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A Writer’s Life: Space

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

This month I’m trying to write at least 24,000 words, preferably 30,000.  This isn’t due to any NaNoWriMo thing, it’s a personal challenge to up my productivity.  In setting this goal, I ran into a problem.

I’d set aside time to write, but it felt constrained.  A punishment, a forced duty.

Yet when I’d get writing, I’d often enjoy it.  I find that even when you don’t want to write, doing it for five minutes usually unblocks you.  Besides, even if you hate it, you’re going to edit it later, so might as well enjoy half-baked crap as you make it.

At this point I knew my “ugh, time to write” reaction was irrational.  So I set about thinking of how I could “re-imagine” that writing time to make me see it in a positive light.  Not so much tricking myself, but more how to take a better attitude.

At the same time, I was also discussing the concept of “Pull” in Kanban, and Agile methodology.  So you can guess this is another one of my Agile/Writing posts.

Anyway, the idea in Kanban is you only work on something when you have space to do it – then you “Pull.”  It’s the opposite of “Pushing” work.  If you’re blocked up, you don’t Pull in new work, you focus on getting things moving.  If you can’t get anything moving because of other people, go do something else like take a class or get a coffee once you’re done yelling at them

It sounds weird, but then you realize that Kanban gives you “space” to work.  “Space” to take tasks on when you’re ready.  It’s very much like my earlier thoughts on the subject.

That’s when I realized that setting aside writing time was not making myself write – it was setting aside Space to write.  That 30 minutes or 60 minutes where I’m clear to write.

This changed my mindset (for the most part).  It felt less constrained, less forced, less trapped.  Sometimes it even felt amazing – “a whole hour to write, wow!”  Oh sure I still get those moments of feeling I’m forcing myself, but they’re diminished – and I can rethink that time as “space” and reduce the feelings.

Let’s see if this gets even better over time, but it’s certainly helped already.

– Steve

A Writer’s Life: Cover Me III – Electric Fantasy

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Remember how I was practicing making book covers? How I was posting them on tumblr and elsewhere?

I got my first “professional” assignment.

Now this isn’t professional in the paid way, but in the “on an actual book someone publishes” way. I’m helping out an ambitious co-worker with a love of pulp SF to put out his e-book. I of course volunteered to do the cover. He gets it for free, I get practice, and it probably won’t suck.

This turns out to have been a bit stressful. You never quite appreciate your talents, or question them, until you’re doing something for someone else.  Kinda in the “questioning” stage right now.

At the same time, this is also fantastic for learning.

I realized first and foremost that the book covers I was making were suffering a bit because I knew they were basically practice. I didn’t polish them, I didn’t tweak them, I didn’t revise them as much because it was “just practice.” There’s all sorts of things you don’t do in practice that you do when it’s real.

It’s real because I’m not gonna give this guy some crap. He’s my co-worker, he’s a fellow writer, he’s a good guy – I’m not going to let him down.

This means that now I’m pushing myself even farther. Exploring techniques. Considering layout precision. Learning all the things I wouldn’t learn when I just do a one-off bit of practice.

There’s a few takeaways from this that are good for you artists and writers.

  1. First, practice is good. Don’t get me wrong, it got me here. In fact practice is needed to get good enough.
  2. “Projects” work for learning skills. My practice projects gave me a hell of a lot of experience.
  3. Doing something “for real” exposes you to all sorts of things you may not get in practice – details, feedback, market issues, etc.
  4. Doing something for someone is a great motivator.

Let’s see how this book cover goes. I’ve got one mockup and a vision in my head that, hopefully, I can bring into reality. I’m sure I have plenty more to learn – but everything I learn here can help me and others later . . .

– Steve

My Agile Life: More Talking Less Meeting

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s LinkedIn, and Steve’s Tumblr)

More on my use of “Agile” and Scrum in my life!

As I’ve noted, doing personal Agile (in my case Scrum) makes you more aware of ways Agile goes wrong on the job or in your friend’s jobs. It’s contrast, because you can get your life running smoothly with Agile, so breakdowns elsewhere become more apparent.

An important part of Agile is that people communicate, often several times a day, perhaps even unscheduled. This asynchronous communication lets them meet and talk as needed, making the team open and adaptable. It turns development into a dialogue and is about meeting as needed, not meetings.  Communication is meaningful.

Sure there’s the classic Scrum standup (often done in non-scrum processes) but that’s the bare minimum. Good Agile is about good communications, and that doesn’t mean endlessly sitting in conference rooms. That means dialogue when you need it.

Even solo Agile requires communications that can be spontaneous – maybe even moreso when, say, you need to ask someone if they know what it is you found while cleaning the garage.

I’m guessing that if you’re doing Agile at work – and perhaps at home – you’ve got a lot of items blocked because you can’t get ahold of people. Hell, even if you’re not doing Agile I’m going to guess that you need a lot of signoffs to get things moving.  Those signoffs are probably not happening.

My guess is things aren’t moving. You can’t get people to respond. No one is talking but everyone is busy.

What do we do when we need people? We schedule a meeting. Then we have more meetings . . . and it’s harder to reach people.

Remember my theory that we can’t reduce meetings due to meetings? Yeah, this sounds familiar. We also have so many meetings we can’t talk to people.

We’re now so busy talking, because we didn’t talk, that we can’t talk.

So let me make a further radical proposal in Agile – if you have to schedule meetings to take care of five or ten minute touchbases, maybe you’ve got too damn many meetings as it is. OK, my guess is you always think you have too many meetings, but if you’re endlessly blocked because you can’t talk to someone, then it’s out of hand. I’ll also bet most people are blocked because of . . . meetings.

Let’s fix this.

Imagine if you worked on decreasing meetings, but increased the ability for communicating. Dream a dream like this:

  1. Start cutting out meetings, period. Encourage people to read reports, signoff, and look at information radiators. Verify don’t brief, use tacit signoff.
  2. Encourage spontaneous communication when possible. Sure, you’d have to set up some rules so people weren’t bombarded, but it’d help. Besides, when people practice open communication they also learn when not to interrupt others.
  3. Encourage people to block time on calendars where they cant’t be bothered. I do this at home and at work – when I have to focus, I get me some me time. A big calendar block of “DON’T BUG ME” does wonders.
  4. If you have problems, schedule Open Hours for important folks, where people know they’re available. Think of it as a middle ground between spontaneous communication and regular meetings.

There’s my radical thought of the day. If you start reducing meetings, maybe people will actually communicate.

(By the way I do plenty of books for coaching people to improve in various areas, which may also help you out!)

– Steve