Way With Worlds: Originality’s Smoke And Mirrors

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fireworks

(Way With Worlds runs  at MuseHack, Seventh Sanctum, and Ongoing Worlds)

Every worldbuilder, author, artist has had that moment. That moment where originality seems to be a fleeting illusion.

Perhaps they feel that they can’t seem to do anything original. Every idea they have seems done (and perhaps done better). The fear of being accused of derivation. The sense everything they do seems to be alike.

Perhaps they feel there just isn’t anything left. Everything has been done, there’s nothing left to do.

So let’s address that issue that many a worldbuilder faces – how do we deal with the need to be original? Fortunately there’s an easy answer.

Screw originality, who needs to worry about it?

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Learn The Job Search Game

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Running Of The Bulls

So after spending a lot of time discussing the Dark Side Of Do What You Love, I’m going to focus on one more depressing subject right now: the recruiting mess.

Now let me preface this by noting that I’m going to defend recruiters. In my experience most recruiters are great people in a very challenging situation. As I often note if you think your job is awful, imagine having to interview twenty or thirty people like you in a week and you get the idea. For extra spice, imagine what kind of other bad decisions they have to put up with.

So I’m not going to diss them.

But let us be honest, the process of finding a job sucks. It’s not fun. It’s challenging, and unless you get into it (as some of us do), it’s painful. It’s why I keep writing and speaking on it.

And here’s something you need to do.

You need to learn the game.

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Make It So: Let’s Be A Bunch Of Dicks

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Book Shelf And More

One of my most recent acquisitions is the fascinating book “Dick’s Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870’s.” Its a reprint of a book that was a guide to, well, everything. Making dyes, controlling insects, creating food, various measurements and so on. It’s basically a catalog of practical knowledge from the 19th century that people would need – and in a time where you lacked easy access to specialists and stores we take for granted.

It’s out of print sadly, but you can find used copies around the internet (I got mine at Amazon), or even find it online at Archive.org.

The value isn’t just in historical curiosity, though there’s plenty here. There’s real, practical advice here for all sorts of things that you can use if you’re a DIY type, a Maker, a cook, or a Cosplayer. Admittedly there’s also stuff that can kill you if you’re not careful, but I’m going to assume you’ll be cautious if you decide to start playing with acid or something.

So yeah, go buy this book.  Try and get it reprinted.  I’m already planning to use copies as a gift.

But more than that all this, it got me thinking.  We all know that’s dangerous.

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