

This is something I’ve spent years coming to terms with. I am not as fast as many of my peers, which frustrates me. And I suspect I never will be, because of how my brain is wired. (And this is with taking anti-anxiety medication, which is necessary for me to work at all now[1].)

Thus, much like eating lunch, this is one of those rules that exists for the purpose of making me a more production & healthier creative. But it’s something that’s easy to space on, which is why it’s an explicit rule I try to follow.

- Ryan

[1] As crippling headaches come are a constant when I’m not on medication.

Recently, I wrote some tips for Safari Book Online’s blog — on jQuery & CSS widgets that I’ve built in the last few months:

• Rotating quotes using jQuery, with a follow-up tip
• Some simple tricks for making tables friendlier with row hovering & column hovering
• Collapsable menus with persistence (much like I do on this blog, only the article’s code is a refined version, and far more elegant) and a follow-up on making a menu not respond to the hiding code without changing the code much.

I’m pretty happy with these. I have done quite a bit of tech writing, but it’s usually been for government projects, which means very few portfolio pieces. And while I don’t normally talk about software stuff on this blog, I thought I would use the opportunity to talk about process. Since that’s a big part of why people follow this blog.

For the last few years, whenever I’ve written anything — technical, writing craft, RPGs, whatever — it started with an important thought:

It doesn’t matter if I’m not qualified to write about this. I will either become qualified enough or throw it away.

This is essentially a specific version of not telling yourself “no”. To try things and see what happens. Either you’ll become qualified in the process, or your piece won’t be worth publishing. Either way, you’ll learn something.

So let’s talk about how to become qualified:

• Try things
• Talk with people who know about what you’re doing
• Do peer review
• Dare to be wrong publicly
• Consider & process criticism

I’ve been doing this in my technical field for years behind closed doors, so writing how-to documentation with tested code snippets isn’t really a big deal. especially when you have folks for peer review[1] and good editors. But the only way I was able to crank out those articles, these blog posts, various games, etc., was to try things I wasn’t qualified to do in the first place.

So, you know, do that. Years down the road, you’ll be happy you did.

- Ryan

P.S. Today, I drive from Northern California to Denver, so I’ll be out of touch for two or three days.

[1] Thanks to Tracy Hurley for some peer review on the above articles

For the counterpoint to yesterday’s post telling people to not take solicitations of free work from friends, here’s what you need to do if you offer to do free work: Be Professional.

That means do things like ask & be aware of a schedule, notify people if you’re going to slip or bail on the commitment, understand that your work may need revision or just end up not being right for the project, put honest effort into it, and, most importantly, communicate the limits of what you’ll do for free.

Treat free jobs like they’re job applications for future gigs you don’t know about, either from people you’re doing the work for, folks they know who ask for someone like you, or folks who see the end result with your name on it.

Finally, know what you’re getting out of it. Are you getting a future favor? Networking opportunities? Exposure? Traffic & SEO? Social capital? A warm, fuzzy feeling of helping someone out? This might be uncomfortable to talk about, so it’s on you on whether you will (and with some like social capital, talking about it can potentially lower it, so it’s all messy & weird), but even just knowing what you’re personally getting out of something can help you deliver what you need to.

(Actually, let’s tackle that dirtiest one: exposure. That’s what people tell you in order to get you for free or cheap. So if someone’s trying to justify getting you on the cheap with “exposure”, walk away. More than likely, that’s someone looking to exploit you and are overselling the exposure you’ll get. If it seems like too good an opportunity to walk away from, research; find out who is has worked for this person for exposure, and see how true that rings.)

- Ryan

P.S. Since I was asked by some people yesterday: no, these posts aren’t passive-aggressive notes to people I’m working with or have worked with. Just thoughts on the realities of working for free, as I have done many times. (Including Mythender, which is why it’s on my mind more, I suppose.)

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.[1] 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

[1] 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.