Fandom And Persistence

You'd like to be a writer.  Or an artist.  Or a webmaster.

You create fanfic.  You create fanart.  You make fansites.

There's just one problem – you're sort of bad at it.  Your worries are that you're never going to make it to "good" on the fandom level, let alone on the professional level.  Your biggest concern is you're lousy next to amateurs.

My advice to you is – if you want to do it, don't give up.

Wanting to do something will spur you on.  You'll spend more time, double down on your efforts, and in general, keep trying to grow.  You'll keep trying.  If anything, you'll put in enough effort that by sheer dint of trying you'll improve, or at least become less worse.

This isn't meant to be sarcastic, it's meant to be true.

If you're good at something you can almost certainly look back at a time you were lousy at it or didn't even know what it was.  You're in that state right now as you assess your horrid writing, bad organizational skills, or inability to make a simple seam on a costly costume.  Your incompetence is merely the start of getting better.

Persistence in the face of our own mistakes is one of the major things that leads to success.  Keep that in mind.

– Steven Savage

Weekly Challenge: Carry Out One Inspiration

Last week we discussed inspiring someone.  But inspiration can't do much unless you carry it out.

It's easy to get inspired, but too often it fades away in time.  We forget, we get busy, or worse we get lazy.

Following up on inspiration is a habit – and a skill – that has to be developed, maintained, and improved.  You have to make an effort, often a conscious one, to develop the ability to make ideas real.

So your goal this week is to take one piece of inspiration, either one you had recently or one you get this week – and make it real.

Write a column or a blog post.  Do that waiting piece of art.  Research that college you considered going to.  Something, anything, pick one thing this week that you're inspired to do and go and do it.

Come to think of it, maybe you could make a habit of this . . .

– Steven Savage