Weekly Challenge: Educating the Inner Child

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Ever heard the term inner child? I'm sure you have.  As for what it means, well, it seems whatever meaning it once has is now diluted by jokes, assumptions, and pop-psychology.

But, we're going to drag out this tired term for your challenge this week.

You probably think of yourself as mature overall, but there are things where you are ignorant, where you don't know, where you are, in one way or another immature.  Inside the "adult you" are little pieces of yourself that have yet to grow up and mature, parts of you that may be painful to deal with because of their flaws and immaturity.

Pick one of these "inner children", perhaps the ignorance of a subject or a petty and immature behavior.  You're going to work on it.

Take this troublesome inner child, and ask what opportunity is needed for it to grow up – what is the right time, right environment, right situation to let this annoying piece of you mature into something grand.

Now, how are you going to make that happen this week?

Sometimes our problems, our troublesome inner children, are best dealt with by seeking the right situation – and by handling them one at a time.

– Steven Savage

Book Update 2/8/2010

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And now an update on the Fan To Pro book.  I spent a lot of the weekend working on it, so here's the latest:

Status:

  • The book is actually formatted and uploaded at Lulu.com.  This actually took awhile due to PDF conversion issues.
  • I am now working on the cover, which seems to work well as a simple cover for now – though people are still dropping ideas on me left and right.  I think next time I may "fansource" cover design more and hands-off it.
  • I hope to get the cover finished in a week or so and approve the final version in March.
  • Release to Lulu will be earlier than release to Amazon and other stores as it takes a few weeks for a new book to go through the system.  I'm still aiming for March.

What I learned:

  • Typesetting and laying out a book is a very unappreciated skill that you will NOT appreciate until you actually do it knowing a book you set up will be available to the public.
  • PDF conversion is also a massive crapshoot.  Lulu.com's PDF conversion beat the one I had on my Mac Word.  I ended up using Mac Word to get my book PDF, but had to cope with some annoying margin issues.
  • The first time you do set up a book for publishing, take a whole day to do it.  Trust me on this.
  • Examine other books to get ideas for layouts, numbering, and more.  That helped a lot.
  • Don't forget title, copyright, dedication, and other pages.

So the book is all but ready to go.  It needs a cover, a print check, and some tweaking.  But late March is looking awfully good . . .

 . . . and yes when it's done I'll write up my experience with Lulu.com!

– Steven Savage

Turn It Around: Applying Work to Fandom

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Are you applying your work lessons to your hobbies?

This may seem like a strange thing to say, especially to the people who use their hobbies tocope with the stress of work.  However if your ambitions are to go from fan to pro, if you want to be a progeek, then you need to learn to apply your work to fandom, not just the other way around.

If there's something you do on the job that you're good at (or in some cases just decent at) consider how you can apply it in your fandom:

  • A good typist can help with program books, website content, etc.
  • A person good with accounting can help with a covention or fansite budget.
  • If you're a manager, why not organize a gaming event or convention?

Applying what you do on the job to your hobbies has several benefits:

  • It lets you get involved in fannish activities at an "experienced" level.
  • It lets you improve your job skills while having fun.
  • It looks good on a resume.
  • It may be useful towards certifications.
  • It lets you take more enjoyment in your work since it's now a broader part of your life.
  • It can give you ideas for more geeky careers – or how to geek-out your current career.
  • You can support your fellow fans.

Don't just take your fandom into your career – find ways to turn it around.  It'll make life easier, let you do more – and perhaps inspire you as to your next steps . . .

– Steven Savage