What's your excuse?

Got a good excuse for not fulfilling your dream? Maybe you've got a couple. I know I do. Then I read a post like this by Marc Cenedalla and I realize my excuses are pretty lame.

Mid Year

Almost to mid year. Time to evaluate those 2012 goals and see how we are doing. How are you going with yours?
In taking a look at mine, I got GGE Publishing launched..sort of. First story still to be published. We started "Stitch", saw "The Battle of Caerlon" published and made progress on "Return To Glory". In the personal life I have kept up my fitness goals and had lots of good family time (there is a lot more detail on those goals in my personal "goals" file).
Here is what I would like to do for the remainder of 2012.

• ·         Finish Lisanor - The second in The Pendragon Chronicles
• ·         Finish Rodentia - GGE's rated G story. about 75% complete.
• ·         Publish Seeds of Vyldur - The first GGE published novel.
• ·         Edit/rewrite RTG - About 50% complete
• ·         Edit Warchitect - Underway
• ·         Begin Stitch (finish first draft) - Underway
• ·         Possibly publish RTG - The second GGE published work
• ·         Begin planning more for Pantheon - A superhero style project for development next year (2013).
• 
  

 So let's see how we do on those by December!

What are your goals? How are you going?

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day! Today we are honoring all of those who have given their lives in service to the American armed forces, establishing and maintaining our freedom.
For most of us, it is a combination patriotic celebration and glorious day off from the 9 to 5. When I was a kid, it was just another day off. There seemed to be plenty of them.
Now, it seems like there is never enough of them and each one is almost sacred.
What to do? How to spend this gift of a few hours where I get to be myself for a change?
Well, for me, I will figure something out. My perfect day would have a good deal of writing and editing, maybe some gaming with my friends and my sons. A nice meal out of the house with my lovely wife. Maybe some work in the yard or a trip to the beach. I like to be a little productive and a lot relaxed.
Here's my advice today - whatever you do, don't be too hard on yourself if you just waste the day away and a relaxed haze. On the other hand, don't be too easy on yourself either. Find something that you will be happy to tell the coworkers about tomorrow when they ask "How was your holiday?"

Anything You Want

Posting from Dallas, Texas. Started a great book last night. "Anything You Want" by Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby. Sure, it's a bit of a dotcom legend now. He started CD Baby for $500 dollars and sold it for $22 million. There are still some good thoughts in this book to anyone starting their own thing.

"If you're not saying HELL YEAH about something, then say no."
"Ideas are worth nothing unless executed"

Like I said, lots of good thoughts. One of the most inspirational is that, in his opinion, starting with no funding is an advantage AND one should not use lack of funding as an excuse not to move forward. I am assuming most of us could use more funding, so it's a valuable lesson.

As for me, after the most tumultuous year I have had in a long time, I am back to doing what I love. I think the main thing I have learned, after being within reach of my dream back in 2002, is to just keep up momentum. It may only be a little momentum, but keep it up. If you find your momentum has died...picking up this short one-hour-read might be a good way to get it back.

Carpe Diem

Today won't come again. Whatever it is you are putting off, now would be a good time to start. Don't let excuses stop you. You're to busy? Me too. Just take one step now, but do something.

• Write one sentence
• Work out for 15 minutes
• Write a one page business outline
• Read a few pages of a books
• Look for a class to take
• Tune up the guitar
• Play one song on the piano (play it three times)
• Pick out a diet plan. Start tomorrow. Livestrong.com is free.
• If your work is written, then edit
• If it is editted, then polish
• If it is editted, polished and not selling, then rewrite (or start another)
• Write the opening scene of a script
• Write an idea for a TV show
• Look into small business financing
• Submit your work somewhere
• Sketch

Just some ideas. Do something. Today. Then tomorrow...guess what...another small step

Hire yourself!!!!

I read another great post from Seth Godin today. I know I re-post a lot of what Seth posts first. It might be of value to subscribe to his blog and cut out the middleman, then again, I love bringing the best of Seth to you on occasion.
This blog today is exceptional and I suggest you check it out, but in summary, Seth makes it clear that he believes we should hire ourselves. In a couple of compelling examples, he makes it clear how most professions could hire themselves rather than work for someone else.
I had just recently made the decision to "hire myself" in terms of GGE. By that I mean rather than just have GGE chase someone else's idea of what should be published, we would move forward with our own publishing arm while also sending out work to publishers. We made the decisions to court publishers while also hiring ourselves. We also made the decision that a huge financial windfall in the short term was not necessary and that we would rather produce quality work and try and build a fan base over a period of years.
The result? Almost as soon as we decided that, we now have 4 books on contract with publishers and another 2 under consideration.
In the meantime we will continue moving forward with our own stuff as well. We will continue to choose ourselves until chosen by others as well.

Random thoughts

I should stop sabotaging myself. I love creating and being part of GGE, but I slow myself down sometimes. I tell myself "who are you to think someone wants to read your ideas?"
Or I more simply, that same little voice says, "you suck".
Why do I listen? I don't know, but I am getting better at not listening. What happens then? The sabotage becomes more subtle. It comes in the form of excuses like "GGE doesn't have the funds to launch a graphic novel right now...better wait" or it comes as caution like "better do more research so you don't sound like an idiot".
Research is good, of course, but researching is not creating and eventually one has to stop researching and write!
What am I afraid of anyway? Failure is temporary. It's not fatal. It won't affect my family or take food off the table. In my case, abject failure might mean embarrassment, but only if I let it. Who am I trying to impress anyway?
In fact, I should seek out failure and embarrassment. Why? because those who have gone before and have succeeded...they have failed, and failed and failed all the way to success.
Failure is a stepping stone, not the end result. Each "failure" is just a milestone on the way to success.
So go...fail! I'll stop sabotaging myself. Maybe you should to. I don't know what we can accomplish, but I do know this - it will be more than we'll accomplish if we give up!

Self Directed Effort (for my 350th post)

Seth talks about Self Directed effort today. For creatives is there really any other kind? We write, draw, paint, sing, etc. whenever we can. It's not easy to find the time and we don't have the benefit of a boss or coach demanding that we practice our craft. We have to force ourselves to do it. Of course, many times we are more demanding on ourselves. We force ourselves to pursue our craft despite life's pressures.
Sometimes, we try and hide what we are and we try to ignore the call to art. Steven Pressfield talks about this in The War of Art. When we live a life unfulfilled, we turn to alcohol, couch potatoism or a million other distractions to make us feel better about ignoring our true nature.
Bottom line - listen to your internal taskmaster who is telling you to create. Don't lose your family in the process and keep a balance between your art, whatever it is that pays the bills, your family and your health.
All four are important!
Don't let your art suffer for the other three!
(By the same token, don't lose your health or your family while chasing the dollar.)

Creating

It's unfortunate that when things get hectic, it seems to be the creating that gets put on the back burner first. We figure that we'll take care of the important stuff first, like the ringing phone, the crisis, the yard, the "real job"...
I'm not saying that those things shouldn't get taken care of...of course they should, but not at the expense of creating. As creatives, it is really important that we...well...create.
There are not as many people doing it as there should be and it's not as easy as it seems to us.
We need to create, find a way to get it in front of people, and then repeat...again and again and again.

It is definitely important. Take care of the other stuff, but keep a front burner open for your creations. We need you to.

Big Plans!

I am cutting and pasting the text below directly from Seth Godin's blog post today! I makes total sense to me!

Make big plans

...that's the best way to make big things happen.

Write down your plans. Share them with trusted colleagues. Seek out team members and accomplices.

Shun the non-believers. They won't be easily convinced, but they can be ignored.

Is there any doubt that making big plans increases the chances that something great will happen?

Is there any doubt that we need your art and your contribution?

Why then, are you hesitating to make big plans?

Of course, after the big plans, we need two steps:

1. Act!
2. Finish something

How do you respond to failure?

How do you respond to failure? That is the subject of Seth's excellent blog entry today.
He asks the question "When you fail, what happens?"
This is so translatable to artists. So many writers and artists produce prolifically and try to get their work in front of someone. That someone (who the artists gives a huge measure of power by valuing their input, which may not even be the right thing to do, may be the wrong person, etc - subject for another day) then gives some honest feedback. it might be positive, it might be neutral, but let's be honest, it's usually negative, especially for young artists.
What happens next? Artist gets mad, sad, depressed and either ignores the input they so desperately craved or they just give up all together.
What is a better way to deal with failure? Use it to get better! If a student gets a bad grade and uses that to become demotivated, then they've missed the point. It should lead to harder work, more studying, etc.
Use failure as an excuse to work harder and to get better. Not an excuse to give up or be marginalized.


Of course the only person who can tell you what "failure" is, is you anyway, so choose what your "failure" looks like very carefully.

Self Publishing

I read a great article on self publishing in the Raleigh News and Observer this weekend. It's a good article because it reminds me of many things:

• Self publishing is so much more than just "vanity publishing" now - though publishers probably disagree (I think they have to at this point since their whole business model is based on being the gate keepers rather than the enablers)
• There are more ways to publish than ever with the NY Times now having an e-book best seller list and the Kindle being such a viable option for so many people
• That self publishing winners are currently non-fiction writers who find a niche in the market (Maybe this won't always be the case?)
• That excellence is required in self publishing due to the stigma.

A couple of things I would add

• Doing it yourself doesn't stop at books. Comics, movies, even tv shows are being done independently. More so than ever. The internet has made it possible to get your art in front of eyes in more ways than ever
• Being successful still takes hard work whether you try for the traditional route or blaze your own trail
• If your long term success depends on being "discovered" you might as well be playing the lottery
• You cna start something with very little risk in terms of cash. The only risk, I suppose, is in being laughed at. That's not much of a risk. If they laugh or ridicule, then chances are you aren't creating for them anyway.

Is it silly?

I was sharing with a colleague today that many of my ideas often seem silly. We the concluded that Mark Twain might have thought "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" might be silly. He might have been told it was silly. Seems to have worked out okay. Southpark is silly. The Family Guy. The Simpsons was very silly in its initial incarnation as a strip in college newspapers (Matt Groenig's overnight success was anything but).
How are their ideas different than my silly ideas? They put theirs onto paper, or in production. If one fizzled out, then they went on to the next, and then the next until something hit.
We should take a lesson from their example. I am pledging to. Let's reconvene in one year. November 2011 and share what we've done.

Getting your art out there

I had an interesting conversation with a friend a few days ago about getting out "out there". We discussed how difficult it is to pick a medium and how difficult it is to bring all the pieces together. My own thinking was, at the time, a bit defeatist. I had the following fallacies in my thinking:

• My first fallacy was that to get a novel out there you have to attract a New york publisher (my friend corrected me by reminding me of small press and self publishing)
• My second fallacy was that Self publishing has too much of a stigma to overcome because people are accustomed to low quality self published work (my friend responded that you have to overcome this stigma by first producing a high quality work and then by working to tell people that you have)
• My third fallacy was that you cannot produce a graphic work (comic or even motion graphics) you have to have an artist onboard (My friend points out that there are programs to help people with this and an even more extreme example is Southpark where the artwork is secondary to the storytelling. We could debate the quality of Southpark storytelling, but it resonated with an audience, clearly, and by that measure is very successful depite low-quality artwork)
• My fourth fallacy was that I needed to pick a single creative area and focus there so my attention was not divided (My friend reminded me that most all creative folk out there are working on a huge variety of art. Some hits and some misses, but they produce and that what counts. They only adopt a single minded focus after something hits and they have an audience, and most of the time, even then, they keep working in other areas (George Lucas could have made a career of Star Wars only, but he didn't).
• My fifth fallacy was that I could not write a screenplay because I don't have the training (my friend reminded me that I could write a story in any form and then hire someone to make it into a screenplay, or even better use an automated program to help me turn a story into a screenplay)

It was interesting, frightening and liberating to have my excuses systematically dismantled. I can now see there are always ways to get the art out there. That's a new realization for me and one upon which I intend to capitalize. 

A Dream Given Form...

"The Babylon Project was a dream given form..."

The opening words in Bablyon 5. I have been watching the whole series start to finish (having never watched it - I consider it remedial sci-fi at this point - and it is AWESOME, btw).

As I watched it today though, I thought about that. A dream given form. Someone dreamed up this space station (fictitious). They had to picture what it would do. How it would work. What it's purpose was (the last best hope for peace, a port of call, a home away from home). Then, they had to make that dream a reality through financing woes, construction difficulties and all that stuff.

The point is, first they had a dream. They worked out the dream and they decided what success looked like before building a space station.

So, what does success look like for me? A shelf of books that people like that I have had some part in crafting. A comic book or two that people enjoy. Maybe a movie. Maybe an animated movie. Some action figures. Some  t-shirts. Maybe a roleplaying tie-in with some of our properties. This is what success looks like to GGE. Now we have to build it. We have to knock over the first domino. Maybe that is the contract with Wild Child Publishing. Maybe it is the Danger Guild comic. Maybe it is our new partnership with Granton City Press. Maybe it is something I was writing tonight.

What does success look like for you? Picture it. Make it real. Then start assembling it.

And if you've never watched B5. Go to hulu.com and check it out.

We need you!

I hope you are reading this and deciding what your next project is going to be.
I don't mean you have to be a creative and planning to write, draw, paint or act in some produce something (though all of those things are near and dear to my heart)

Maybe your next project is to get in shape, run a race, volunteer in your community, go back to school, build a deck on the house, look for a new career.

The point is, that you were put here with so much uniqueness and gifts aplenty. Please don't fall into the trap of work, eat, watch tv, sleep, repeat.

You have too much to contribute, too much to share and too much to give!

We need you too much

Football season is over! Now I can get to work!

Actually, I get to work even during football season. The thing is, any event can be an interruption if you let it. Why didn't I write today? Why didn't I exercise? Why didn't I start back on my degree? Well, I'm waiting on a less hectic time, or a time when I have more money or when the kids are grown or the house is paid for.
The thing is...whatever time you are waiting on, it's never going to get here. If you get in the habit of making (and accepting) excuses from yourself, you will always have one ready.
It doesn't even matter what the excuse is! Any excuse will do because you are going to rationalize it and accept it and in the end...do nothing. As my Mother says, "I didn't do it because I was out of peanut butter".
May as well say you were out of peanut butter. It's as good an excuse as any.
So let's try and force ourselves to give up our excuses or at least not accept so many.

Become a Linchpin

Just got this book over the weekend and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Of course, a lot of Seth's insight and advice is available daily for free, but this book is not just great, it's necessary.
That is pretty high praise for a book! Why would I say necessary? because this book reminds us that no one is "ordinary" (not you and not me). It tells us to overcome fear and anxiety and feel free to be the genius within.
I know you are a genius. You should know it too! Seth knows it and devotes a lot of "Linchpin" to reminding you of it.
This book is for the artist, entrepreneur, cube dweller, marketing professional, manager, sales person, waiter, stay-at-home Mom. Anyone who feels like there could be more art and passion in everything they do.

Indie Filmmakers

This link was sent to me by a friend of mine. It reminds us that Indie Filmmakers will find a way to get their stories in front of people.
I love seeing people find other paths to get to their dream. Why? It reminds me that we don't have to be the next Stephen King, JK Rowling, Steven Spielberg or George Lucas. anyone who has read "The Four Hour Work Week" by my good friend Tim Ferriss, knows that your dream life is out there and it probably does not cost millions and millions of dollars.
 Remember this exchange from Office Space:

In reference to the question "What would you do if you had a million dollars" posed by Peter Gibbons to Lawrence;

LAWRENCE: Well what about you now? What would you do?
PETER GIBBONS: Nothing
LAWRENCE: Nothing, huh?
PETER GIBBONS: I would relax...I would sit on my ass all day...I would do nothing.
LAWRENCE: Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man.

It's good advice from Lawrence. It depends on your goals. People are finding ways to make their passion pay just enough that they can continue to indulge their passion. Every path that is forged, means a new path for someone like you or me. You can forge your own new one, or follow a trailblazer, but either way, what you want is out there.

Go get it.




('’)

Changing of the Guard

On the left is Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets, or "Sanchize" as they have been calling him (since his is their new "Franchise" Quarterback). It's his first year in the league and he just one his first playoff game, which is not common for a rookie QB.
It got me thinking about the playoffs this year (since I am a rabid football fan, that wasn't hard to do). I notice that the QBs, arguably the leader of any team, represent an interesting mixed bag. There are some old classic heroes of the last decade in Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, Tom Brady, Carson Palmer and Donovan McNabb. These are the names that were dominant a few years ago (and they are all still really good). But then you have newer names like Tony Romo, Mark Sanchez, Joe Flacco, Aaron Rodgers and Phillip Rivers.

As I look at these names, it occurs to me that in football, just as in any industry, even then one you are in or want to be in, there is a changing of the guard at some point. Old icons fade and new ones take their place. This will happen inevitably whether you are part of it or not, but knowing this void is out there in whatever your chosen industry might be, just imagine that when the void appeared how nice it would be if you were waiting to step into it and pick up where the previous icon left off.

I can't guarantee that you will be the next icon, but I can guarantee this: if you don't even show up, then someone else will take the spot.

So show up! Why not start today! Why not right now? Someone has to be the one.

('’)