Happenchance » Tips and Tactics

Better Memory Through Spacing

Seth M. Baker — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:47:13 +0000

Editor’s note: We’re still waiting on the author’s brain to return from Asia. It’s on the slow boat but it should arrive any day now. Until then, we have to work with what we’ve got.

As a musician, I need to remember a staggering amount of information: songs, chord changes, lyrics, leads, etc. In a short-term project, this is easy enough: practice a bunch of songs, perform them, and go on to the next thing.

However, a few months ago, I realized I had a problem: I’d forgotten more songs than I could count. I would learn a song, play it a few times, then forget about it. When I wanted to play it months later, I really had forgotten about it; I had to go back and relearn the damn thing.

After a little research, I discovered my problem: I didn’t have a system in place for reviewing material I had already learned. Sure, it’s easy enough to relearn a song I’ve learned in the past, but this is luxuriously inefficient use of my limited practice time. In short, I was cramming when I should’ve been spacing.

What is Spacing?

Spacing isn’t the thing you do at a party after you’ve had too much (insert your favorite poison here). Spacing is a creative technique that involves reviewing new material at set intervals of time.

In 1886, German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus proved that cramming sucks when he published Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. In this work, he identified the spacing effect. The spacing effect states that people remember best when they study new information a little bit over a long period of time. Before we look at remembering, we need to see how people go about forgetting.

The graph below (courtesy of Wikipedia user Icez ) shows the standard forgetting curve. The red line represents information learned once and never reviewed: an exponential decrease. The green lines show forgetting curves if you review on day one, two, and three. Note day three: the drop is far less severe; we can assume that the information will drop far slower and will be far easier to recall over the next several weeks.

As sharp as the red curve is, it’s obvious that learning something once (cramming) is rarely enough. Even with a bagful of mnemonic and associative tricks, some things simply have to be reviewed. This brings up a new question, then: At what interval do you review?

First, let’s assume we don’t need to review everyday. According to research from Hal Pashler et al, increasing the interval between reviews actually resulted in better retention. In other words, reviewing weekly is less effective than reviewing at one week, then one month, then three months. So, to retain new information, we need to spread review sessions out. What are the ideal intervals for retaining new information?

1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year.

These review intervals take advantage of Ebbinghaus’ spacing effect and Pashler’s research on efficient review and retention. But there’s still one more problem: remembering to review.

How to Remember to Review

Google might one day turn us all into cold cyborgs connected to a collective command-and-control system, but Gmail and Google Calendar are excellent tools for spaced reviews. Here’s my setup.

When I learn a new (song, since that’s the example I’m using), I’ll go into Google Calendar and create an Event using the above interval schedule (1,1,1,1,3,6,1). Each event includes a reminder sent to my inbox that says ‘time to review XX song.’ Set it up and forget about it…until review day.

Low-tech solutions are easy enough to implement: you can simply pencil in review dates on your paper wall calendar. Obviously this works best if you check your calendar most days.

High or low tech, once you decide on a system, you can tweak the dates to accommodate your schedule. For me, I spend about one day a month reviewing things I learned over three months ago.

Reviewing old material might take a little extra time and effort, but it’s worth it. If you can’t remember what you’ve learned, what’s the point of learning it in the first place?

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Photo credit: arboghast

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May Site News & Updates

Seth M. Baker — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:00:14 +0000

Greetings from Thailand! I just had to say that one more time; this will be my last post from the Elephant Kingdom. This time next week will find me back in my rusty old town. I’ve been gone for a while and I’m looking forward to catching up with all my mountain people. Fair warning: my posting frequency might drop slightly as I readjust to life in Yankton (the country, not the city).

April was Better Writing Month, and I learned something: writing about writing is way too meta for me. As I said in my last post, I’m much more interested in the inner game of writing and creativity than stuff like proper comma placement. Not that there’s anything wrong with posts like that. I find them quite useful.

Upcoming articles

May has no special designations or unifying themes. Look for article or two on associative techniques, an anti-materialism screed, and an obligatory ‘back in the U.S.A.’ post. Lately I’m wondering how our physical environment affects the way we create, and I might explore this topic. I’ve touched on this once before in Removing Physical Barriers to Creating Amazing Things. Maybe I’ll delve a little deeper.

With the help of my wife, I’m also working on a longer compilation of creative techniques. More on this as the project develops.

Design and Features

I’ve joined the Thesis Theme cult, but I haven’t drank the kool-aid. Not yet, anyway. Right now I’m working up a super-sexy new design of Happenchance on a subdomain sandbox (thus avoiding any user-created clusterf&*ks). Look for the new design by the end of the month. I’m inches away from hiring someone to do this for me. Any recommendations?

I also intend to create an Amazon affiliate store where I list books (and maybe some products) that I think would be especially useful or entertaining. Yes, I’ll make a pittance if you purchase one of my recommendations. No, I won’t start beating you over the head with the ‘buy my stuff’ stick. Though I can’t promise I won’t do book reviews If you’re in the mood for a game, let’s play: in the comments, take a guess at which authors I will include in my store. The winner will get a respectful nod from me.

I’m also looking for ways to make Happenchance more interactive. One idea is to have some kind of feedback forum or critique exchange. For writers, there are already plenty of these. Maybe something more interdisciplinary (ignoring everything I said about poets and screenwriters in writers’ groups)… any thoughts?

Reader feedback

Finally, I want to hear from you. This is your chance to speak your mind. What would you like to see more of here at Happenchance? What have you enjoyed? What have you loathed? Should I revive the weekly roundups? Should the happy dancers be included in the re-design?

You can tell me in the comments or, if you prefer to be discrete, email me at seth m baker [at] g mail [dot] com. Thanks in advance. And, as always…

Thanks for Reading!

Photo credit: quinnanya

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How I Became a Better Writer

Seth M. Baker — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:37:03 +0000

This is the last post in Better Writing Month. Please don’t remind me it’s no longer April

Writing skills are funny. You could spend years studying ‘important’ literary works, deconstructing obscure texts, and writing post-colonial analyses of Salman Rushdie books…but still be a mediocre writer.

I speak from experience.

One English degree earned, hundred of books read, thousands of pages written…and I still can’t spell onomatopoeia without a spell checker.

However, over the past two years, I have become a much better writer. I’m no Joyce Carol Oates, but compared to where I was when I finished university, the difference is like comparing Spam burgers to Kobe steaks.

Did I climb a mountain, talk to an oracle, and receive sage advice? No. Did I deconstruct even more texts? No. Did I go back to university for more education? Hell no. I’ve had enough post-colonial/post-structuralist/marxist/feminist/post-deconstructionist theory for one thousand lifetimes.

How did I become a better writer?

The answer will shock you. Hold your breath…

I developed the habit of writing. Every. Damn. Day.

While doing research for Better Writing Month, I became sucked into a swirling red vortex of articles on writing. Most of these articles say write everyday. Thanks for the letter postmarked Obvious City. But how does one develop the habit of writing every day?

Developing the daily writing habit is the hard part.

But once you have it, writing everyday is easy, natural, and as necessary as breathing.

Before I developed the daily writing habit, I wrote about 2,000 words per month…even though I wanted to write more. I simply couldn’t do it. After I developed the habit, I started writing over 2,000 every day (without writer’s block, excessive procrastination, etc.) Again, the difference is like spam and kobe.

Like curling, kayaking, and fly herding, writing is a mental game. Developing the discipline to practice is difficult. Writing without an audience (or without the immediate feedback of academia) is difficult. But when you write every day, the effect is like compound interest; your skills build and multiply over time. You do become a better writer. Plus you’ll learn the secret of creative inspiration.

Please don’t think I’m bragging. I’m still a 3rd-rate hack with ambition. And please don’t think I’m saying the development of the daily writing habit is the only way to become a better writer. Reading one book a week, taking writing classes, getting feedback and critiques, reading books on writing, all these will help (some more than others). And of course, everybody’s different; what works for me mayn’t work for for you.

How did I develop the daily writing habit?

Well, I met this guy in a graffiti-covered alley. He wears a hoodie, his eyes are always bloodshot, and he carries little glass vials

If you want to develop the habit of daily writing, you need a routine or a system that makes you write everyday. You need to be writing with some purpose or goal. Just saying you want to write every day doesn’t work. At least it never worked for me. I tried for years. Finally I tried something a little more regimented and structured…and it worked.

I found structure and regimentation in two different ways:

Nanowrimo (past two years): Write 1,667 words a day for a month. Easy, but damn hard. The end product is unpublishable drivel, but that’s not the point. The real payoff is a the discipline you learn and the skills you pick up along the way. Check out 10 Lessons Learned from Nanowrimo.
Before I started blogging, I set up a thirty day challenge to write a 1,000 word article every day. By the time I hit thirty articles, I could write faster and better than before.

I know I dramatically improved my writing because, at the end of each project, I wrote and revised test pieces and compared the results. For Nanowrimo, the before-and-after was a chase scene. If the before wasn’t so pitiful I’d post a before-and-after sample. Same for the articles. Spam and kobe.

For me, hitting daily word counts for a minimum of thirty days burned the daily writing habit into my brain like a branding iron on a cow’s flank. Thirty days is kind of an arbitrary number to establish a new habit, but it seems effective. Some people claim a new habit is established in as little as twenty-one days. Here’s an interesting Google answers entry on this topic.

If you want to develop the daily writing habit…

Set a daily word count goal or target.
Create a visual way to measure your progress (calendars, spreadsheets, % complete bars).
Hit your wordcount goal every day for 30 days.
Write for an audience (even if it’s in your head).

That’s it. Soon you’ll develop a routine and experience positive creative inertia. That’s all you need to do to begin to develop the daily writing habit.

Set a goal. Write towards that goal.

Every. Damn. Day.

Photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

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27+ Free Resources to Help You Write Better

Seth M. Baker — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:03:33 +0000

Thousands of people write about writing better. Most do it far better than me. Today I thought I’d use my delicious tags to share some free resources you can use to write better. I’ve used all these resources at one point or another…with varying degrees of success.

Writing about writing feels so meta, doesn’t it?

Resources to help you write better (in no particular order)

1. The Paris Review Interview Archive A huge collection of interviews from literary luminaries past and present. Learn from the best.

2. 10 Rules for Writing Fiction (from over 10 different authors) Some quite humorous.

3. 10 Simple Things You Can Do to Improve Your Writing Includes several ‘what not to do’ examples.

4. Active vs. Passive Voice Grammar Girl does a nice job of exampling this über-important concept.

5. How to Improve Your Writing Pay special attention to ‘who vs. whom.’

6. A Guide to Writing Well A distillation of the knowledge found in Strunk & White and Zinsser

7. Writing Your Way Lots of solid information from a seasoned pro…but you’ll have to dig for it.

8. 18 Types of Metaphors If the words synecdoche, metonym, and pataphor excite you, check this one out.

9.15 Ways to Generate Ideas and Write With Ease. Title is self-explanatory, eh?

10. Review of Online Writers’Groups A big Squidoo lens that lists most online writers’ groups.

11. Absolute Write Forums Like most forums, plenty of helpful people, as well as a few cranks.

12. Who is Your Audience? Shameless self-promotion but oh-so important.

13. Stephen King’s 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer. You’ve probably seen this before. They’re worth seeing again.

14. Storyfix This site a no-bs guide to creating an effective story structure. Highly recommended.

15. Conflict and Character Within Story Structure Story structure…with charts!

16. George Orwell’s 5 Rules for Effective Writing In short, keep it simple and avoid clichés.

17. Random Name Generator You can choose gender, number, and (my favorite) obscurity factor.

18. 54 Tips for Writers, from Writers Includes tips from Hemingway, Vonnegut, and more.

19. TV Tropes A rather useful wiki featuring common narrative tricks. Not limited to television.

20. 178 Ways to Improve Your Internet Writing Lots of quick hits for internet writers.

21. Hypnotic Writing Master Course. This is 132-page ebook is mostly for people writing sales articles, but any writer can use it.

22. How to Write Magnetic Headlines Features 11 great posts on headline writing, even one for writing Twitter folk (follow me! @sethmbaker)

23. Getting Started as a Freelance Writer A roundup post featuring the basics of the business of writing.

24. Nanowrimo doesn’t start until November, but their forums are full of helpful people.

25. This Word Frequency Counter can help you find overused words in your work.

26. Write or Die. This great little program keeps you focused by deleting words when you stop writing. Awesome.

27. Finally, Duotrope’s Digest won’t necessarily improve your writing, but it will give you over over 2800 publications, searchable by genre, pay scale, submission type, and more.

28. Your recommendations in the comments below! If you’ve got any tips for better writing, speak up and share!

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The Easy Way to Write (Blog Posts)

Seth M. Baker — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:44:24 +0000

Here’s a well-known secret: Writing fast and writing well are all about pre-writing.

I’m not a particularly fast writer, but I have a little system that helps me write faster and more coherently. The system is simple: headline, mind map, outline, draft, revision; this allows me to create a publishable post in a few hours. These steps are also useful for non-fiction outside the strange world of blogging.

Fiction, however, is an entirely different beast, requiring extra steps like character development, astral projection, and marmot sacrifices. Needless to say, that’s the subject of another post.

Before I give away any more trade secrets, let’s take a look at the easy way to write blog posts. Hopefully you’ll find something useful.

Headlines

Most posts start with a headline. Like blinders on a horse, writing to one headline (usually) keeps me focused. A post may contain several supporting ideas, but any more than one main idea and the result is a train wreck.

I keep a running list of headlines in my knock-off moleskine.While most ideas and headlines won’t make the cut (Why My Head is Actually a Turnip, for example), I usually have at least ten or more headlines to draw from.

After revisions are finished, I may tweak the headline a little bit for clarity and SEO purposes, but the final headline is usually pretty close to what I started with.

Mind Map

If a headline is an acorn, a mind map is the soil in which this acorn grows into a tree, different ideas and points radiating out like roots and branches.

Starting with the headline in the center, I try to generate as many good and bad ideas as possible. Whatever I think might be associated with the topic, I’ll throw it in. As with headlines, the goal here is quantity as well as quality.

At this stage, I can usually determine whether or not a post idea has legs; if I can fill up a page with ideas, I’ve probably got a solid post. If not, I set it aside until a) I forget about it or b) I think of some new angle or sub-theme I had yet to consider.

For more on mind maps, check out this post.

If I feel like I need to do more research, I do it at this stage. This usually gives me a few more ideas worth including.

Outline

Writing the outline is simply a matter of organizing all the information from the mind map into a cohesive series of ideas that support the headline. The outline is like a set of cabinets, with each shelf being labeled and awaiting its contents. You can build as high as you like, but each idea (and shelf) must rest comfortably with the ones above and below it; otherwise the whole thing could come crashing down, pinning you under underneath its terrible, crushing weight.

The outlines I make are not terribly complicated, just three to seven points in bold or

. Sometimes they get sub-points, sometimes not. Depends on how feisty I feel. Outlines are so useful…I think I smell a follow-up post, and it won’t involve roman numerals.

Draft

Once I have a headline, mind map, and outline, the hard work is finished. If creating the outline is like building the shelves, then writing the draft is simply a matter of stocking the shelves with the right products. The labels are there, so you already know where everything goes. Most of the stock is either on the mind map or floating in the ether, you simply have to retrieve it and put it where it belongs.

Again, I like to throw in all but the most ridiculous points from the mind map. Often as I’m writing the draft I’ll have a couple new points or ideas. If they’re relevant to the post, I’ll include them in the draft; otherwise they are duly noted in the headline list and temporarily forgotten.

Only after all the shelves are stocked, after each subheading has enough supporting material, do I write the introduction, conclusion (when applicable), and the call for comments. This is usually a matter of asking a couple questions and tying everything together. Sometimes I’ll use an old editorial columnist’s trick and reprise something from the intro in the conclusion, giving things a sense of close. For an example, see this post on Accidents of Birth and Early Success.

Revision & Proofreading

Revision is like making a topiary; you pick up your garden shears, step up to he big round myrtle, and proceed to snip away the excess until you have something that looks like a dinosaur (or whatever animal you fancy). Revision is all about removing the excess and polishing what you’ve got. I generally use a three-step process. These steps are:

Cutting the excess, usually 15-30%, but sometimes 100%. Several times, I’ve finished a piece only to realize that I completely flubbed a topic. At this point, it’s best to pour gasoline on the myrtle and just burn the damn thing.
Rewriting awkward phrasing.
Proofreading and copy editing. I find this step the most difficult.

I’ve left this last step intentionally spare. Why? Because my next post is on painless revisions, and I have to give you a reason to come back!

Over to You

If you’re a blogger, what does your process look like? How much pre-writing do you do?
Are you able to stare at a blank screen with no pre-writing and write something readable? If so, tell me your secret. The imbecilic fringe wants to know.

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April Updates & Site News

Seth M. Baker — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:56:00 +0000

Greetings from the Lao People’s Democratic Republic! I’m here for a couple days before heading back to my (temporary) home in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

As you may have noticed, I discontinued the weekly roundups. I enjoyed putting them together and sharing them with everyone, but I decided to scale things back while I was traveling. Instead, I’ll be sending out posts like these once a month.

Upcoming Posts

April is Better Writing Month here at Happenchance. While I’m a decidedly mediocre writer (bordering on a hack), I’ve picked up a couple things along the way. And because you learn when you teach, I’d like to share of some the things I’ve learned.

I believe that writing is a kind of external thinking. Improve your writing, improve your thinking. Even if you have no desire to blog or write stories, you’ll find great benefits from improving your writing. But like anything else, improvement comes through practice and application. You can read blog posts on writing all day, but unless you actually take some action, you’re just…reading blog posts.

So far, planned posts include:

How I blog (the 1-2-3 punch)
Improve Your Writing Instantly
How NOT to Start a Writers’ Groups
Painless revisions
and much, much more!

Photo Credit: yeowatzup

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Pros & Cons of a Nomadic Lifestyle

Seth M. Baker — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:14:59 +0000

Nomad. Gypsy. Wanderer. Vagabond. Location-independent travel ninja. All these terms describe a person who loves variable scenery. They move from neighborhood to neighborhood, town to town, or country to country, doing what human evolution tells them to do: keep moving.

What is a nomadic lifestyle?

Characteristics: Low expenses. A willingness to move anywhere. Affinity for air mattresses. The ability to fit your possessions into a suitcase, a backpack, the back of a truck, the back of a garage. A high-mileage vehicle. An aversion to mortgages and debt.

A nomadic lifestyle is whatever you want it to be, whatever works for you, but here’s a key trait:

Knowing you won’t be in one place forever.

In that sense, aren’t we all nomads?

My style of nomadism

Since ’03, I haven’t kept an apartment for more than a year… but I’m not (yet) one of the cool digital nomads, bouncing around from country to country, earning their living from elance or information products. All my apartments were in Huntington, West Virginia, then Korea, now Thailand. Next, who knows? Maybe I’m a lazy nomad, but I like staying put…for a little while, until I don’t. Let’s call my style a hybrid local-global nomadism.

While this lifestyle might seem strange to a lot of people, others may find it appealing. You know who you are.

If you’re thinking about selling most of your possessions on craigslist and setting out for destinations unknown, you need to consider the pros and cons of such a lifestyle. I’ve tried to make the following list applicable both to those living inside and outside their home countries.

Pros of a nomadic lifestyle

You can live anywhere you want, provided you can find employment.
New places are exciting, full of new people, ideas, sights, tastes, experiences.
You’re more careful about the physical stuff you bring into your life. Knowing everything you buy will have to be boxed, packed, moved/stored, you’re less likely to buy frivolous things.
Without a lot of stuff, you can devote more time and attention to the things that really matter (relationships, work, creative projects, reading this blog
Living in a different culture increases creativity, according to a recent study. Why? New environments offer new challenges, forcing you to re-examine basic assumptions and seek out novel solutions to problems. I wonder if this is applicable to new places in your own country…
Keeping in touch is easy and cheap. With skype, email, facebook, it’s hard not to keep up with the people at home. People who want to relocate but also stay in the loop have options unimaginable in decades past.
A nomadic lifestyle is cheap. When you’re not caught up paying mortgages and car loans or buying the latest piece of digital wizardry, you find yourself with a lot of extra cash.
Being organized is easy when your possessions are few.
Out of necessity, you learn to open up to people and be more outgoing.
You learn a lot about yourself and the world around you…whether you want to or not.

Cons of a nomadic lifestyle

You may miss important social rituals; weddings, birthdays, funerals, grand jury indictments.
People grow apart. While it’s easy to communicate, it’s challenging to stay close when you’re separated by a thousand miles.
You have less social support. If something goes awry, you’re on your own.
Some stuff is nice; if you want to keep it, you’ll need a storage space. I’ll admit I miss my music gear and books, and would like to take a moment to thank my folks letting me throw some stuff in their attic.
It’s hard to host parties when your friends live in different time zones.
Dealing with bureaucracy can be confounding when you don’t have a fixed address. Ever tried to get a driver’s license without utility bills?
(Potential) employers, despite what they say about wanting innovative and creative employees, are suspicious about people with strange employment and residential histories. Their loss.
If you’re reckless or less-than vigilant, saving for the future can become a challenge.
My wife points out that your kitchen will probably suck. I concur. We have a very traditional relationship. She speaks. I agree
Moving a lot can be physically exhausting. (I reckon) there’s something relaxing about having a long-term place all your own.
In a foreign country, even the simplest tasks can become confounding ordeals when you have the life skills of a ten-year-old.
For some expats, being a foreigner long-term does strange things to the psyche.

I’d love to hear from all of you, whether you’re a past-or-present nomad or a householder.

What are other pros and cons of a nomadic lifestyle?
Any parents out there? You can’t exactly throw kids in a cardboard box. What’s your take on this?

Photo credit: mshades

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8 Reasons to Speed Up

Seth M. Baker — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:03:46 +0000

Greeting from Chiang Mai, Thailand. I’ll be living here for the next two months, and I have several projects I’d like to wrap up before I return to America. To finish these projects on time, however, I’m going to have to work at a happily manic pace. While I’d like to take my time and focus on all the little details, I don’t have the luxury of moving slow, not if I want to meet my self-imposed deadlines.

In the last post I gave eight reasons to slow down. Today, though, I’d like to take a contrarian perspective and consider some reasons to speed things up. What kind of things am I talking about? Creative projects and the creative process; taking an idea from back-of-the-napkin scribbles to final, messy birthing unto the world. Writing, building, dreaming so fast everything blurs like the neon carnival ride above.

Let’s see if I can get through this list without contradicting every single thing I said last time.

1. Life is short….so why go slow? Why not try to do as much as possible in a small amount of time? Blazing through things, it’s harder to get bored. When I have projects that linger for months and months, I tend to lose interest. I feel there’s something about immediacy and urgency that can give new life to a project.

2. Moving fast increase stress…but sometimes stress can be useful. Long-term stress will give you a heart attack, but in limited quantities, stress can release adrenaline and endorphins which allow you to focus, work faster and longer, and increase productivity. A little stress can also benefit your immune system.

3. Shaving time is cumulative. Saving six minutes once isn’t a big deal, but if you can do this ten times an hour, it’s like having an extra hour. Competitive racers do this by taking curves on the inside, only inches from collision and death, all in the name of shaving time.

4. Mistakes can be fixed later. Sometimes the most important thing is finishing. We all need timely wins. Who cares if things aren’t perfect at first? You can go slow during revisions.

5. You can make more money. If you’re paid by the piece or project, then obviously the faster you work the more you make. Double your speed, double your income (unless speed causes shoddy work, in which case you’ll work harder but end up making about the same).

6. Outrunning your competition has benefits. Sometimes it’s better to be first than best. In business, this is called the First-Mover Advantage.

7. You can increase focus and attention. When you’re working fast, you can’t see the distractions around you. Like when you’re speeding down a back road, you must focus only on the task at hand; otherwise you’ll end up in a flaming pile of wreckage.

8. Let’s face it: Fast is fun. Why else would people ride roller coasters, drive sports cars, or go skiing. It’s all about adrenaline and energy. Sure, sometimes you crash, but at least you got a thrill. The hardest part is maintaining control and avoiding a burnout.

That’s it. I wish I could say I wrote this in a frenzied thirty minutes, but I’ll admit it took me a little longer. Maybe learning to move fast will take longer than I thought.

Over to You:

In your opinion, what are the benefits of moving fast?
What’s better: finishing quick with mistakes to be fixed or taking your time and fixing mistakes as you go?

XXXX

Site news:

As always, thanks for reading. Since I’m doing a lot of fiction writing lately, I’ve decided to make April ‘Better Writing Month.’ As much for my sake as yours, I’ll be writing posts about fiction and nonfiction, grammar, word usage (?), and other things that make English majors sigh with delight.

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Knowing When to Quit

Seth M. Baker — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:01:41 +0000

Knowing when and how to quit is one of the most valuable skills out there. Why? By strategically quitting things that don’t work for you, you’re free to work on things that do.

Quitting has gotten bad rap over the years. When you say you’re quitting anything besides cigarette smoking, seal clubbing, or self-mutilation, people look at you like you’re some kind of failure (of course, we know there’s nothing wrong with failure).

Of all the vices out there, though, we can learn the most from gambling. What does gambling have to do with quitting?

The gamblers who make the most money are the ones who know when to quit.

Rather than reinvest their winnings in the hopes of an even bigger win (which they’re sure to lose), they choose a wise time to cash out, often with the help of a magic talisman.

We can learn from these canny folks, no talisman required.

Before I go further, I should add some caveats.

Perseverance is important, and finishing most of what you start is admirable and full of side benefits. The problem most people have is quitting too soon, rather than too late.

Developing professional-level skills and abilities can take years. According to Malcolm Gladwell, those at the top of their field put in 10,000 hours of focused practice. They never quit. ..but not everyone can be a Bill Gates, Jimi Hendrix, or Joyce Carol Oates.

Sometimes you have to focus on just one thing, let go of the others, and move on. All these people are (were) exceptional at their main skill. All the other stuff, they quit along the way.

In short, keep working on what works for you, but quit most everything else.

Why Quit?

Quitting is never an easy decision. After putting in months or years developing a skill or working on a project, letting go seems like such a huge waste of time and energy.

Reasons to quit include:

Gaining freedom from something that’s changed from a cute, cuddly new thing to a snarling, snapping, biting pain in the ass.
Having more time to focus on one or two more important things. Or…having more time to spend with your family.
Reducing stress levels. When you really just don’t want to do something, doing it anyway (for a long period of time) will probably kill you.
To move on to new projects; to change, grow, and learn.
As a way to get out of a long-term rut.
Regaining your soul, in the event some malevolent force of your own making is sucking it out through an ethereal straw.

When to Quit?

The time to quit is different for everybody. The gambler can tell with a stroke of the lucky rabbit’s foot. Without a talisman, your task is harder. Sometimes the need to quit is obvious, sometimes not so. Only you can be the judge.

Here are some warning signs:

Feeling apathetic and disinterested over a long period of time, nothing a vacation or re-orientation will cure.
When you’ve either achieved your goals, you realize that the goals are unachievable, or you simply don’t give a flying fudgebar about goals.
When the thought of working on the project makes you want to gouge out your eyes with chopsticks.
After having a moment of clarity and realizing you’ve been living out some kind of sad delusion.
You get a little older and realize the things you wanted in the past aren’t what you want now.

How to Quit?

The clever gambler recognizes a losing streak and, instead of trying to play their way out of it, they cut their losses and develop an exit strategy. For you, when you quit something, it needn’t be a total loss either. With a little foresight and planning, you too can make a graceful exit.

Sometimes you just need a readjustment in what you want. You might not become a megastar but it’s perfectly possible to carve out a living.
If you have created something tangible (a business or a blog), you could sell it off, piece by piece.
In some cases, you need to train a replacement. This can be fun but also disorienting.
Whenever possible, have something else lined up. Quitting something that was an important part of your life can leave a big gap.
Reflect back on your time and figure out what you’ve learned.
Don’t burn any bridges. If you’re leaving some project that involved other people (and most do), let everyone know you appreciated doing whatever with them.

That’s it. Remember, the value lies in strategic quitting. Do what works for you. Say goodbye to everything else. Cut your losses. Finish what you can and forget about the rest. Good luck!

Over to You

Any strategies for quitting?
Do you think people should simply never give up?
Is baby seal really as delicious as I’ve been told?

Photo credit: koiart66

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The End of the Mega Star

Seth M. Baker — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:50:13 +0000

A couple days ago, I went snorkeling for the first time in my life. There, in the turquoise waters of Thailand’s Andaman Sea, I realized the age of the mega star was over. What brought on this realization? The serene beauty of the coral reefs? A lack of oxygen to the brain? An anemone sting to the heart?

No, it was the fish.

But first, who were the mega stars? People like Michael Jackson, Stephen King, the Backstreet Boys… people known and loved (or loathed) by millions. Call them the mass-culture equivalents of Old Faithful. Every time they signed multi-whatever deals, people lined up to buy whatever they put out.

I’m not saying Jackson and King aren’t talented individuals. They are. But, like the Dodo, slap bracelets, and tribal tattoos, their time is coming to an end. Just take a look at record sales numbers.

In the 80′s, Jackson sold hundreds of millions of records.

Even in the 90′s, no one even came close. And, since the end of the ’90s, overall album sales have steadily declined. In 1999, the Backstreet Boys sold over 9.4 million records. In 2009, Taylor Swift, best-selling artist of the year sold over 3.2 million records. While 3.2 million is a lot of records, it’s nowhere near the pre-internet numbers.

While P2P piracy is partially to blame for this decrease, in my armchair opinion, I think many people just don’t want to buy what the culture companies are selling.

Yes, all these artists have put in a lot of work. They have some talent and appeal to mainstream tastes. However, the remaining big media can only support a few of them.

Let’s go back to the fish.

Most of the fish I saw were small, no bigger than my hand, and wildly colorful. Some looked like psychedelic zebras, others like they’d been attacked by a fluorescent-paint-wielding Jackson Pollack. I lost count of the types and varieties of small fish I encountered.

On the other hand, I saw only a couple big fish. They were a little smaller than house cats and either rainbow-colored or white. Kind of pretty, yes, but not nearly as interesting as the rainbow of small fish.

If Michael Jackson and Susan Boyle are the big fish, then people like Ani Difranco and Will Oldham are the little fish. Young writers selling self-published novels from their websites or the trunks of their cars are also little fish. Bloggers selling whatever, they’re small fish too.

Small fish have one thing in common: they have found a place in the reef, and they don’t need to get bigger to survive. They have a spunky, DIY-ethic and don’t need or expect a huge company to sweep them up and propel them to the heights of whatever.

To support a mega star in the culture industry, you need two things: centralized, corporate-controlled media and narrow channels of distribution. Since the birth of television and the nationwide conglomeration of newspapers and radio, you’ve had both. Susan Boyle (over 3 million albums sold in 2009) is a great example of a mass-media-created celebrity.

When most people get their information from only a couple of sources, it’s most profitable to create only a handful of mega stars.

Today, though, you have decentralized (and often consumer-created) reviews, a million distribution channels (many free or very affordable), and terabytes of ways for artists to communicate directly with people who want to experience their work.

With thousands of arts & entertainment blogs out there, tastes are fragmenting and specializing.

Thousands of arts & entertainment blogs are catering to fragmented, specialized, uber-niche-icized tastes. Quality but lesser-known artists have almost as much opportunity as the Kings of Leon to get a review on a site like Pitchfork. With a few ironic Amazon reviews, a small company can sell tens of thousands of freaky shirts originally intended for marginal rednecks (see Three Wolf Moon).

The major media companies and gatekeepers are becoming irrelevant. Like a wizard without his staff, they have lost their power. People now have the ability to seek out what they want.

Curse you, interwebs! (say the CEOs of many major media companies)

What does this mean for small fish?

Marketing

No longer can artists and creators rely on multi-million dollar ad campaigns, payola schemes, and bookstore/record store placement. Instead, each artist has to find ways to connect with fans. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising, and the internet makes those words travel that much faster.

If creators can reach the Sneezers (people who tell their friends about amazing work), they have just done what a thousand dollars worth of advertising most likely cannot: connect with people who care.

People love to share good work, and that’s the best part of the new culture marketing paradigm: the creator wins because they get ‘free’ advertising, and the sneezers win because they have a chance to share the good things they’ve found.

Distribution

Let’s jump over to book distribution for a few minutes. Music distribution is way too easy and obvious: make mp3s and share them with your friends. Books still are a physical, tangible good, so they’re a little trickier (let’s exclude ebooks for a moment).

In the past, a few companies (Ingram, Baker & Taylor) controlled the book trade. If you wanted to get your book into a bookstore, you had to go through them. This came at a price: wholesale discounts, uncompensated returns (of often damaged goods), warehousing fees.

Today, you have at least a hundred companies that offer print-on-demand services. Some will even offer dropshipping (or print-and-ship) via Amazon.

If you have a quality product and you’ve got the time and skills to hustle your book, if you can build a platform and do the marketing, you’re better off without a traditional publisher. If sales take off, you might get a good book deal, but that’s only an option, not a necessity.

Even before the internet, people were having great success self-publishing. Books like A Time to Kill and The Celestine Prophecy sold hundreds of thousands of companies. Later, they were picked up by the big boys.

Other considerations

Geography is becoming irrelevant. NY, LA, and London are still important places, but as long as creators are able to connect with people interested in their work, they’ll have plenty of markets. Another benefit: a lower cost of living means people will have more time to do what they do best.
Creators will have to wear more hats. The artist must take care of marketing, distribution, PR, bookings, etc. While this means more work for the individual, they will at least have more control over how their work is presented.
When word of mouth becomes more important, marketing costs decrease. Not only that, but when people are sharing good stuff, a greater diversity of voices will be heard.
Overall, as the age of the mega star winds down, more opportunities will arise for more individuals. Why? People will always crave, seek out, and share quality work.

All this isn’t to say the big media companies have no place in the new, post-mega star culture economy. They do, so long as they do three things: adapt to the way things are, accept the things they can’t change, and stop suing their customers. The last is ugly and will probably kill them in the long run.

For everyone else, there’s never been a better time than now to be a small fish. Anyone can reach a million people. The gate keepers are no longer the unassailable arbiters of culture they once were.

The reef is large enough for a couple big fish…but its the little ones who make it interesting.

Photo credit: nrbelex

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