Category: Productivity

In a Relationship: Perfection & Burnout

Maybe this should be subtitled The Harder You Try the Bigger the Fall? In any case, this is an outstanding discussion of why, when push comes to shove, “perfectionism is the enemy of the good.”

This TVWriter™ minion feels heaps better about her lack of perfection now. (Well, okay, maybe not heaps but at least a tad.)

Young sad woman alone in a black stone beach.by Thomas Curran & Andrew Hill

It was Voltaire who said: “perfect is the enemy of the good” – and he should know. A strident critic of existential perfection, Voltaire spent much of his working life attacking the notion of a world imbued by flawless divinity. read article

John Ostrander: Don’t Look Down

Wile-E-Coyote

by John Ostrander

There’s a rule for tightrope walkers: don’t look down. If you look down, you’ll fall. Focus instead on the other end of the wire, where you’re headed. Focus on the goal. I’ve always felt that’s good advice for writers as well.

Don’t look down.

If you doubt that you can write, you can’t. If asked if you are a writer, your answer has to be “Yes.” If you’re asked if you are a good writer, your answer has to be “Yes.” If you’re asked if you are the best writer that you can ever be, your answer should be “Not yet.” You not only have to say it, you have to believe it. If you don’t or can’t, then you are looking down. read article

What’s the secret of good writing?

At last! An answer to a question absolutely no writer ever asks about writing cuz when you get down to it, getting agents and gigs and stuff doesn’t have much to do with “good writing” at all.

Of course, it would help if we all agreed on a definition for that term. But….

william-gager-at-oxford
Um, no, we aren’t talking about this kind of writing…are we?

by Oliver Burkeman

! first encountered Robert Boice’s name about three years ago, somewhere online; after that, it started popping up every other month. Boice, I learned, was a US psychologist who’d cracked the secret of how to write painlessly and productively. Years ago, he’d recorded this wisdom in a book, now out of print, which a handful of fans discussed in reverent tones, but with a title that seemed like a deliberate bid for obscurity: How Writers Journey To Comfort And Fluency. Also, it was absurdly expensive: used copies sold for £130. Still, I’m a sucker for writing advice, especially when so closely guarded. So this month, I succumbed: I found a copy at the saner (if still eye-watering) price of £68, and a plain green print-on-demand hardback arrived in the post. So if you hunger to write more, but instead find yourself procrastinating, or stifled by panic, or writer’s block, I can reveal that the solution to your troubles is… read article

Things to Consider Before You Go Freelance

It’s checklist time, kids, so listen up. No, wait, we mean, start reading. Yeah, that’s the ticket:

behance_05_02by Matt McCue

Chucking the corporate life for the freedom of working independently is the fantasy of many a cubicle monkey. But before you make the jump, ask yourself some hard questions to make sure that you can operate from a position of strength while on your own.

Before I joined 99U last fall, I freelanced full-time for five years in New York City, writing for places like ESPN The Magazine, Fast Company, and New York. While I was ultimately able to thrive on my own, the first year was rough. My life was a constant cycle of eeking out enough money to pay my monthly bills, relishing that accomplishment for about as long as it took me to sip a celebratory glass of whiskey and then realizing: This month nearly killed me. How in the world am I going to make it next month?

If I were to go back and do it all over again, I’d make one major change to vet the decision to freelance from the perspective of an entrepreneur, and not solely weigh it against my creative ambitions. While it feels clinical to think of your art as a “product”and asking yourself questions about money makes you feel vulnerable, this approach can help you make a decision informed by both creative desires and shrewd business sense. This combiniation pushes you to pinpoint why you really want to work independently, highlight your shortcomings and hopefully allows you to firm up any weaknesses so you make the move when you’re truly ready. read article

LB: The March-April TVWriter™ Advanced Workshop has 3 Openings

lbwriterbiggerA quick Word to the Wise that the 157th TVWriter™ Advanced Online TV & Film Writing Workshop will start in about a week and a half, on March 30, 2016.

As of this announcement I have room for a whole passel of students. Well, 3 more anyway, so if you’ve been thinking about joining us, or were in the Workshop but left and now want to come back, hey, now’s a good time.

This running of the Advanced Workshop costs $140 and meets every Wednesday night for 4 weeks. There’s probably a whole bunch more that you want to know, but I’m keeping this quick, so head on over to the Advanced Online Workshop Page or email me ASAP so we can clear up your questions.