Wussify Your Way to Success September 8, 2009

I’m trying to be a more prolific crafter without adding any stress to my day. Being stressed just makes me procrastinate.

A couple of years ago as part of New Year’s resolution, my husband (who is already much more prolific than I) decided to try to change his habits by adopting a “make-a-thing-a-day” routine for just 30 days.  If it wasn’t too difficult, he would extend the project to three months, and so on.  More than two years later he’s still doing it, which means that since he made that resolution he has made no few than 800 pieces of artwork.  Today one of them got chosen for an art show in Prague!

The task has always seemed daunting to me.  I’m afraid I will fail, even within the 30-day trial.  But this is the time of year when I make my annual resolutions, so I’ve been trying to figure out ways to make a-thing-a-day easier to accomplish.  Here are some rules I’ve come up with for myself:

• I can make anything.  It doesn’t have to be “crafted.”  I can make a ten-second drawing or write a two-line poem.
• I can copy someone else’s work.  I’ll still get technique practice and new ideas from doing this, and as long as I’m not selling what I make or adding it to my public portfolio, I figure there’s no harm done.
• I can make a project from someone else’s instructions or from a book.
• I can substitute half an hour’s work on an existing project, like the sweater I’m knitting or the cross-stitch I’m trying to finish.
• Craft/design work for clients counts.
• I can make something I’ve already made before.
• I cannot make two things one day in order to skip the next day.
• I do not have to post the results of any day’s work if I don’t like it.
• A project is finished when I am done working on it.  It doesn’t have to be complete.

These may seem like total wuss rules, but I think I’m more like to continue making something every day if I feel excited and confident. I can always ramp up the challenge later.  Whether this works despite my wussifying remains to be seen.  I’ll let you know next month.

Have any of you ever set creativity goals that you’ve successfully accomplished?  Please share in the comments!

Advertisement

Media Diet June 11, 2009

Reading my alma mater’s alumni magazine makes me feel bad about myself.  I makes it seem as though all of my fellow alums are doing brave and amazing things–some of them at extremely young ages–while I sit here spinning my wheels.  Web sites (blogs especially) also make me feel bad about myself.  They present a world that is overflowing with creative people and all of them, including the hobbyists with non-art day jobs are more creative and prolific than me.  No one will ever hire me in such a world.

It’s bad.  I’ve been spending nearly two hours every morning reading about other people’s projects, ideas and successes, bookmarking the ones I want to post on this blog or try some weekend 37 years from now.  I go back to maybe one in five hundred of these pages.  The rest just waste my time, cause feelings of inadequacy, and make me feel both overwhelmed and behind the times when I review them later.  I get so frustrated and tired with my work as a result that after dinner I just want to veg out.  Then it’s another day wasted, another reason to feel bad.

These feelings only got worse when I turned 29 last week.  Only one more year to accomplish all the things you thought you’d have in the bag by 30!  I decided enough is enough, and A. and I have been on a “media diet” as of Monday.  I’ve been wanting to try something like this for months, but what finally got me going was having a plan already laid out (in Timothy Ferris’ book, The Four-Hour Workweek), and having someone to do it with me.

Here’s how it works: for seven days, we avoid all non-fiction media and severely limit our intake of entertainment media.  In other words, no magazines, newspapers, blogs, NPR, Facebook or Twitter and only one hour per day of fiction reading, fictional TV or video games.  There is no limit on music or interpersonal correspondence.  We are allowed to post things to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and to write non-fiction, since the point of this whole exercise is to make us more productive and confident.  We are also allowed to use the web for project-specific research (like collecting the links for posts) but no idle surfing.

We’re about halfway through now and I’ll admit, it’s difficult.  We watched the premiers of Weeds and Nurse Jackie tonight so now I can’t touch the Wii game I’ve been wanting to play until tomorrow.  I can’t click any of the links to funny/interesting stories that my friends e-mail me and I had to put down the copy of Omnivore’s Dilemma I just borrowed after wanting to read it for years.

Next week when this is over, I will definitely try to schedule my media intake a little better.  I will probably allow myself two hours of “leisure media” per day and go back to setting NPR as my default station in the car.  But I will not open my Google reader every day.  I will open it only once or twice a week, to look for specific things I can use in a post that same day.  No more saving things that “just seem cool” for some nebulous future purpose like a digital pack-rat.

Have you ever tried some sort of media diet?  How did you limit your intake and what happened afterwards?  Did it work?

Live Podcasting is Terrifying May 19, 2009

Yesterday I did a short interview about Sweet Meats with Emily and Kyle of The Meat Show. They’re excellent hosts and interviewers and I was particularly excited to be a part of their  “Meat Inventions” episode but I was also very unprepared.

They called at noon to confirm a 3pm broadcast (unnerving in and of itself) but our phone connection was not great and our conversation sounded weird and stilted.  Was this how the interview would sound?  I gave them my home studio number to minimize connection problems for the actual show.

For an hour before they called I felt like I would throw up.  I’ve done plenty of live performance and even some on-camera interviews, but radio is different, especially when you’re not in-studio.  There are no visuals to help fill in for awkward pauses or inarticulate phrasing.  And it’s LIVE.  And unedited.  I’m not entirely comfortable with my verbal communication skills (this blog is heavily edited) and the thought of having to be informative and entertaining for ten minutes straight was terrifying.

When they called at 3:20, I said “hello?” into the phone but no one replied.  Instead, I heard Kyle and Emily finishing up their last segment.  Oh crap!  Did someone just hear my confused greeting in the middle of the broadcast?  No, you idiot.  This is how radio works.  They don’t turn on your phone connection until they’re ready for you.  How would I know when I should start talking?!  When they say “Hi, Lauren.  Thanks for being on the show.  How are you?”, apparently.

Luckily, The Meat Show feels extremely fast-paced for a guest, more so than you would think just listening to it.  Kyle and Emily never allow for dead air and always have great comments and questions at the ready (they really do their homework).  Everything is friendly and slightly rushed, so you don’t have the time or inclination to worry about how you’re doing.

In the end I think the segment went pretty well and I actually left wishing I had gotten to be on longer.  It turns out that if you have great hosts you can have a great show, even if your guests are peeing their pants.

It’s All Going to Be Okay April 29, 2009

It’s been way too long since I posted last, I know.  We adopted a dog last week and it’s craft fair season again, so what little work I’ve been able to accomplish has gone exclusively towards getting ready for last weekend’s Indie Mart, and this coming weekend’s Unique Los Angeles. Still, I’m able to read the interwebs a little during meals, and yesterday at lunch I read Hugh MacLeod’s “How to Be Creative” manifesto, also called “Ignore Everybody” in its soon-to-be-published hardcover form.

MacLeod’s manifesto is a really refreshing read, because it puts the American dream back into perspective.  It never promises anything–least of all that your creative idea will be successful–but it reassured me that my dreams are worth pursuing, and that success is still a reasonably attainable goal as long as I’m willing to put the hours in.

“How to Be Creative” is organized into 37 little chapters (40 in the hardcover edition), each titled with an original, pithy truism, such as ” Selling out is harder than it looks” and “Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.”  While I agree with some of MacLeod’s proscriptions more than others, the sentiment behind each idea is sound.  For example, on “keeping your day job” (#7), I may not agree that I should just “find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but me, and…make it productive” because I want more than an hour a day to be creative.  As long as my life is financially stable, I don’t think it’s necessary to put a lot of time into a day job I don’t find especially meaningful.  But I do agree with “balancing the need to make a good living while still maintaining one’s creative sovereignty” (i.e. the “Sex and Cash Theory”).  In other words, it’s important not to compromise your creative work in order to make it more marketable, because that’s not fulfilling either.

I would recommend reading this manifesto to anyone who struggles with creative work, whether you’re in a band, thinking about starting a business, or just wondering where to go with your art.  You can read the first twelve chapters on MacLeod’s web site, or you can download the first 26 chapters in pdf format at ChangeThis.  I think now that he has a publisher, however, you won’t be able to read the whole thing unless you buy the book when it comes out in June.

Crafty Business Questions: Etiquette April 10, 2009

I got a lot of etiquette questions this week, so I’m posting all the answers below:

I’m just starting out, and I have lots of questions I’d like to ask successful business crafters. What’s okay and not okay to ask about?

In general, it’s okay to ask about process, not product, and it’s always best to ask for help from businesses that don’t compete with yours. For example, if you sell plush toys, it’s not okay to ask another plush artist where they get their fabric, who their distributor is, or what consignment stores they work with. Instead, try asking something like, “Can you recommend somewhere to start researching distributors/stores/wholesale fabric suppliers?” Then, instead of giving away their contacts/sources, they can give you the name of a trade association or web site where you can begin your own research.

It is also okay to ask a fellow crafter general business information, like if they can recommend any good crafty business books, marketing classes, banks, or bookkeeping software. Your successful accounting practices will not harm their business. Other things that are sometimes okay to ask about include who designed their logo/web site, and how they developed a good pricing structure. You can also ask non-competing businesses for general feedback on your Etsy store, packaging, etc.

If you are unsure about whether your question falls within the bounds of etiquette, try asking it by beginning, “Would you be comfortable sharing information with me about X? I totally understand if you’re not.” That way, it’s easy for them to say no and neither party has to resent the other.

I sell handmade toys with buttons that have clever sayings on them. Yesterday one of my customers told me she also wants to start selling (mass-produced) toys with clever buttons on them. She asked me for my button source and their pricing! I think this is really rude. How do I respond kindly without blowing my top?!

Again, this goes back to process, not product. How did you find your button source? How did you research pricing in order to comparison shop? It may be as simple as telling her you Googled the phrase “button makers” and then requested prices and samples from five local businesses. She still has to do the legwork, but you’ve answered her question helpfully, while insinuating that maybe it’s not so cool to ask a competitor for such specific information.

I’m thinking of applying for a particular craft fair, but I don’t know anyone who’s vended there. Is it okay for me to ask a random vendor (posted on their vendor page) how profitable it was for them?

This is a tricky one, but I would say yes, provided: you ask someone who does not sell competing products, you ask using the “Would you be comfortable sharing…” preface, and you don’t ask specifics, like “how much money did you make at that fair?” or “what were your best selling items?” Instead, stick to more general questions, like “was it worth your time?”, “did the customers generally fit your demographic?” and “would you do it again?”

Do you have thoughts about these questions? Do you have other etiquette questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them!

Gluttonous Waifs March 27, 2009

I discovered an interesting site today called “design glut.”  The intertubes led me first to their store (they had a pork chop bank), but I was intrigued by the following description near the top of the page: “Our webzine is an inspirational resource for entrepreneurs.”  More accurately, their webzine is a series of interviews with successful designers.  More inspirational than resource, I’d say, but good breakfast reading nonetheless.

It does make me a little upset and covetous to read entries where the founding waifs interview successful designers their own age (24-year-old cool hunters get invited to Davos? Seriously?) but those are my own issues.  I just can’t handle people who are two or three years out of undergrad and already “experts” about something.  Expertise is your consolation prize for getting older and less attractive.  I’m sorry, but that’s just the rule.  You’re not allowed to have youth/beauty AND expertise/money.  It upsets the balance of the universe or something.