Advice

The Challenge of Supporting Your Fellow Creatives

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’d like to support our fellow creatives because we care, because they’re our friends, and because we know what we’re going through. It’s often challenging for us to do for many reasons.

  • We may have limited time and resources to help.
  • We may know creatives who aren’t good at accepting help.
  • We may know creatives who are busy.
  • We may, simply not know how to help or be able to.
  • We may have too many ways to help people and not know where to start.
  • We’re bad at helping. Some of us just lack the subtlety or knowledge.

It’s not easy, is it? I’m sure you’re nodding mentally if not physically. I’ve experienced all of these, and can’t say I’ve handled all of them well.

The challenge of helping our fellow creatives is even more complicated in that some forms of help don’t “help.” Sure you want to help that artist exercise, but buying them a gift membership to a gym may create social pressure they don’t need. You might offer to cook for a writer who’s a bit occupied, and then promptly make food they don’t like. Help that doesn’t help just becomes another problem.

To assist you – and myself – I brainstormed some ideas. How can we help our fellow creatives?

Ask: Ask what someone needs. Guess what they may be fine and you’re worrying too much.

Buy Their Stuff: I mean that goes without saying.

Check In: Look, just say hi now and then. You may find it annoys the person or they need space, but at least you know.

Connect Them: If they’re open to it, introduce them to fellow creatives, customers, and resources.

Do A Task: Someone is busy with that art project? Then pick up food for them or give them a ride.

Get Resources: Outright give that creative a new pen kit or website subscription. Holidays and birthdays are great times to do this for people who don’t like to accept help.

Gift: That creative you want to support? Buy their books, comics, etc. and use them as gifts for people. Spread the word.

Helpful Resources: This doesn’t always work, but there’s lots of great advice books, web services, software, etc. This can help – but can also burden people with something they “have” to use. Be careful.

Involve Them: I’ve taken to seeing if my fellow creatives want to do panels and events. I don’t push it, but it’s a way to get them connected and involved and having fun.

Learn: When listening and doing all of these things, learn about them and yourself.

Listen: Sometimes folks just want to talk about their project and so on. They want someone to listen – not necessarily critique.

Pre-Read/Beta Read/Critique: Sort of goes without saying.

Provide Guidance WHEN ASKED: Sometimes people are bad at asking for help, but if someone asks how you do X, show them. Be careful of providing advice unasked, that can become another burden.

Provide Resources: That creative may need your editing skill, or to borrow your sewing kit or whatever. Be open to it – or offer.

Publicize: Tell people about that cosplayer, author, artist, etc. This promotes them, connects them, and may result in them getting money which is always good.

Take a Request: That person may need a ride, a trip, some help. If they ask, keep that in mind. I mean you know, be open to it.

I hope that was helpful. It certainly go me thinking about what I do – and shouldn’t do, and can do better.

Steven Savage

The Angel Is In The Action

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’ve often heard it said The Devil is in the Details, which is certainly true in writing. We can plot and outline all we want, but when one truly writes, that’s when we find out just how many unexpected details and findings can bedevil us. Writing is often overwhelming when we dive into a work because there’s so much we have to think about.

Worldbuilding is a prime example. No matter how much you plan, you’ll quickly ask questions, find holes, or create problems for yourself. Worldbuilding is challenging, and not everyone embraces it with the same (masochistic?) fervor as some.

Characters are another example. We’ve all had writing experiences where characters made up their minds to be different. These moments are delightful, but not so blissful is the realization 70% of your plans got tossed out.

Language is yet another example of bedeviling details when we write, in nonfiction or fiction. As you write, you keep putting yourself in the shoes of the audience – and we may find that we’re not wearing the right shoes. Creating something is a hellish chance to find that you’re not speaking to the proper audience, or you don’t know that audience as well as you’d like.

Our own outlines may cause us problems. We can see a beautiful map, a wonderful path, and then writing it down only brings out many confusing questions and issues. For some of us, the best laid plans don’t even get set down before they go wrong in our heads.

Any moment like these can derail us, confuse us, and make us despondent. We’re writing and our own writing is making us miserable.

A break may be in order, but let me suggest this – if the Devil is in the Details, then let’s keep going. The Angel is in the Action, as it were – moving forward we find salvation from our problems.

If we address the problems we find as best we can – even if taking a note to fix it later – we go on, accomplish things, and can revise work later. We may even find the problem can be revised elsewhere in our work.

If we keep writing, we’ll accomplish work, achieving both our goals and having a reminder of just what we can accomplish. By continuing to write, even when harassed by our own fear of details and fine points, we at least move forward and maintain our confidence.

If we work around our problems and fears and challenges, we may find we don’t even have to deal with them. Sometimes a retrospective reveals our fears weren’t an issue all along.

If nothing else, completing a work or a piece lets you revise it from a point of surety – even if you’re sure it’s not that good.

We don’t really learn something until we do it, and that includes fixing our stories or overcoming issues of missing detail. If we let the Devil hiding in the details get to us, we forget that it’s our work and we have the power to fix problems. Powering through, keeping going, lets us leave him behind, lets us find our Angel – be it a new idea, a solution, or a workaround.

Take action when writing frustrates you. Keep moving forward – even if it’s in circles. Maybe take a little break, but don’t let the Devil whisper in your ear you can’t do it. Find the Angel in your actions.

Steven Savage

SV Comic Con Roundup: Marketing Panel

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

First of all, sorry this comes late. It’s been awhile since I and my crew did the Silicon Valley Comic Con panels on self-publishing, and i’m only now reporting on it. It’s been a busy few weeks to say the least – you probably noticed a decrease in my blogging.

But now, with a lot of that behind me, let’s talk the latest addition to the speaking repertoire for my local crew of self-publishers – Marketing for Self-Publishers.

We’ve been speaking about self-publishing for years. The panel we do has been updated over time as we got feedback, as things changed, and as we adapted to new venues. But what my crew has also done has tried to speak on Marketing for years – but most people wanted Self-Publishing 101 (which is understandable, as its still new to people).

Finally, we got interest at SVCC, so we ran for it. And what we did is worth sharing.

First, yes, we had experienced Self-Publishers from our usual group, this time speaking on our Marketing experiences. We even had a one-page handout, like our usual Self-Publishing panel. What we varied was adding someone to give us a reality check.

Our panel included an experienced marketing professional, someone who’d been in the trenches of marketing in Silicon Valley. This person was there to check our advice, add things from their professional perspective, and discuss the bigger picture. In other words, they made sure our advice was applicable, unique cases weren’t discussed as if they were universal, and survivorship bias got shown the door.

I’ll cut to the chase – it was fantastic.

The usual speaking team did great, of course, providing validated advice with plenty of examples. Alone it would have been a pretty good panel, everyone was very aware and experienced, giving good examples. But when you throw in the Marketing Expert, it just went off the charts in quality.

What happened was we got into a rhythm, the authors discussing experiences, and then having the marketing professional give their take. That professional advice too things outside of the context of individual experience or just publishing, and into a good understanding of marketing. It meant that people heard what worked for us, but also helped them get the bigger picture of marketing.

I’m enthused enough I really want to repeat this panel. I also want to consider this model elsewhere – having specialists discuss a subject with a “non-specialist” expert to check them and expand their knowledge. A few ideas off the top of my head:

  • A digital artist panel – that includes a graphic tech expert.
  • A panel on writing techniques – with an expert on language history to discuss the history of writing patterns and such.
  • A panel on how to run a convention – with a professional manager or project manager (call me).

So great panel, great finding, and some advice for everyone to try.

Steven Savage