#you think I know applying for teaching or libraries or publishing is a waste of my time but I'm doing this for giggles?

[strawberry-jackalope]

I have to keep finding and applying to jobs even though they're all so fucking stupid, and I'm not qualified for any of them, and it's so fucking stupid bc even when I decide to gamble and take a risk, someone or something has to tell me that I won't make it and I'm wasting my time, that my optimism is entirely misplaced, and I'm fucking sick of it

[ao3cassandraic]

Hi! I'm about to apply to get into graduate school and start working to get my MLIS. Do you have any advice?

Hi! Welcome to the information professions.

Until my shop changed processes a couple of years ago, I read applications for admission. Lots of them. I was the department app-numbers champion three years running.

Here's what I typically looked for:

Can you write? Like it or not -- and I don't, always -- these professions are hyperverbal and so is our program. If writing isn't your strong suit, that's not a dealbreaker; it just means "find reliable beta readers for your essay." And when you hit campus, locate the campus writing-help unit and make friends with them.

Do you have some idea what you're getting into? For some applicants this is direct work or volunteer experience; for others, a mentor; for others, a grounded sense of career direction; for still others, a statement of their abilities and aspirations that they think fits the profile. That last one can be tricky, though -- if it's nothing but rose-colored glasses or bogus stereotypes, it won't count in your favor. I suggest talking to some info pros about their jobs, if you need to. We're a pretty forthcoming bunch. All this said, you DO NOT need to know to the ninth (or even first) decimal place what you want to do. These professions contain multitudes, and it's exceptionally common for people to discover their career direction while in the program, or (like me, actually) wind up doing something they never could have envisioned beforehand.

Do you know anything about our program specifically? Someone may have told you "the MLS is a union card; all library schools are the same." Don't you believe it! We all have specialties. We all have niches we don't touch with a ten-foot pole -- and yes, I have absolutely disrecommended admission for an otherwise-excellent applicant whose desired niche my shop just plain doesn't serve. If you have a niche in mind already, it won't hurt you one bit to spend five or ten minutes on the school's faculty-staff page to figure out who teaches in that niche so you can mention them in your essay. Or check out the program outline and explain why you think the requirements will help you be good at info-pro-ing. If one of our alumni recommended our program to you, let us know.

Will you make it through the program? For this I glance over undergraduate transcripts and read recommendations, unless the applicant has been out of college so long it makes more sense to check their résumé. A rough time in undergrad is not a dealbreaker unless I don't understand why it happened and (crucially) why it won't happen again -- address these briefly in your essay if you need to. (We do totally get that there's been a pandemic -- we were there too! If it's that, say so and move on.) What I don't want to do is admit someone I don't think can graduate -- that'd be a cynical, unethical waste of their time, money, and energy.

Do you differ from the typical applicant in cool and/or useful ways? Like most professions, there are coveted/oversubscribed info-pro niches and niches that are... less so. The typical applicant profile for library school is an English or history major just out of undergrad. It won't count against you if that's you... but a STEM major or minor, tech savvy, cultural competencies, teaching experience, research or publishing experience, and/or leadership/management experience will count FOR you, because those niches need people real bad. Similarly, the information professions are hella cishet white neurotypical. If you're not and (under current US law, damn it) can explain how that's going to make you a better info pro, let us know.

Any red flags? Usually these are in rec letters, so choose your recommenders wisely. I've also had to disrecommend people whose recommenders or essay... how shall I put this... put their commitment to inclusive professionalism in doubt. But there's also a cultural thing in librarianship where librarians despise library schools. Many think them unnecessary, or would prefer an undergrad major rather than a master's-level program. Many judge their entire library-school experience by their worst instructor (and ngl, we have some lulus -- even I haven't always covered myself with glory, and I try real hard to be good at what I do). Point being, the commonest red flag I saw was an app essay that oozed contempt for the pointless hoops the applicant was already jumping through, and the hoops they'd have to jump through if admitted. And I'm just like, why? Why would I admit an applicant who hates us, thinks they know it all already and we have nothing to teach them, and is clearly unwilling to meet us halfway? Go poison some other school's culture, applicant; I don't want you in my shop. Now, you don't have to flatter us! Unnecessary and can be a bit creepy! But don't hate on us, please.

Hope this helps, and feel free to ask more questions in the comments. That goes for everybody, not just OP!

[publiccollectors]

From the discussion “Towards A Self Sustaining Publishing Model” hosted by Printed Matter.

Some things I have learned in over 30 years of publishing since my teenage days as a zine maker, administrating my project Public Collectors, and from working in the group Temporary Services and our publishing imprint Half Letter Press.

I have just ten minutes to speak. If only one or two things that I share are useful, that’s plenty! It took me decades to understand some of this stuff.

Use every exhibition invitation with a budget to print something. Use the whole budget to print something. Make something in a large enough print run so that you have something to give away and surplus that you can sell. Your publication can be a folded sheet of paper, a booklet, a newspaper, a poster, a book, or anything in between.

Be able to print at least something at home. Buy a cheap laser printer or inkjet printer, find a used copy machine, buy a RISO or some other duplicator, carve something into a potato or a piece of foam and print it. Being able to do at least some of the printing and production at home—even if it’s on a tiny scale—will compel you to print things that you might have convinced yourself not to send out or bring to a professional printer. Hopefully the ability to print impulsively and compulsively will result in good work. Figure out how to keep making things on every scale. Look for cheap used printing equipment on Craigslist. Team up with friends and buy equipment together that you can share. Start a printing collective in your basement.

Ideally your publication should cost 1/5th or 1/6th of the retail price to make. If you sell a $10.00 publication through a store, you are probably only going to make $6.00 or less after the store takes its cut. So ideally your $10.00 book costs $2.00 or less to make. Don’t aim to just break even. Aim to make a profit so you can keep making more publications and pay for your life. Publishing will probably never be your sole income but don’t lose money on purpose. Make things that are priced fairly and look like they justify what they cost to buy. The fact that you didn’t find a more affordable way to print something is not an excuse to sell something that feels cheap and shitty for a ridiculous sum of money. Good cheap printing is easier to find than ever before. Do your homework.

Figure out the cheapest and least wasteful ways to do everything. Ask other publishers where they get their work printed. Look for local printers so you can avoid shipping fees. Ask local printers if you can pay in cash for a discount. Ask printers if there is a cheaper way to do what you want to do by adjusting the size of your paper or the paper stock or some other small shift in form. If you print things yourself, buy the paper that is on sale. Design a publication around the paper that you found for cheap. Discount warehouses sometimes have good paper. Even dollar stores sometimes have good paper. I’ve even bought paper at flea markets. Costco sells an 800 sheet ream of 24 lb paper for $6.99. I use it all the time. It rules. I also recommend getting your jugs of organic olive oil there, but you can’t print with that.

Free printing is good printing. If you have access to free printing, use it. Free printing is like free food at art openings and conference receptions. It is one of those pleasures in life that never gets old. Come up with an idea that is based around the aesthetics of whatever free printing you have access to and make the publication that way. Eat the cheese and bread. Drink the wine. Make the copies at work.

Buy bulk shipping mailers on eBay. Find bubble wrap and other packing materials in the trash. Look out for neighbors who just bought new furniture—it’s usually wrapped in miles of packing material you can use for shipping books. Boycott terrible right wing fuckers like ULINE. Seriously, they give money to everyone horrible. Trump? Check. Ted Cruz? Check. Scott Walker? Check. ROY FUCKING MOORE? CHECK FUCKING CHECK! Tear up their catalogs and use them as packing material to protect your books. Make publications that have a consistent size so you can purchase cardboard mailers in bulk and get a discount on them. Buy packing tape in bulk. Buy everything in bulk. You can store your extra reams of paper under your bed or on top of your kitchen cabinets if necessary. Be like a wacko survivalist prepper, but for office supplies. Go to estate sales and look for the home office in the house. Buy the dead person’s extra tape and staples and rulers and scissors. I’ve been using some random dead person’s staples for years because I bought their staple hoard. Staples aren’t like meat and milk. They don’t expire.

I’m against competition. Try to avoid competing with other artists for resources. If you don’t truly need the money, don’t ask for it. Artists should have a section on their CV where they list grants they could have easily gotten but didn’t apply for because they are privileged enough that they don’t need the money as much as someone else. I almost never apply for anything but the one thing I do apply for and get every year is a part-time faculty development grant from Columbia College Chicago where I teach. It pays adjuncts up to $2,500 a year to fund their projects and seems to be completely non-competitive. My union negotiated to get us more money. I have used that grant to make over a dozen publications. The value of the publications I make and sell with each grant is about three or four times the value of the grant itself. Some years I make more from the grant than I do from the limited number of classes I teach. But I don’t depend on this grant to be a publisher and I’d still be able to make things without it.

Make things in different price ranges so everyone can afford your work, but also so that you can sustain your practice. Make a publication that costs $2.00, that costs $6.00, that costs $20.00, and make something special for the fancy ass institutional libraries that have a lot of money to spare and can buy something that costs $300.00. Likewise, make things in all different size print runs. Is there something you can print 1,000 of that you can keep selling and giving away for years, to enjoy that quantity discount that comes with offset printing a large number of publications?

Collaborate with people and pay them with publications (if they are cool with that) that they can sell on their own. Sometimes this ends up being better pay and more useful than an honorarium, and it helps justify a larger print run. But see what they need—don’t assume. Barter with other publishers and sell each other’s work and let each other keep the money. This helps with distribution. Sometimes it’s easier to sell their work than it is to sell your own. Help others expand the audience for their publications.

Fund your publishing practice by asking your friends who teach to invite you to talk to their college classes about your work. Use those guest speaker fees to print something. I sometimes tell people on social media: If three or four people will invite me to speak to their class, it could fund the entire next issue of X booklet series that you like so much. This has often worked. Also, sometimes their students end up ordering publications. Sometimes lectures about publications generate more income than the publications themselves.

Have an emailing list and write newsletters to announce new publications. Stay in touch with people who like what you do. Expect to spend a ton of time corresponding with people. Have some cheap things and cool ephemera on hand that you can send people for free when they mail order your publications. Reward people who support you directly with something nice that they didn’t expect. People like handwritten notes. It’s okay if they are very short but sign the packing slip and at least write “Thank you!”

Above all, know that publishing is a life journey and not a get rich quick scheme, or even a make very much money scheme. Enjoy the experience of meeting and working with others, trade your publications with other publishers and build up an amazing library of small press, hard to find artist books. Get vaccinated and travel and sleep on each other’s couches. Be generous with your time, knowledge, resources, and work. Tell Jeff Bezos to fuck off by never selling anything you make through Amazon. Find the bookstores that you love and work with them forever. It’s nicer to have deeper relationships with fewer bookstores than surface level interactions with dozens of shops run by people you don’t know.

Think about your publishing family. Bookstore people are your family. People that organize book fairs and zine fests are your publishing family. Other publishers are your family. People who follow your work for years on end are your family. Printers and binderies are your family. The postal workers that know you by name and that you know by name are your family. The person who doesn’t care if you make the free copies at work is your family. Over thirty years later, I’m still in contact with people I exchanged zines with through the mail when I was a teenager. In some cases I still haven’t met them in person. It’s fine! They are my family. Your students are your family—particularly once they graduate or drop out, as long as they continue making books and zines. Your family is your family, particularly if they value and support your publishing practice. And for this reason, this talk is dedicated to my late father Bruce Fischer, who let me use the company copier and postage meter when I was in high school, and to my mom who sat on the floor with me and helped me hand collate and staple my zines.

That’s what I’ve got for now. Stay in touch and with luck, and enough vaccines and masks and hand sanitizer, maybe I’ll see you at a book fair. – Marc Fischer • Thank you to Be Oakley of GenderFail for the invitation to present, to the other presenters Vivian Sming, Yuri Ogita, and Devin Troy Strother, and to the wonderful people at Printed Matter for hosting this! You should be able to find the video archived on Printed Matter’s YouTube Channel.  Presented on April 2, 2021

[gooneygull]

a little letter to my past self.

it gets better.

i guess all of the best letters start off like that.

today, you’re probably be contemplating something bad. you’re battling your addiction. you’re probably trying to tie yourself up in another person to try to make yourself more appealing to them. you’re losing who you are for the sake of others.

i understand you, and i understand why you did it, but i’m here to tell you you’re wrong. 

it’s taken me three years since that incident to begin healing and rediscovering who i am. it’s taken one year from our last relapse for me to finally begin moving away from our addiction. it’s taken me eight years to finally feel at peace, to feel as though i have a family again.

it gets better. it took us a long ass time, but it gets better.

today i got notebooks to start writing notes and keeping my biology notes organized for easy reference. believe it or not, you won’t fail out of high school. you’ll barely graduate, but you’ll end up on honor roll in college, and be double majoring in biology and marine bio. you’ll be somehow balancing work and school with almost no stress at all. you’re going to decide to teach, and you’re going to apply to be a tutor once you transfer. you’ll fall in love with universities, and you’ll fall in love with learning again.

you will come out. not everyone will accept you, but it’s okay. you’ll end up learning that there are some people who matter, and some who don’t. i’ll let you figure out who is who for yourself.

you’ll start learning who you are again. today i realized i’m basically twilight sparkle. it’s horrible, but it’s hilarious and true. you’ll end up loving education and learning more than most things. i have turned documentary watching into my favorite form of stress relief (unfortunately, your personality will end up being summarized as “nerdy.” if you truly want to know how bad it is, i think i cried at a library once because they had a limited edition antique textbook on seashells for sale). you’ll definitely be sacrificing your dignity, and you’ll never hear the end of it-

-but you’ll be happy. you’ll be content in a way you never dreamed of. you’ll absolutely destroy your friend’s patience by going on and on about paper sizes and types of ink. you will laugh and then falter and then laugh at your faltering. you will make a mistake, facepalm, then proceed to laugh hysterically at yourself, because why would you do that, you utter buffoon? you’ll learn it’s fun to make those mistakes, even if you can’t take them back. life isn’t worth wasting away at silly mistakes.

you won’t get urges anymore. you’ll think about it, from time to time, but only in a completely detached way. you’ll heal, you’ll move on, and you’ll have a friend’s shoulder to scream into instead. 

you’ll end up playing the violin. it’s going to be utter chaos, and this is why you shouldn’t ask the discordian what instrument you should play, because she will lead you down the most chaotic path (it’ll be good for you, and your self-esteem, but not for your shoulders). you’ll suck horrifically at playing the violin at first, but then you’ll learn. and you’ll be able to sight-read half a page of music with ease. it works out, in my opinion.

you’ll publish some papers anonymously. you’ll stand up for what you believe in. you’ll gain a spine and a bit more of a voice and you’ll be able to scream. you will learn what it means to fight.

you'll be working non-stop. it certainly feels like it, at least. stopping will make you feel anxious, but please learn to pause. learn to take a break and knit a scarf and write yourself a letter. read a dissertation on cephalopods. accidentally make a deadly chemical in your bathroom again. but take a break. it’s okay to rest.

may this find your way to you, somehow. and may this find its way to someone who may need to hear it. 

i love you, endlessly, without hesitation or doubt. 

i’ll see you when the sun rises once again.

[financiallymint]

The key to becoming more intelligent

I picture myself at 12 years old.

I’m defending one of my classmates from the crazy History teacher. ‘You’re useless, you’re stupid and you won’t get anywhere in life. You were born stupid and you will always be stupid.’ He says.

I’m looking at this little bearded joke of man insulting my friend. I’m angry, but I don’t want to get into trouble. I raise my hand, and put on a very confused face: ‘Sir, I’m a little confused. Can’t you learn to be intelligent? Isn’t that the point of school?’

There’s an awkward silence, and the teacher kind of mumbles about. He’s insecure and probably feels like an idiot debating with a 12 year old, so he just says ‘Why yes, you’re right, you can all learn to be intelligent.’ Next day he’s attacking some other ‘stupid student’, trying to inflate his own ego.

Not a great teacher no, and not great for students morale. But it was a French public school and teachers were paid very little – all sort of things came through the door.

However, that event as a 12 year old was marked in my memory; yes, you can become intelligent.

But then I kept asking myself: how?

Well, not long ago, I discovered the answer while listening to Barney from The Escape Artist on the ChooseFI podcast. And it suddenly all made sense.

By reading books

Seriously? You say.

Yes, but there’s a bit more to it.

Hear me out first.

Why books?

I started this website after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss became vegan after reading Eat to Live. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft completely changed her attitude and mindset after reading Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, reorganized the company’s operations after reading Competing Against Time by George Jr. Stalk.

What I’m saying: books change lives.

And it’s very easy to understand why. As Barney puts it: a person take years and years of wisdom, experience and knowledge and condenses it into one little block of paper for anyone to absorb. When you read a book, you’re gathering all the wisdom from this one person – but it takes you 5 hours instead of an entire lifetime. Pure gold.

Every book you read the more wisdom you gain, the more experiences you read about, the more ideas you get into contact with. This author has decided to spend months, years, decades condensing their knowledge and wisdom into a book, because they believe they have something worth sharing. And you get to read that.

It’s incredible, the power of books.

But how exactly do they make you more intelligent?

It’s hard to define what intelligence really means. Einstein says it’s imagination, Socrates says it’s ‘knowing that you know nothing’, Stephen Hawking says it’s the ability to adapt to change.

No matter what it really means, it’s not difficult to see how books make you more intelligent: reading books written by intelligent people with intelligent ideas will teach you how to think intelligently.

It’s that simple. Learn from others, be their student, and you will go on to think like them, analyse like them and produce like them.

The real question then is, how do I find these intelligent books written by intelligent people? This is where it gets exciting:

Which books do I read?

There are millions of books in the world. How do you know which to read? How do you know which has most wisdom? How do you know which one will change your life and which one won’t?

I say books are a bit like networking. You might go to an event, meet an amazing person and start a business together. You might also go, and leave 10x more inspired. And sometimes you leave exhausted from meeting so many people and feel like it’s a waste of time.

But when you meet that person that changes your life and offers you the opportunity of your dreams, you think: ‘Wow, I’m so lucky, look at this amazing opportunity’. Yes, you’re lucky, but you created that luck. You went out there to all these events and looked for the opportunity. You didn’t wait for it to come to you; you went to the awkward networking event, ate some strange looking bagels and forced yourself to talk to strangers. And that effort allowed the opportunity to come.

It’s exactly the same with books. You may finish a book and feel a bit ‘meh’. You may finish a book and feel inspired to improve your life. You may also finish a book, and it changes your entire life. But you may not find that book unless you go through others first. It’s all about creating that opportunity, giving it the chance to find you, to change your life.

So I have to read every single book on the planet to find the right ones?

No! Thanks to the internet we can now recommend, review and talk about the books that have changed our lives.

I’ve done a lot of research, gone through quite a few books and met a lot of people who read. I call them ‘productive books’. They could be fiction or nonfiction, they could be about business, self-improvement or money, they could be 50 years old or published that same year. There is a huge variety, and I understand that it’s not easy to pick and choose. So look at what other people have read and what other people recommend.

Check out my own Resources page where I share my top books. I’ve also added links to other people’s books lists at the bottom.

the perfect read

How do I read?

So we can all agree that books are an amazing tool for building intelligence and wisdom. But the hard part is getting started.

We all know the biggest excuse for not reading: I don’t have time.

We have other commitments and books don’t sound like a priority. Plus they require concentration and a quiet environment – I get it, too much of a bother sometimes.

Well, as a reader with many commitments as well, I have indeed managed to go through one productive book a month. Here are some snazzy steps to get started:

1. Schedule time to read.

Not ‘I’ll read when I have time’ or ‘I’ll read before going to bed’, not even ‘I’ll read on the bus’. Schedule at least 1 hour a week (I try and do 2) purely for reading.

2. Find the right spot

Books are great because they force you to concentrate and focus. You won’t be able to absorb any of the golden nuggets in the book if you don’t concentrate. That means no phones, no unexpected alarms and noises. Find a library, a coffee shop, a park, a quiet place at home for your reading. For this 1 hour, it’s just you and the author, don’t let anyone distract you from that sacred moment.

3. Take notes

Do this for productive books. There is so much important info, life-changing ideas and knowledge in those books that you need to take note of what you’re reading – or you’ll forget! Take a simple notepad, and just write down the interesting stuff and stuff you might want to check out later. You’ll assimilate what you’re learning much better, and learn to apply it to real life. I kept applying all the marketing strategies I was learning in The E-Myth to Financially Mint, all along the book.

4. Practice

As with many other things, reading takes practice. It’s hard at first ‘1 hour without my phone?!’ ‘I actually have to focus on one thing for more than 10 minutes?!’. But the more you do it, the better you get at it and the more you enjoy it. In the end, that 1 hour is sacred for you: away from distractions, just you, your thoughts, and the author’s great ideas.

I look forward to every Sunday morning; I leave my phone at home, walk to the library with my book and notepad and spend 2 hours reading. No one can take this time away from me. It’s time dedicated to my personal education, to working on my wisdom and on my intelligence.

Not only books

Books are the key to becoming more intelligent.

But we don’t only acquire information by reading words on paper. We also have: movies, podcasts, magazines, blogs, anything that shares knowledge.

Books are for the grand ideas, the knowledge that takes time to process and that requires deep thinking. But diversifying is another great way of comparing different information and learning more effectively.

Sometimes things are better explained in a debate on a podcast, or through a documentary or simply by having a conversation with someone. These other forms of acquiring knowledge allow you to exercise the mind, to think about what you’ve learnt from the books, to compare and contrast.

Some of my favourite podcasts to work on my intelligence:

Intelligence squared

The School of Greatness

ChooseFI

Listen Money Matters

Favourite documentaries/movies:

The entire ‘Dirty Money’ series

Minimalism: A documentary about the important things

Some you will like, some you won’t. But remember the networking comparison – keep going, keep trying and you’ll find something life-changing.

And once again, the more you take in all these ideas and knowledge the better you get at learning. You start having opinions of your own with some good arguments and facts to back them up, you start asking more interesting questions and applying what you learn to your daily life. In other words, you become more intelligent.

you may even be able to solve this

What struck me the most about reading, listening and watching all this ‘productive’ information was how aware I suddenly became. I noticed how some people use certain words, I started analysing and trying to understand why I feel a certain way in certain situations, I began to push myself even harder to learn more, to understand more, to ask more. Every productive book changes my life in a different way – which I find both astonishing as well as terrifying. Who am I really, if I keep changing?

Well every book is a new discovery of one’s self. Which is why; read a bloody book. And don’t be one of those people who proudly announces ‘I haven’t read a book since high school’. You’re missing out on a LOT.

As you can imagine, I have a very long list of books I want to read. But here are my favourite ones so far:

(check the Resources page for a description too)

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Deep Work by Cal Newport

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

The Magic of Thinking Big

The E-Myth

Good to Great by Jim Collins

1984 by George Orwell

Here are some other good book lists:

Barney’s Life Changing books

College info geek’s Essential Books

What are some books that have changed your life? Or podcasts? Or movies?

[tfw-no-tennis]

Greetings, comrade LJ! I am about to start college in a month and I was wondering if you could bless me with some wisdom on how to survive my first semester! (Feel free to publish this tbh some other youngins might need the help too)

oh my god i am SO sorry i just saw this, tungle literally never told me i recieved this what the hell!!! i will happily give you some wisdom even if youve already started college oh man im sorry. hopefully this still helps!!! for reference im a biology major so some of this might not apply well to other majors lol

ok my first wisdom is to never get books unless you have to. these days, professors know most students dont actually use books so they dont bother really using the books for the tests...the exception is for labs (science labs, at least) where you typically will need to buy the lab guide to do hw and stuff. generally if you think you might need a book, wait a bit before getting it - even if the professor says you ABSOLUTELY need it. sometimes they just have to say that but you wont really need it. if you can, rent, and rent used! books are generally a waste, the way they get your money nowadays is HW access codes. yes....paying to do HW. how great 

ratemyprofessor is a fantastic resource, but do be wary of certain reviews - students can be salty about failing a class and give a bad review for a professor who doesnt deserve it. also, make sure you're looking at the correct class (upper left corner of the review) for the professor 

if you can, make friends in a class and work together on stuff (hw, quizzes), and then you can share notes if one of you misses class and stuff

in terms of missing class, id say its up to your judgment if you skip or not - it honestly depends on the class. some classes i barely went to, some i never missed. freshman year i barely skipped class (probably a good idea as you get the feel of it) but once you go on, you'll be able to tell if you need to go to class (generally if the professor just teaches from ppts and doesn't require attendance, you might be able to miss. depends on how you learn tho!) 

labs you generally cant miss (again, science labs) or youll like get set on fire or something. its bad. you can usually make it up with an excuse or if you know ahead of time, tho 

be friends with your professors and TAs! go to office hours! especially if you're planning or grad/professional school and want rec letters. altho!! dont stress abt future plans too much. you really, really have time. theres no rush to go to school after undergrad at all so if you dont have your shit together. DONT WORRY

this has probably become irrelevant for you but id suggest leaving waaaay early for your first day of class so you can find your classroom ok and get a good seat

free stuff is lit. get free stuff whenever you can. if you find a pen somewhere? take it its yours now

if you do well in a class and enjoy it, id suggest trying to become a tutor for it. you probably make some money, its not usually too much work, and you enjoy it if thats the kind of thing you're into. its especially helpful if youre planning on going into something relating to that subject someday, so then you can keep up to date on it

getting involved is also a good idea!! theres so many clubs and stuff at universities, so theres usually something for everyone. it can be scary going alone, but youll usually end up meeting people there. theres typically not too much pressure to keep coming consistently, so if you need time off from a club you can take it easily.  

libraries can be a great place to study dont knock em i sure did until like last year which was a mistake. imo focusing is easier in a library than in my room, that might just be me tho!!

cliques arent really a ‘thing,’ you might end up with a friend group or two but college is not nearly as cliquey as HS. i have a lot of friends now who i KNOW i wouldnt have even talked to in HS just based on the fact that we wouldve run in different social circles back then. dont limit yourself by thinking ‘oh, we’re too different’ or something, you’d be surprised how well you click with people you didnt think youd get along with!

cafeteria food,,...is usually bad. it tends to be a lot better when theres tours going on, so try to remember that lol

this is already so long im sorry lol, ill stop here but let me know if you (or anyone else reading this) have any questions or want any specific advice!! im a senior in college now so im basically an expert lol (though my knowledge is limited by certain things like being a STEM major, living on campus without a car, living away from home, etc) but i love talking about stuff like this!!!! i wish you the best of luck in college and again im really sorry i didnt see this until like 2 months after you sent it, i hope college is going well for you!!! and for everyone else who started recently!!! also ill tag you to make sure you see this, i cant remember if it alerts you lol @rated-r-for-grantaire

[notbemoved-blog]

Books, Books, Books

Lists are all the rage at the end of any year and this plague year is no exception. Since I’ve read a fair number of books by friends this past year or so, I thought I’d send out my “Goodreads” reviews of all three books that I’ve enjoyed with the hope of giving each a bit more recognition (and perhaps a bump in sales) in the New Year. The reviews are presented in the order that I reviewed them. All three books are available on Amazon or through your local independent bookstore. Also try IndieBound, the online independent bookseller. 

[End of Year Note: My apologies for not being more active on social media lately. I’m working on my own follow up to “We Shall Not Be Moved” and have tried to stay away from all forms of distraction, including social media. With any luck, my next project, the story of the Tougaloo Nine Library Sit-In, will be on its way to the publisher at the end of 2021.]

And now, for our 2020 BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS!

Wave On: A Surfing Story by Michael E.C. Gery

(Amazon Digital Services, 2018, 432 pages, Autobiographical Fiction)

[Reviewed August 2019]

"A wonderfully adept stoner’s diary for the boomer generation."

I was thoroughly enchanted with “Wave On” from beginning to end. Even when I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, the ride was exhilarating. Perhaps it was because I knew many of the places where the action takes place: Williamsburg, the Outer Banks, Annapolis, Ocean City, College Park, and even The Who concert back in 1971 [or was it ’70?] at Merriweather Post Pavilion, which I also happened to attend!! I read very little fiction but a fair amount of biography and memoir, and I must say that I rarely find a work of fiction that is as engaging and heart-driven as “Wave On.”

Part One is a pure, lovely, romantic love story that is contemporaneous with our early adulthood and, thus, easy for me to put myself in the shoes of Cro as he tries to navigate the strictures of young adulthood in a laissez-faire new world of the mid-1960s. The fact that he has been schooled at an Episcopalian Boys school and loves all of those old hymns and prayers makes it all the more real for me, having attended a 4-year Catholic high school seminary. Cro’s goofiness, uncertainty, and (initial) shyness around women also resonated.

What I loved about Part One is that Gery establishes a voice for Cro, the Narrator, that is immediate, engaging, alive, and consistent throughout the entire novelization of what I believe is Gery’s young adult life. (A new term I just picked up--“autofiction” i.e., autobiographical fiction--seems to apply here.) Cro is so normal in his struggles to understand how the world works, so honest in his mistakes, so in love with his environment—the ocean, the waves, the shore—that he makes us love them, too, perhaps a bit more than we already do. But it is that voice that intrigued me throughout. No matter what kind of scrape Cro and his interesting band of friends and lovers gets into, there is a confidence that they are up to the challenge. [I must admit that Cro’s drift during Part Two with regard to his professional aspirations and even his family life was a bit baffling, but I came to think that the weed had a lot to do with his lack of ambition and direction.]

Part Two, of course, gets a bit more complicated as real life intervenes and our little Love Couple begins to encounter troubles from within and without. I hated to see that and was certain that Cro was going to lose his wonderful Ella and Adam and couldn’t see my way through to how it all might resolve, particularly when Maryanne enters the picture and the Neil Young Concert kiss betrays a problematic (if not fatal) flaw in our hero. But I suffered through all of that, wanting to see how it all came out in the end. Although there was no deus ex machina, the surprising turn of events that helps resolve these dramatic arcs is shocking yet consistent. It all made narrative sense and helped explain why we were taken on so many to such a happy ending.

“Wave On” is a wonderfully adept stoner’s diary for our boomer generation. I can’t wait for Gery’s next work of autofiction to continue the journey with him. 

 Hard Road South by Scott Gates

(Blue Ink Press, 2020, 254 pages, Fiction)

[Reviewed, May 2020] 

“A little jewel box of a novel.”

 “Hard Road South” is a little jewel box of a novel set during the early days of Reconstruction Virginia. This beautifully rendered tale imagines a naïve Connecticut Yankee—a former Union soldier—who travels South to visit and potentially settle in some of the lush foothills of the Shenandoah Valley where he once engaged the Confederate “enemy”. Hoping to find peace while helping to reform a culture that wishes to be left alone, our hero, one Solomon Dykes, finds fast friends but also fast enemies amidst the verdant pastures of his would-be Old Virginny Home.

An early scene sets the tone: A down on her luck woman is stopped in the town of Middleburg—the place that would become the enclave of the likes of millionaires John and Jackie Kennedy and Jack Kemp Cooke a century later—by some Union soldiers still on the scene occupying this “foreign” land to ensure compliance with Union directives. Her transgression? Wearing the Confederate uniform jacket of her dead husband. The three Confederate buttons on the jacket must be removed or she will be arrested and charged with treason. Such is the over-reach of conquering heroes.

Our damsel in distress is aided by the swift thinking of one Jeb Mosby, a local farmer, who pulls out his knife and gently removes the buttons so as to spare his life-long neighbor the embarrassment of arrest. “Such was life now,” Mosby observes. “Filled with reminders—small as they may seem—that life would not soon be returning to how he’d left it before the war.” It is small observations such as this that gives this book its charm and its weight. Representations of what life must have been like for the conquered South are constant reminders that the likes of Solomon Dykes were not at all welcome and most likely would be rebuffed should the opportunity arise. Scott Gates is new to novel writing, but you wouldn’t know it from his sharp eye for detail and his pacing. Gates gives his story and his characters plenty of room to breathe and develop while providing the reader with glimpses of the specifics of their war-torn lives. A Southerner by birth, Gates offers a sensibility of one trying to bridge the great divide while not shying away from the difficulties building that bridge might require. This is a tale for our time, as well, as our nation is once again fraught with deep divisions perhaps not seen since the ending of that great Civil War more than 150 years ago. We are stuck and unable to move forward until some fundamental rift gets settled. “Hard Road South” is a highly readable, thoroughly enjoyable yet cautionary tale for our time. Perhaps we can learn from the past and this time get things right. Perhaps … 

 Small Business Big Heart: How One Family Redefined the Bottom Line by Paul Wesslund

(Highway 61 Communications, 2020, 242 pages, Nonfiction)

[Reviewed, August 2020]

“Big-hearted Book Teaches That Care for Others = Good Business”

In the midst of a global health crisis—the worst we’ve seen in generations—and while we struggle as a country, as a people, to find our footing morally and culturally during a reductio ad absurdum political creep show, Small Business BIG HEART lands as a corrective, a balm to soothe frayed nerves and intemperate minds. That is not to say that this big-hearted book is pablum. No, the stories it brings are all too real—people who often have lost their way through drugs, alcohol, and bad choices; refugees who have fled horrific circumstances and are looking only to start a new life but can’t due to the stigma of being different; and one family in particular that is faced with its own dissolution as well as the loss of its dream of a thriving family business. The high-stakes rollercoaster ride that journalist Paul Wesslund takes us on is dizzying not only for its incredible highs and sometimes tragic lows, but also because it introduces a concept too often forgotten … no, disregarded … in modern business life—what corporate governance experts would call “the duty of CARE.”

Sal and Cindy Rubino are two hard-working business owners who, through the course of their trials and tribulations, manage to hold on to the dream of a creating their own business from scratch while also enduring the inevitable personal strains that such a dream exacts. The two met and fell in love while working toward Hospitality Management business degrees in Miami, but the real story starts when they try and apply the lessons of their training in the difficult day-to-day drudgery of actually running their own restaurant—simply named “The Café”—in an offbeat, run-down section of Louisville, Cindy’s hometown. It is here that their skills and wills are tested to the limits and each will have to adjust their visions to fit the realities not explored in textbooks. And it is here that their hearts will be broken, and then opened to the truths that adaptability and innovation can be applied not only to recipes and business models, but to the very people you employ and the methods you use to build a team for success.

Along the way, we meet all manner of broken individuals. The restaurant business is notorious for laying waste to lives due to its thankless dawn-to-dusk hours and the constant requirement to please the customer at all costs. Wesslund has an expert’s eye for the telling detail and the wrenching story line. [I found myself tearing up at any number of stories throughout this engaging, nonfiction tale.] His twenty years as editor-in-chief of Kentucky Living, the largest circulation monthly magazine within the state, shows in the well-drawn portraits of individuals from as far away as Bhutan and as near as Pricilla’s Place, a half-way house just a few blocks from the Café, where Cindy and Sal would find some of their best employees. Perhaps Wesslund’s (not to mention the Rubinos’) refusal to judge people by the standards of upwardly mobile middle-class values but instead, with extraordinary discernment, to look deeper into their souls to spot their special sparks and unique talents is the hallmark of this extraordinary book.

It is rare outside of evangelical circles to find a book that so openly espouses Christian principles, but Sal and Cindy make no bones about the fact that their faith community helped to save their marriage as well as their business, and Wesslund recounts the strength of those relationships and the power of religious inspiration with rare delicacy. Yet the book is not all seriousness and drama. We get, of all things, recipes (!) at the start of nearly every chapter—a creative way of introducing a new topic or the next development of this constantly churning story. And we are introduced to Cindy’s creative cooking style, to Sal’s winning smile and to their gracious, open approach to hospitality.

Small Business BIG HEART runs the gamut of the small business life cycle. It is a soup-to-nuts (literally) primer on the ups and downs of small business management. As such, it is tough medicine for anyone daring to think of creating their own start-up. Given that, however, it provides a deeply affecting microcosm of how we as a society—as a culture—might live if we, indeed, saw everyone we encountered as a member of our own family. It does not skimp on the tough decisions that must be made to keep a business afloat—the “tension between compassion and the bottom line”—but it provides a template on how to “run a business with heart”—where everyone can be a winner.

Wishing you a New Year full of new books, new ideas, new opportunities, new promise. 

[words-and-fangirling-wonder]

Study Buddy

Hello everyone! So, this is a bit of a cop-out, but I am very tired tonight from working like a maniac so instead of writing a new piece from a prompt specifically for this event, I did some edits to a little drabble I wrote a while ago and didn’t publish based on a prompt from some friends. Please forgive me, and enjoy this tribute to all you kids at university who are dealing with finals right now! 

Fandom: One Piece

Rating: Mature? There’s smut but it’s more like mentioned smut than real smutty smut. 

Pairing: Law/Kid

Prompt From a while ago: Law puts Athlete!Kid in his place (or something like that, I don’t remember exactly).

Author: Fangirl Wonder (WordsandWonder on AO3)

"Your grades are exceptional, of course, but your extra curricular activities are a bit less so. Everyone who is applying to these top medical schools has perfect grades, Mr. Trafalgar. Try doing something for the community. Volunteer, perhaps. It could be the difference between acceptance to your first choice of schools and rejection." With those words ringing in his ears, Law grudgingly signed up with the free tutoring program. All the other students here were smart enough to get into an Ivy League school, right? So how much tutoring could they really need? It was a great plan; it would look good on his resume and would require very little effort. He didn't even have to find a client because the people running the program would match him up with someone. Piece of cake. Or at least, that's what he thought until this red headed piece of shit walked into the library and unceremoniously plopped down at his table. Law didn't even know what the other guy was doing for a solid minute until he smirked at him and rudely suggested that they could move this "study" (and yes, the asshole used air quotes) session to his apartment if al Law wanted to do was stare at him.

The rest of their hour long session did not get any better. Apparently this guy, Eustass Kid ("but don't fucking call me Eustass"), was some kind of athlete and Law was apparently supposed to know this and/or give a flying fuck about this because Eustass was "a pretty big deal." But Law did not know, or care, what type of ball Eustass kicked or tossed or dribbled around what field or court, and this fact seemed to infuriate the redhead, much to Law's unabashed delight. So instead of studying Biology like they were supposed to, they spent 90% of their time bickering and issuing increasingly graphic threats of violence against each other. It got so bad that on their way out the librarian informed them that if they planned to study together in the future they would need to find a different venue. Eustass assured her that he was never studying with "this fucking freak" again and stormed out. Considering those parting words, Law was understandably surprised when the man once again gracelessly sat across from him when Law was expecting a new student in need of tutoring, this time at a coffee shop. "Shut up," he demanded in response to Law's stony stare. "They said you're the best, so just teach me this shit." A few smart comments later they were both (surprisingly) studying almost civilly, which was about as friendly as Law figured they were going to get. Overall things were going pretty well. Until Eustass went and ruined it by giving Law a long once over, smirking that obnoxious, overly self confident smirk he had, and saying "You know, you're actually kinda pretty once you shut the fuck up." Law proceeded to not "shut the fuck up" for the remaining 40 minutes of their study session, berating everything from Kid's attitude to his fashion sense until a nervous looking waitress asked if they could please leave. Despite the fact that Law couldn't stand him and constantly did his best to deflate the redhead's enormous ego, Eustass continued to request study sessions with him. Rarely did those sessions actually include anything even remotely resembling study, however. No, it was more like Eustass made crude advances which Law angrily rejected. Unfortunately, each rejection just seemed to spur Eustass on. He would simply laugh at whatever insulting name Law had called him and make an even more obscene suggestion until Law kicked him out or yelled at him until the staff kicked them both out (which was really happening too frequently, Law needed to stop bringing Eustass to places he enjoyed). By the time they reached midterms the two had fallen into a weird sort of rhythm. They would sit down, trade insults, work for a bit, Eustass would be obnoxious, Law would go on a tirade, they would work a little more, and then Eustass would be obnoxious again and Law would storm off, reminding himself over and over that it was worth it if it got him into the med school he wanted. And honestly, he could at least console himself with the fact that despite what seemed to be his best efforts to the contrary, Eustass actually was doing better. His grades were steadily improving, and Law even noticed that the athlete had started bringing a notebook with him, which not only had notes on what Law was saying, but also what appeared to be lecture notes. Law was almost tempted to say that Eustass was actually prepared for his midterm exam. Of course, he was rather glad he hadn't said it when Eustass proudly presented him with his returned test. "An F? You got an F. I don't believe this," Law deadpanned. "Believe it sweetheart." "But how? You knew this material, Eustass!" They went back and forth for a solid twenty minutes before Eustass finally shrugged and said "Whatever, so I don't get it as much as you thought. Guess you'll just have to keep teaching me." And then it clicked. "Eustass, did you fail this test ... intentionally?" Of course, Kid refused to admit that he did. That is, until Law informed him that if after all their work he still couldn't manage a passing grade he was a lost cause, and he would not continue to waste his time on a lost cause. Then suddenly Eustass was confessing everything, and of all the stupid shit Eustass had put him through this probably should have been the worst, but somehow Law actually found it incredibly endearing. So when, halfway through their study session, Eustass once again insisted that he was more of a hands-on learner and suggested they go back to his place for some "practical application" of the material, Law surprised the hell out of him by saying yes. ++++ Kid would be lying if he said he hadn't vividly (and repeatedly) imagined what it would be like if his tutor finally agreed to one of his suggestions. It drove him insane every time his lines (some of his BEST lines, too) were shut down. So even though he didn't know what had caused the raven-haired beauty to finally cave, he certainly wasn't going to do something bat-shit crazy like question it. But somehow, he never imagined it quite like this. First off, he was completely unprepared for the pre-med student to be such a fucking animal. He didn't think there was an inch of him not currently covered in bite and scratch marks, and never had someone, especially someone so much slimmer than him, so easily manhandled him, or coerced him, or whatever the fuck Law had done to him to get him on his back, panting helplessly into the arm he'd pressed firmly to his mouth in an attempt to stifle his moans with two long, slender fingers pumping in and out of him. In every fantasy he'd had about this moment, he was the one making Law pant and moan and stubbornly choke back a desperate plea for more. He was the one taking the other by surprise with his sexual prowess and … stuff. This was entirely unexpected. As a third finger joined the first two and Law brushed teasingly against his prostate, Kid had to at least admit that it wasn't ... unpleasant. But it was exactly the opposite of all his fantasies, and he really wasn't sure what he was going to do about it. Luckily Law chose that moment to remove his fingers and replace them without so much as a warning, thrusting into Kid hard and effectively wiping his mind of any thoughts at all except "holy fuck big, hot, good, fuck." By the time they were done Kid was a total wreck, and Law looked like he'd gone for a short but satisfying jog. It was completely unfair, and also incredibly hot, putting Kid in the awkward position of wanting to go again but also not being entirely sure he still actually had the ability to use his legs. He found out that he did (although it was shaky at best) when Law tried to leave and he had to stumble to the door and drag the asshole back to bed, demanding he stay the night. For the second time that evening, Law gave in to the redhead’s desires, and the rest was history.

[lazaroschamberger20]

The Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success Audiobook

[Book] The Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success Audiobook by Jordan Belfort

Jordan Belfort—immortalized by Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street—reveals the step-by-step sales and persuasion system proven to turn anyone into a sales-closing, money-earning rock star.

For the first time ever, Jordan Belfort opens his playbook and gives you access to his exclusive step-by-step system—the same system he used to create massive wealth for himself, his clients, and his sales teams. Until now this revolutionary program was only available through Jordan’s $1,997 online training. Now, in Way of the Wolf, Belfort is ready to unleash the power of persuasion to a whole new generation, revealing how anyone can bounce back from devastating setbacks, master the art of persuasion, and build wealth. Every technique, every strategy, and every tip has been tested and proven to work in real-life situations. Written in his own inimitable voice, Way of the Wolf cracks the code on how to persuade anyone to do anything, and coaches readers—regardless of age, education, or skill level—to be a master sales person, negotiator, closer, entrepreneur, or speaker.

Read The Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success Audiobook by (Jordan Belfort)

Duration: 7 hours, 29 minutes

Writer: Jordan Belfort

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Narrators: Jordan Belfort

Genres: Jordan Belfort

Rating: 4.47

Narrator Rating: 4.68

Publication: Friday, 01 September 2017

The Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success Audiobook Reviews

Anonymous

This book changed my life.

Rating: 5

Jason M

I don't know if I've ever had an audio book, out any other book for that matter, that was so detailed and complete in regards to selling, influence and persuasion. Jordan Belfort is a genius in the way he connects with people and how he teaches the system that he used to make millions on Wallstreet. Hats off to you, sir!

Rating: 5

Christopher M

the best sales techniques . wanna increase your closing stats? read this and apply it.

Rating: 5

ashley b

Excellent- good read Key points - tonality ! The book is an easy listen and gives clarity to any sales role. Touches on the basics of sales and naturally goes into complexities Good addition to collection

Rating: 4

Jeanet W

This is by far the most detailed and complete sales book i'v read/listened to. One of those books, when you keep reading/listening to it multiple times, it will change the way you think, act and book results. Must-have.

Rating: 5

Derick E

Jordan Belfort is a true inspiration to me I love the way the book is so well narrated and packed with tremendous amounts of value thanks for the awesome read.

Rating: 5

I-P H

One of the most detailed and simplified selling books I’ve come across! Definitely a must-have for all sales people and anyone wanting to better their level of influence!

Rating: 5

Milan M.

You won't learn anything. This book is a waste of time. Con man

Rating: 1

Anonymous

If you want to get better at selling this is a must have in the library!

Rating: 5

Marcelo D.

Straight to the point, intelligent and simple at the same time. Totally recommended.

Rating: 5

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[kittenshift-17]

Hey Kitten! I was wondering if you're majoring in writing? I'm a high school student who's applying to college right now and am also really interested in writing (potentially to the point of considering it as a career), and was wondering if you had any tips ^^

Goodness.... How do I answer this without sounding terribly cynical and crushing your hopes and dreams and ideals about the world?

I’m actually already finished studying, myself. I graduated with a BA majoring in Writing and Publishing 3 years ago. And without blowing holes in all of your plans, I’ve got to be honest as I tell you about how useful I’ve found my degree.... which is to say that it was completely useless and a waste of money. 

Maybe it’s my country’s outlook, but having a BA isn’t really the big deal it used to be and everyone I know who got an Art Degree basically wasted their money. I mean, those in productive arts and theatre and such find them handy due to the practical classes, but a writing degree is..... Well, it’s a lot like high school English/Literature classes. You get given texts and articles and asked to dissect them and write essays about them. It’s.... god, it’s boring. The books are about as interesting in college as there were in high school and the teachers aren’t that much more competent on the grasp of what they want in the essay, and tend to have a biased and ridiculous analysis of the stories. Sometimes the author writes the curtains as being blue just because we like blue, not because the character is depressed, ya know?

When you say you want to consider writing for a career, I assume you mean that you’d like to be an author, and if so then my advice to you would definitely be to forget about majoring in writing for a university level degree. They don’t teach you how to write in those classes. They teach you how to draft essays, and unless you want to take after George Orwell, you don’t want an essay style of writing if you’ve aspirations to be an author. 

If, on the other hand, you mean you want to look at writing as a career option for other fields than fiction or non-fiction writing, then it can definitely be useful. If you wanted to get into writing as someone who drafts up those silly example stories you see in school textbooks (you know the ones, where Sally has five apples and sells Billy three before turning purple) then they come in handy because the classes teach your how to dissect such a story for meaning and the language tool you’re focusing on, and you work backwards (which is why those things rarely makes sense).

The point is, college is expensive. And so you have to weight the options of how much you’ll get out of a degree against how much money goes into paying for it and how much real-world use it will be to you once you’ve graduated. 

Me? I have a Bachelor of Media and Communication, majoring in Writing and Publishing. 

Do you know what I use it for?  Nothing. I don’t use my degree at all. I work as an Administration Manager for a Commercial Laundry and spend my days inputting data and trading polite, yet curt emails with clients regarding their linen hire. The only useful part of my degree is my grasp on the English language that allows me to very professionally tell someone to go fuck themselves without once cursing, or even crossing the line into being rude.

Look, of everyone I know who went to college that got a BA, do you know which ones are doing well? The ones who did a double major, one is business, law, or science, and the other in languages. Seriously, if you can major in languages, do it. Pick a core language and study it like your life depends on it. Two of my friends who studied language (both of them studied Mandarin) now have some super cool jobs. One is a high level special intelligence officer for the military. The other is a financial advisor for a Chinese conglomerate and, I believe, is currently living the high life in China. 

Everyone else I know who got an Art degree, either in writing, music, communication, advertising, history, social studies or anything else pretty much had to go back to uni after they graduated, do a Diploma in education, and use their skills to become school teachers. Seriously, all of them. I know talented musicians, talented writers, history-buffs, and more, and they’re all teachers now. Teachers, or doing what I’m doing and wasting their degree by working in a job where the degree has no meaning beyond showing an ability to commit to something for 3 years. 

At the risk of sounding condescending, and potentially confusing you all the more when you’re already at a place where all of life’s big decisions seem laid at your door, I’m going to give you a list of the things I wish I’d known when I was in high school.

TIPS:

1. Be single. Seriously, if you’re currently in a relationship, I urge you to end it. I don’t care how in love you think you are, or how painful the idea of breaking up might be, you WILL regret being in a relationship when you’re in college. And I don’t just mean because you’ll be meeting new people and could be bouncing into bed with some sexy stranger(s). There are so many things that I didn’t do in college because I was too busy trying to make things work with my boyfriend (whom I dated for 6 years before we broke up, by the way). I mean, I missed out on a bunch of college events because instead of being on campus, I was driving home to my small-town to see him. I missed out on so many life experiences, ranging from skinny dipping with strangers, to wild parties, to experiencing life WITHOUT worrying about someone else and how they would react to my actions. I cannot tell you how much I regret not just ending things with him and figuring out who the hell I was because I was too busy focusing on who WE were. 

2. If you’re going to study something, pick something that will give you practical experience, not just theoretical experience. Pick something that will give you life experiences. Study a language - hell, spend a semester abroad if you can. Study something that has a real-world use. If I could go back to being in high school, do you know what I’d do rather than studying a BA? I’d become a Veterinarian. Or a doctor. Or maybe a scientist of some kind. Hell, I might even forgo college and get an apprenticeship as an electrician or a hairdresser, or maybe even a builder. I reckon I’d have made a kick ass engineer, actually.

3. Push yourself. Don’t rest on your laurels and coast through the course. Go to every class. If you go, and you consistently find it boring, or awful, then you’re probably in the wrong course and should drop it for something else. I mean it. I have a BA. I spent 3 years studying it. Do you know how much actual course-work I engaged with? Roughly 50 hours worth. Total. I never went to class. I holed up in my dorm writing fanfic whenever I wasn’t partying, hungover, or feasting. I literally went to about 5 classes throughout my final year, despite having been enrolled in courses that asked for 10 hours a week minimum face-time in the classroom and living on campus. And I still graduated. It was way too easy and I wish I could go back and pick a different course - one that would make me WANT to go to class every day.

4. Recognize the fact that, no matter how it seems like you’ve got to figure everything out RIGHT NOW, you really don’t. Be decisive, and if you have a career goal in mind, work toward it, but please, PLEASE approach a company that offers that career and ask them if you can observe for the day. They might say no, but they might not. Tell them you’re in high school and you’re thinking about angling toward a career in that field and you’d like to get a look into what that career is like. Ask if you can shadow them for a day, or a week, or even a month. Ask them questions. Don’t just tag along if they let you observe. Ask for their motivations. Ask how it all works. Ask if they’re happy. Find out what the drawbacks of that career are. You’re at the age where you can find out who you are and who you want to be. 

Me? When I first enrolled in college I was training to become a Registered Nurse. I spent a buttload of money on books and uniforms and courses to be a Nurse and then I did a practical-training stint and do you know what happened? I found out I fucking HATED it. I couldn’t deal with all the bodily fluids, and showering old people, and being coughed on and struggled against, and bossed around by doctors. And I quit. I called my parents and I told them how studying it was exciting in theory, and that I enjoyed the course-work for my essays, but I couldn’t stand the practical part. And I told them that it was fucking me up and that I’d stick it out if they wanted me to, because they were paying my accommodation for living on campus. But I found out what it was like, and I hated it. And if I’d gone to my local hospital and volunteered BEFORE applying to be a nurse, I’d have known it wasn’t for me. You haven’t got to get it right the first time, you know? You can make a mistake. But they’re expensive. If you can do things BEFORE money gets involved and figure out what you like and don’t like, do it. Always do it. Go to you local hospital and ask if they need an AIN for the week. Go to your local shelter and volunteer. Volunteer in a soup kitchen, or at your local library or youth centre. Ask companies if you can help them out for a few days and be willing to do it WITHOUT being paid. If you expect money, most will turn you down, but if you paint it as them helping you figure out who the hell you’re going to be and saving you from making potentially the worst mistake of your life if you pick the wrong course, most people are decent enough to give you a go.

5. Travel. I mean it. If you can afford to travel, and it won’t cost you a scholarship, take a year off between high school and college, and travel. See the world. Take a bestie, or go alone, but travel. I would be a completely different person if I’d travelled before college, and gone alone, rather than waiting until the summer between my 2nd and 3rd year and going with a boyfriend. Your perspective on life will change, I guarantee it. Hell, take a working holiday and work bar-jobs or cafe-jobs, or anything to pay the bills while you see the world, but for the love of god, get out of your home-town or your city. Meet new people. See new things. Learn how things work in another country by experiencing it first hand. I can’t stress this one enough because my number one biggest regret in life is that when I was in high school, I was offered a place in an exchange program to live and study in a country of my choice for a year, and I turned it down because I was in a relationship that was “going to last forever”. It didn’t last, and I was an idiot, and I insist that anyone who can travel MUST do so. I don’t care if you’ve got to backpack your way across Europe on $10 a day, if you can do it, PLEASE do it.

6. Learn how to take advice and criticism without seeing it as a challenge and without immediately being spiteful and doing the opposite. Listen to people who know better. If I’d listened to my parents, I’d have ditched the boyfriend, travelled, seen the world, and been a whole different person. If I’d listened to my Aunt, I’d have known that nursing was going to be horrible and that I’d hate it and quit. If I’d listened to family friends who ran local businesses in my town, I’d have been able to take them up on offers of things that, at the time, sounded awful, but things I’d have likely really enjoyed. 

7. Don’t listen to your friends. They don’t know what’s best for you, no matter how well they know you or how close you are. If they’re your age, then they’re as clueless as you right now and they don’t have any idea how to offer you actual advice that will help change your life for the better. If you want to try something, and your friends disagree, do it anyway. Learn to be independent of them. One day, all too soon, that bestie you’re so close with will be someone you see or speak to once or twice a year and - here’s the kicker - you’ll be okay with that. You might even PREFER that. The point is, you need to grow as a person and you need to figure out exactly who you are. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and it’s not always as rewarding as you might hope, but it’s important that you do it. And I know that being told to figure out who you are tends to bamboozle teens. Hell, it confused the hell outta me because I was all, “I know exactly who I am.”

I didn’t.

Ask yourself the hard questions. Figure out where you stand politically. Figure out what matters to you. Do you care about religion? Current Events? Does the opinion of your peers matter to you? Does it really? At the end of the day, when you go to bed, do you CARE if you offended someone who deserved it? Do you prefer chicken or beef or vegetarian? What would you look like with a nose ring? A shaved head? A tattoo you can regret later? Do you like boys, or girls, or something in between? Both? Neither? Are you a wool sweaters girl, or velvet jumpsuit girl? Sneakers or scuffs? Dyed hair or natural? Tea of Coffee? Boy or girl? Do you want to help the environment or end world hunger or fix the economy? Do you want to hide under a rock and never talk to anyone again? Do you want to make a name for yourself? It’s all relevant and it sounds silly, but if you’re aspiring to be a writer, find a character questionnaire of all the things you’d want or need to know about a character to write about them in a book. Fill it out about you. You might be shocked by what you learn. 

8. Don’t give terribly long winded answers like this one.

9. Never settle. You’re more than settling. Don’t settle for a partner, don’t settle for a job, don’t settle for a town, or a city, or a friend, or a life that you’re not happy with. If you aren’t happy, figure out why and make changes. You’re allowed. No one is going to stop you, and if they try, direct them to me so I can lecture them on how to be a better person. *winks*

10. Use your imagination. If you want to be an author, you’re not going to learn how in a classroom. You’ll learn by diving into a book and entering a whole new world. Practice your writing. Write fanfiction and share it to see what people make of it. Listen to the suggestions of those offering constructive criticism. PRACTICE. Read. For the love of god, read everything. Push yourself to learn how to write better, not in the classroom, but in the real world. Write whenever you can. Every day. I mean it. Literally, every day. If you don’t write, you won’t improve. You’ve got to do it. Set a goal. Tell yourself you’ll write 100 words a day, build on it from there. Be like me and write thousands of words a day, when you’re up for it. If you don’t keep your imagination alive and trying to think of new ways to tell the same story, you’ll struggle and you’ll fizzle. 

xx-Kitten

[alexsmitposts]

Cheating Scandal in Admission to Elite American Universities is Telltale Sign of Decay in Higher Education One only needs to give a few lessons about how to apply to US universities – you teach students about the admission policies, motivational letters, etc. However, it is also necessary to make an attempt to get across to them the simple truth that they are most probably wasting their time and money applying to the so-called elite universities, unless they have super-rich parents or sugar daddies (gender notwithstanding). As a graduate of a US academic program, I would advise them that it is better to aim for the average universities, as the quality of education there is just as good, if not better; they are also far more likely to get accepted at one of these. But this advice applies mostly to the above-average students dreaming the Great American Dream, as the best of the tribe would not pay heed to my advice, howsoever logical it might be. As a teacher, what is most discouraging and disheartening to know is that deserving students cannot obtain the places they deserve, just because they are not from families through whom they can call the Clintons and the Obamas family friends. But what is especially discouraging is when foreign students, and those from working class families, who have brains and can actually get accepted, fail to get accepted to their dream Universities. What is even more disheartening is that, when deserving students have asked me over the years how the kids of the rich, famous and the powerful have always managed to enroll in the elite universities, I have had no answer. But I now have. It should always have been obvious – they scam their way in. When, in March, Federal prosecutors in the US charged nearly 50 parents, including celebrities and others in higher education, some of the who’s who among the “rich and famous”, with taking part in a massive cheating scandal designed to get their less than “so bright” children into elite universities, I understood why deserving students I knew were missing out on university seats that should rightfully have been theirs. While a lot many of us will rejoice that the perpetrators have been booked, as someone who understands how the underground power structure of the world works, I know very well that this is just the tip of an iceberg, and something that has been going on for a long time. In reality, elite universities are often just a country club for the brats of the rich. They are full of legacy admissions. One only has to think of George W. Bush, and how he got accepted into Yale and then somehow managed to graduate. The latest scandal even involved paying bribes to a so-called charity, and then using the bribe as a tax write off, a trick your Average Joe would never be able to get away with. I am close to Berea College in Kentucky, which is technically an elite college based on academics, as you had to be poor with lots of brains to get accepted. It is perhaps the only college in America that will not even consider your application if you come from a higher income class and are not in financial need. Back in my day, it had a 12 percent admission rate. You also had to work at least 10 hours a week to earn your keep at various college-based jobs and industries. But I would add the caveat that my characterization of corruption, and better choices of where to attend an American university, is more applicable to undergraduate education. The top universities are still the “go-tos” for masters and PhDs, I would say—those where you get the most bang for the buck. In this context, where academics are key, the admissions process is generally a legitimate one. I still wouldn’t discourage undergrads from applying to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and such-like, because they often get better financial aid packages as well as perhaps more useful connections in terms of internships or work later on. Many such universities have blind admission policies, which means they don’t look at your financial status when examining your candidature. If they find you eligible, and if you don’t have the money, they will find it for you. But for those who fail to get into the American Ivy League, I sincerely advise them to look into other places where the educational experience is just as rich, if not even fuller. What I always try to instill in my students is a sense that education is a way of self-formation, of growth, of something that will make them inherently valuable. I think many of them appreciate that approach. As one of my former students wrote, “My life experience has been so different. I’m quite spoilt, and I continue to be spoilt. Can you imagine the Virginia taxpayer is footing the bill so that I do things I love – read and write? God bless them. I often wonder how and when I’ll give back to so many to whom I owe so much.” But – no offence – that’s a stupid sentiment to have. My friend, albeit well-intentioned, is overlooking how little he is involved in the entire scheme of the world. He is like a slave worrying about the dire condition of other worse off slaves. The true problem is that his only choices are “reading and writing”, and the State of Virginia pays him to remain ineffectual. The “God bless them” statement in his email is to me the ultimate affirmation of his own superiority and his own self-deception. It appears that he thinks his reading and writing are authentic experiences, rather than empty distraction for faux intellectuals. Once hooked by such ideas, foreign students often have a tendency to look down on those less fortunate. Thinking of my own college experience – who wouldn’t want a unique, fantastic education like that, especially if it was on a full scholarship? But you must find the money for most colleges, unless you fit their selection requirements: academically strong, motivated, and committed to the Appalachian region. I was deeply privileged, blessed, and just plain lucky to have managed to get funded. That’s a key element in the mix, needless to say. Another colleague recently shared with me about the status of higher education in the USA, “As part of my Ph.D. studies here in the US, I am participating in a small seminar course on the state of the university and academia in general. It has been very eye-opening. I always knew I wouldn’t want to be a part of the cut-throat publish-or-perish world, but I didn’t realize how, for example, disciplines, sub-disciplines, and tenure committees are as a rule highly specialized and rigid in their expectations – to the extent that, as a professor awaiting tenure, one is actively discouraged from engaging with the world through, say, op-eds in newspapers or blogging or other such public activities.” If you believe me, it is all about your field, and publishing in certain important journals and getting one or two academic books out (which should, in turn, be published by certain key university presses). It all seems a bit much to me. I think I just want to return to the classroom and teach, tenure be damned. But ask me again in a few years, I suppose. That is why plagiarism, even self-plagiarism, is so common amongst university professors – publish or perish.  I took a graduate course on the economics of education, and how programs are funded, and universities ranked, based on publications, even volumes of books in libraries. All that goes into the national and world rankings. The other side of the coin is former USSR countries, where little or no research is being conducted. Lecturers are using the same notes year on year and are paid peanuts—no outside research, no office hours and little student interaction in or outside of the classroom. Special Relationship But how is it in Europe, and specifically the UK, the country the US long had a “Special Relationship” with? That may be the next great scandal waiting to happen, as foreign students push out native Brits, who cannot afford to go to university anymore because tuition fees were tripled by the previous coalition government, despite one of the coalition parties, the Liberal Democrats, having won a lot of votes on a public promise that it would abolish tuition fees. Those Brits who can afford to go are now focused on diplomas rather than the once-dominant social aspects of university, for obvious reasons, But their parents have watched in horror as the value of their degrees is progressively eroded, to the point where being well connected is a greater guarantee of a job and a future, exactly what opening up higher education to all was supposed to prevent. Of course, tongue in cheek, such a cheating and bribery scandal could never happen at a British university, as Brits already know not to apply where they are not welcome due to their social class. But like Americans, Brits are also a bit naive at times, especially when it comes to white privilege and the Golden Rule -he who has the Gold makes the rules. Unlike Americans, Brits make a distinction between how you talk to a dustman and how you talk to an elected politician. As they don’t see the problem this causes, as it does in other countries, cheating by those who can becomes a way of life, as universities such as Exeter – described in guides as having a “high twit factor” –  amply demonstrate. But keep in mind that the American system is completely different. You can’t get access to Cambridge, for instance, by means of sports achievements. There is no such system there. The entrance requirements for new undergrads are strict, and 87% of the students selected for each year are either from the UK or have lived in the country for most of their lives (it’s really difficult to get accepted as a foreigner on an UG course). The problem is that if you have two candidates, both brilliant, one coming from a state school in a non -prestigious place and the other from an elite school, in all probability they will take the rich kid – or they will send the rich kid to the most exclusive college, e.g. the likes of St John’s or Brasenose, and the poor one to a second-rate college. Why? The UK is effectively run by an aristocracy which still owns 1/3 of the land and has most of the financial power. This class is very well represented in the academic world – to put it simply, it can’t get rid of itself. When it comes to post-grad, MD or MSc etc, the criteria are completely different. There is much more flexibility. But say a rich Chinese or Arab entrepreneur tells the college: if you take my son, I will give you a donation of 25 mln pounds. You know what the college will do, and there are many examples – all those chairs of Islamic Studies, funded by and named after Arab businessmen and sheikhs, haven’t appeared out of academic curiosity or considerations of balance. Who would say no? Another thing to investigate is that there’s quite a rich history of the sons and daughters of people who studied at Oxford or Cambridge, politicians and businessmen, ascending to degree courses by some sort of hereditary right. Is it possible, for instance, that the son of a couple of former Pakistani prime ministers is so gifted that he was able to pass the severe tests again? Was that in his DNA? I’ve never heard of any serious investigation of how so many of these cases occur. They might be more credible through the private school route, where donors buy privilege routinely, but not amongst comparative arrivistes who think privilege can subvert democracy, though not without foundation. . So there you have it – even what makes America Great is not what it used to be, and elite universities are proving themselves to be rotten to the core. But I see hope, as at least the new generation is starting to realize, not only on the international level, that the financial payoff from an expensive American degree is not what it is billed as. But is any degree worth it for that matter?

[scifrey]

Improbable Press put out a call asking fan fiction authors how they went from Free to Fee. Here’s my response. Happy reading!

The Story of How I Started Selling Stories

My parents, teachers, and acting/singing coaches will all tell you that I've always been a story teller. For the first twenty four years of my life, I was determined to do so through musical theatre, though I had always secretly harbored the desire to write a hit stage play. My early writing consisted of plays for my friends and I to put on, interspersed with prose that I supposed would one day become a novel, but which wasn't my passion.

I was a big reader, but where this habit came from, I'm not certain. While my mother always had a book on the go - whatever crumbling paperback law thriller or murder mystery she'd been handed by the woman down the street when she was done it, which was then passed on to the next neighbor - my father and brothers preferred sports (either on TV or outside in the yard) over reading. I stumbled into fantasy and science fiction because Wil Wheaton was hot, and his show was on every Friday night, and from there I consumed every Star Trek tie-in novel my tiny rural library carried, then started following the authors of the novels into their other worlds and series.

So you won't be surprised to learn that this was how I found fan fiction for the first time. My "I love this, gee, I wonder what else there is?" muscle was well developed by junior high, and before the internet had come to The Middle Of Nowhere Rural Ontario, I had already gotten quite adept at search keywords and codexes to track down more books to consume.  Imagine my shock and joy when, in the middle of my Phantom of the Opera phase (come on, fess up, you had one too), the internet in my school library told me about not only Fredrick Forsyth and Susan Kay's stunning re-tellings, but of something called fan fiction.

I wasted a lot of the librarian's ink and paper printing out these books and secreting them into binders and pretending to do school work at my desk or backstage between scenes. A lot. And yes, I still have most of them.

And as we all well know, the jump between reading and writing is a short when one is submerged so fully in communities of creators. Everyone else's "What If" rubs off on you, and it's just a matter of time before you find yourself playing with the idea of coaxing a few plot bunnies over to spend some time with you. Not everyone loves to write, but gosh darn it, if you want to give it a try, then you couldn't ask for a better, more supportive community. It doesn't matter how new you are to it, everyone reads, everyone comments, everyone makes suggestions. People beta read. People edit. People co-write. People cheer, and support, and recommend, and enthuse. Yeah, there are the occasional jerks, flammers, and wank-mongers, but on the whole? There's literally no better place to learn how to be a writer than in fandom, I firmly believe this.

So, of course, born storyteller that I am, I had to give it a try.

I started writing fan fiction in 1991 for a small, relatively obscure Canadian/Luxembourg co-pro children’s show called Dracula: the Series.  I used to get up and watch it on Saturday mornings, in my PJs, before heading off to whichever rehearsal or read through or practice I had that year.

1995 brought the English dub of Sailor Moon to my life, (and put me on the path to voice acting), and along with a high-school friend, I wrote, printed out, illustrated, and bound my first “book” – a self-insert story that was just over eleven pages long, which introduced new Scouts based on us.  From there, I didn’t really stop.

1996 led me to Forever Knight and Dragon Ball Z, and from there to my friend’s basement where they’d just installed the internet. We chatted with strangers on ICQ, joined Yahoo!Groups and Bravenet Chat Boards. (Incidentally, a friend from my DBZ chat group turned out to be a huge DtS fan, too. We wrote a big crossover together which is probably only accessible on the Wayback Machine now. We stayed friends, helped each other through this writing thing, and now she’s Ruthanne Reid, author of the popular Among the Mythos series.)  In 2000 I got a fanfiction.net account and never looked back.

In 2001, while in my first year of university for Dramatic Arts, I made my first Real Live fandom friends. We wrote epic-length self-insert fics in Harry Potter and Fushigi Yuugi, cosplayed at conventions (sometimes using the on-campus wardrobe department’s terrifyingly ancient serger), and made fan art and comics in our sketchbooks around studying for our finals and writing essays on critical theory or classical Latin.  I was explaining the plot of the next big fic I was going to write to one of them, an older girl who had been my T.A. but loved Interview with the Vampire just as dearly as I, when she said, “You know, this sounds really interesting. Why don’t you strip all the fandom stuff out of the story and just write it as a novel?”

You can do that? was my first thought.

No! I don’t want to! Writing is my fun hobby. What will happen if I try to be a writer and get rejected by everyone and I end up hating it? was my second.

But the seed was planted.  Slowly at first, and then at increasingly obsessive pace, I began writing my first novel around an undergrad thesis,  fourth-year  essays,  several other big fanfics that popped me into the cusp of BNF status but never quite over the tine, and then a move to Japan to teach English. From 2002-2007 I wrote about 300 000 words on the novel that I would eventually shut away in my desk drawer and ignore until I published on Wattpad under my pseudonym on a lark. It was messy. It was long. It was self-indulgent and blatantly inspired by Master of Mosquiton, Interview with the Vampire, Forever Knight, and anything written by Tanya Huff, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Charlaine Harris. This was fine for fanfic, but in terms of being comfortable with presenting it to agents and publishing houses, I felt that it wasn’t original enough.

By this time I was teaching overseas, and in my spare time (and boy, was there a lot of spare time while sitting in a Japanese teacher’s office for 40 hours per week when one only actually teaches for 11 of them) I started applying to MA programs (where I eventually wrote my thesis on Mary Sue Fan Fiction). I also spent it researching “How to Get Published”, mostly by Googling it and/or buy/reading the few books on the topic in English I could find at the local book store or order from the just-then-gaining-international traction online bookstore Amazon.

What that research mostly told me was “Write and sell a bunch of short fiction first, so you have proof that a) you can do the work and b) you can finish what you promise you’ll finish and c) you have proof that other people think you’re worth spending money on.”

Short fiction. Huh. Of course we’d studied short stories in school, and I’d even taken a short story writing class in university, though nothing I’d written for the class was indicative of the kinds of stories I preferred to tell. But I felt pretty confident about this whole writing short stories thing… after all, I’d been doing weekly challenges for years. Drabbles. Flashfic. Stories and chapters that were limited to the word count cap that LiveJournal put on its posts. I’d written novellas without knowing that’s what they were called; I’d written whole novels about other people’s characters. All I needed was an idea. Short fiction I could do.

Unfortunately, everything that came to me was fanfic inspired. It frustrated me, because I didn’t want to write a serial-numbers-filed-off story. I wanted to write something original and epic and inspiring. Something just mine. I started and stopped a lot of stories in 2006-2007. I’d been doing NaNoWriMo for years by then, having been introduced to it in undergrad, and I was determined that this would be the year that I wrote something I could shop. Something just mine. Something unique.

While I adored fanfiction, I was convinced that I couldn't make a career on it.  What had once been a fun hobby soon because a source of torment. Why could I think of a hundred ways to write a meet-cute between my favorite ships, but come up utterly blank when it came to something new and original and just mine?

It took me a while to realize that my playwriting and short story teachers had been correct when they said that there are no original stories in the world, no way you can tell a tale that someone else hasn’t already tried. The "Man vs." list exists for a reason.

The unique part isn’t your story, it’s your voice. Your lived life, your experiences, your way of forming images and structuring sentences. Your choices about who the narrator character is, and what the POV will be, and how the characters handle the conflict. In that way, every piece of writing ever done is individual and unique, even the fanfic. Because nobody is going to portray that character’s quirk or speech pattern quite like you do, nobody is going to structure your plot or your imagery like you. Because there is only one of you. Only one of me. Even if we're all writing fanfiction, no one's story sounds like anyone else's,  or is told like anyone else's.

That is the reality of being a storyteller.

And strangely enough, the woman who opened my eyes to this was a psychic from a psychic fair I attended, who told me that Mark Twain was standing over her shoulder admonishing me to stop fretting and just get something on the page – but to never forget character. My strength, she said that he said, was in creating memorable, well written, well rounded characters. And that my book should focus on that above concerns of plot or pacing.

Well, okay. If Mark Twain says that’s what my strength is, then that’s what my strength is, right? Who am I to argue with the ghost of Mark Freaking Twain?

An accident with a bike and a car on a rice patty left me immobile for six weeks in 2006, and I decided that if I was finally going to write this original short story to sell – especially since I would need income, as the accident made it obvious that I would never be able to dance professionally, and probably would never be able to tread the boards in musicals – now was the perfect time. I was going to stop fighting my fannish training and write.

I cherry picked and combined my favorite aspects of Doctor Who, Stargate: Atlantis, Torchwood, The Farm Show/The Drawer Boy, and my own melancholy experiences with culture shock and liminal-living in a foreign culture, and wrote a novella titled (Back). It was a character study of a woman named Evvie who, through an accident of time travel, meets the future version of her infant daughter Gwen. And realizes she doesn’t like the woman her daughter will become. It was a story about accepting people for who they are, instead of who you wish they would be, and had a strong undercurrent of the turbulence I was going through in trying to figure out my own sexuality and that I wouldn't have the future in performance that I had been working toward since I was four.

Deciding that I would worry about where I would try to publish the story after it had been written, I sat down and wrote what ended up being (at least for me) a pretty standard-length fanfic: 18,762 words. It was only after I had finished the story that I looked up what category that put it in – Novella. Using paying  reputable markets, like Duotrope, the Writer’s Digest, MSFV, Absolute Write, SFWA, my local Writer’s Union, Writer Beware, I realized that I had shot myself in the foot.

It seems like nearly nobody publishes novellas anymore. SF/F and Literary Fiction seem to be the last two bastions of the novella, and the competition to get one published is fierce.  The markets that accepted SF/F novellas was vanishingly thin I had to do a lot of Googling and digging to figure out who I could submit to with an unagented/unsolicited SF/F novella. If I recall correctly, it was only about ten publications. I built an excel database and filled it with all the info I found.

I put together a query letter and sent it off using my database to guide me. Most of the rejections were kind, and said that the story was good, just too long/too short/ too sci-fi-y/not sci-fi-y enough. Only one market offered on it – for $10 USD. Beggers couldn’t be choosers, even if I had hoped to make a little more than ten bucks, and I accepted.

It was a paid professional publication, and that’s what mattered to me. I had the first entry on my bibliography, and something to point to in my query letters to prove that I was a worthy investment for a publisher/agent.

And energized by this, and now aware that length really does matter, even in online-only publications, I started writing other shorts to pad out my bibliography more.

I tried to tailor these ones to what my research told me the "mainstream industry" and "mainstream audiences" wanted, and those stories? Those were shot down one after the other. I was still writing fanfiction at the time, too, and those stories were doing well, getting lots of positive feedback, so why weren’t my stories?

In 2007 I returned to Canada and Academia, frustrated by my lack of sales, desperate to kick off my publishing career, and feeling a creative void left by having to depart theatre because of my new difficulties walking. I wrote my MA, and decided that if (Back) was the only original story that people liked, then I’d try to expand it into a novel.

Over the course of two years I did my coursework, and  read everything there was to read about how to get a book deal, started hanging out in writer’s/author’s groups in Toronto and met some great people who were willing to guide me, and expanded (Back) into the novel Triptych. I kept reminding myself what Mark Twain said – character was my strength, the ability to make the kind of people that other writers wanted to write stories about, a skill I’d honed while writing fanfic. Because that's what we do, isn't it? Sure, we write fix-its and AUs and fusions and finish cancelled shows, and fill in missing scenes, but what we're all really doing is playing with characters, isn't it? Characters draw us to fanfic, and characters keep us there. Characters is what we specialize in.

Fanfic had taught me to work with a beta reader, so I started asking my fic betas if they'd like a go at my original novel. Fellow fanfic writers, can I just say how valuable editors and beta readers in the community are? These are people who do something that I've paid a professional editor thousands of dollars to do for free out of sheer love. Treasure your beta readers, folks. Really.

“It reminds me a lot of fan fiction,” one reader said. “The intense attention to character and their inner life, and the way that the worldbuilding isn’t dumped but sprinkled in an instance at a time, like, you know, a really good AU. I love it.”

Dear Lord. I couldn’t have written a better recommendation or a more flattering description if I’d tried. Mark Twain was right, it seems. And fanfic was the training ground, for me – my apprenticeship in storytelling.

Of course... what Mr. Twain hadn't explained is that character-study novels just don't sell in SF/F. They say Harry Potter was rejected twelve times? HA. I shopped Triptych to both agents and small presses who didn't require you to have an agent to publish with them, and I got 64 rejections. Take that, J.K.

At first the rejection letters were forms and photocopied "no thanks" slips. But every time I got feedback from a publisher or agent, I took it to heart, adjusted the manuscript, edited, tweaked, tweaked, tweaked. Eventually, the rejections started to get more personal. "I loved this character, but I don't know how to sell this book." And "I really enjoyed the read, but it doesn't really fit the rest of our catalogue." And "What if you rewrote the novel to be about the action event that happens before the book even starts, instead of focusing solely on the emotional aftermath?"

In other words - "Stop writing fanfiction." There seemed to be a huge disconnect between what the readership wanted and what the publishing world thought they wanted.

Disheartened, frustrated, and wondering if I was going to have to give up on my dreams of being a professional creative, I attended Ad Astra, a convention in Toronto, in 2009. At a room party, complaining to my author friends that "nobody wanted my gay alien threesome book!" a woman I didn't know asked me about the novel. We chatted, and it turned out she was the acquisitions editor for Dragon Moon Press, and incidentally, also a fan of fan fiction.

I sent her Triptych. She rejected it. I asked why. She gave me a laundry list of reasons. I said, "If I can address these issues and rewrite it, would you be willing to look at it again?" She said yes. She was certain, however, that I wouldn't be able to fix it. I spent the summer rewriting - while making sure to stay true to my original tone of the novel, and writing a character-study fanfiction. I sent it in the fall. I do believe it was Christmas eve when I received the offer of publication.

From there, my little fic-inspired novel was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards and a CBC Bookie, was named one of the best books of 2011 by the Advocate, and garnered a starred review and a place on the Best Books Of The Year at Publishers Weekly.

The award nominations led me to an agent, and further contracts, and even conversations with studio execs. It also made me the target of Requires Only That You Hate, and other cranky, horrible reviewers. But you know what? I've had worse on a forum, and on ff.n, and LJ. It sucked, and it hurt, but if there's one thing fandom has taught me, it's that not everyone is going to love what you do, and not everyone interprets things the same way you do. The only thing we can do is learn from the critique if it's valid and thoughtful, and ignore the screaming hate and bullying. Then you pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and go write something else.

 Because a screaming hater? Is not going to ruin my love of storytelling.

But for all that... the day someone made me fan art based on Triptych is one etched in my memory. It means far more to me than any of the emails I ever received inquiring about representation or film rights, or wanting meetings to discuss series.

The lesson I learned from publishing Triptych  - now sadly out of print, but we're looking for a new home for it - is that if I chase what the "mainstream" and the "industry" want, I'll never write anything that sells because my heart won't be in it. I have to keep writing like a fanficcer, even if I'm not writing fanfic, if I want to create something that resonates with people. And if it takes time for the publishers and acquiring editors to figure out what I'm doing, and how to sell it, then fine - I have an agent on my side now, and a small growing number of supporters, readers, and editors who love what I do.

Do I still write fanfic? Very, very rarely. I’ve had some pretty demanding contracts and deadlines in the last two years, so I’ve had to pare down my writing to only what’s needed to fulfill my obligations. Doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas for fics constantly.

Sometimes the urge is powerful enough that I do give into it – I wrote To A Stranger, based on Mad Lori’s Performance in a Leading Role Sherlock AU recently, when I should have been writing the second and third novels of The Accidental Turn Series. And even more recently, I cleaned up To A Stranger  into something resembling a real screenplay and started shopping it around to film festivals and producers because I love this story, I love what I did with it, and I’m proud of the work. If To A Stranger is only ever a fanfic, that’s fine with me. I poured my heart into it and am so proud of it. But I figure that if there’s one more project I could possibly get into the real world, then why not go for it?

The worst thing the festival heads and producers can say about the work is: “No, thank you.” And being an online writer has taught me not to take the “no, thank you”s personally. Applying the values of Don’t Like Don’t Read or Not My Kink to your publication/agent search makes it much easier to handle the rejections – not every story is for every person.

Maybe once every producer in North America has rejected it, I might think about working with someone to adapt the screenplay into an illustrated comic fanbook? Who knows?

That’s the joy of starting out as a writer in fandom – felixibility, adaptability, creative problem-solving and cross-platform storytelling comes as naturally as breathing to us fan writers. It’s what we do.

You may not think that this is a strength, but trust me, it is. I was never so shocked at an author’s meetup as when I suggested to someone that their “writer’s block” sounded to me like they were telling the story in the wrong format. “I think this is a comic, not a novel,” I’d said. “It sounds so visual. That's why the story is resisting you.” And they stared at me like I suddenly had an extra head and said, “But I’m a novelist.” I said, “No, you’re a writer. Try it.” They never did, as far as I know, and they never finished that book, either.

As fans, our strength isn't just in what we write, or how we come to our stories. It’s also about the physical practice of writing, too. We’re a group of people who have learned to carry notebooks, squeeze in a few hundred words between classes, or when the baby is napping, or during our lunch breaks, or on commute home. This is our hobby, we fit it in around our lives and jobs, and that has taught us the importance of just making time.

We are, on average, more dedicated and constant writers than some of the “novelists” that I’ve met: the folks who wait for inspiration to strike, who quit their day jobs in pursuit of some lofty ideal of having an office and drinking whiskey and walking the quay and waiting for madam muse to grace them, who throw themselves at MFAs and writing retreats, as if it's the attendance that makes them writers and not the work of it.

We fans are career writers. We don’t wait for inspiration to come to us, we chase it down with a butterfly net. We write when and where we can. More than that, we finish things. (Or we have the good sense to know when to abandon something that isn’t working.) We write to deadlines. Self-imposed ones, even.

We write 5k on a weekend for fun, and think NaNoWriMo’s 50k goal and 1667 words per day are a walk in the park. (When I know it terrifies some of the best-selling published authors I hang out with.) Or if we fans don’t write fast, then we know that slow and steady works too, and we’re willing to stick it out until our story is finished, even if it takes years of weekly updates to do so. We have patience, and perseverance, and passion.

This is what being a fanfiction writer has given me. Not only a career as a writer, but tools and a skill-set to write work that other people think is work awarding, adapting, and promoting. And the courage to stick to my guns when it comes to telling the kinds of stories that I want to tell.

This is what being a fanfiction writer gives us.

Aren’t we lucky, fellow fans? Hasn’t our training been spectacular?

*

J.M. (@scifrey) is a SF/F author, and professional smartypants on AMI Audio’s Live From Studio 5. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel TRIPTYCH was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards,  nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly. Her sophomore novel, an epic-length feminist meta-fantasy THE UNTOLD TALE (Accidental Turn Series #1), debuted to acclaim in 2015 and was followed by THE FORGOTTEN TALE (Accidental Turn Series #2) this past December. FF.N | LJ |AO3| Books | Tumblr

[paranoidsbible]

An Artist’s Guide to Not Getting Shafted

An Artist’s Guide to Not Getting Shafted Non-profit and free for redistribution Written on March 29th | 2016 Published on March 29th | 2016 For entertainment and research purposes only

================================================= DISCLAIMER The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others. The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only. Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ ================================================= Contents DISCLAIMER    2 Preface    4 Facts    5 Quality over Quantity    6 Don’t blame your tools    7 Commissions    8 Not Getting Your Privacy Destroyed    15 Afterword    20 ================================================= Preface I’m an anonymous artist who volunteered their services and expertise to the Paranoid’s Bible. Unlike their usual PDFs, this one is aimed more at providing a dose of reality for artists and potential artists alike. I’m not here to hold hands or tell you that you’ll be as famous as the masters; however I am here to ensure you don’t make a sloppy, amateurish mistake and end up wasting precious time and energy on something that can leave you penniless or facing down a digital lynch mob. This PDF will be crass and overly blunt, yet it’ll help you break the fantasies that you’ll somehow live only upon commissions and pretty pictures. ================================================= Facts Before I discuss any security or privacy tips, I’ll remind you that the PB team has covered most of your questions concerning doxing or how to scrub your images of exif data--go look at their library (https://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/library) link for the PDFs they’ve already completed. For those of you too lazy or unsure as to what you should read, I recommend their namesake PDF and the PDF (The Paranoid’s Bible) on Meta Data (Meta Data and You). Those two alone should help you prevent most of the issues artists usually face from obsessed fans or upset fandoms. Now that I’ve stated the above, let’s discuss the brass tacks of the matter: You, as an artist, aren’t what people care about. Most fans only care about the pretty pictures that you create, they don’t care about you. You’ll very rarely matter to most people outside of those who either develop a strange obsession for you or carry the same beliefs and opinions as you. Because of this, you should take advantage of the limited anonymity provided to you through the internet and learn to not care about what others say or think besides the constructive criticism they provide you about your art and its quality. People are obnoxiously opinionated about things they don’t understand or know, as are you and I. This is a fault that humanity shares, however it shouldn’t give you an excuse to snap at people because they spoke out of turn or incorrectly on a subject—being an arse about something as simple as someone saying means words will lead to your inevitable public humiliation on the internet. I’m not saying be overly humble, however I am stating that you shouldn’t be a dick-wolf. Learn to let things roll off your back and to move on. Getting upset to the point of rage-quitting reality is a pointless endeavor and only serves to prove how much a delicate, little snowflake you are that can’t take criticism or some banter. Thick skin serves you just as much as your skill and talent as an artist. You also need to realize that you’ll never be as popular as other artists, regardless of your talent and skill set. Some people are simply more popular because they cater to a niche category or for a variety of other reasons, like self-censorship and catering to the lowest common denominator. So, if you still feel like you can take the brunt of the damage, then I encourage you keep reading. A lot of people won’t like what’s coming up in the next few chapters, but it needs to be stated. ================================================= Quality over Quantity An issue with a lot of artists, regardless of age or talent, is the fact that their profiles, blogs and portfolios are oversaturated with their art. They believe that somehow quantity will give them an edge over the competition for a job, customers or fans. You need quality, not quantity. In order to get quality, you need to realize that you’re most likely doing everything wrong. A lot of the artists in the 2000s were inspired by our Eastern brothers and sisters, especially with their works in manga and anime. You aren’t an Eastern artist, most likely, but a Westerner. And, like any Westerner with dreams of being a Manga-ka, you need to stop what you’re doing and reanalyze your life and your goals. Japan and most of Asia are very xenophobic, however that isn’t even what’s preventing you from getting recognition as an artist: it’s you and your lack of skill or talent. You may feel that our post-modernist society needs to abandon the archaic examples of art done within the renaissances; however your feelings are wrong. You don’t need to feel ashamed, modern art and the drivel they teach in those overly expensive art schools are simply meant to separate you or your parents from their money [1] (https://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/here-are-7-reasons-why-the-contemporary-art-world-is-an-insufferable-scam-corrupted-by-the-super-rich/) [2] (https://petapixel.com/2011/09/02/us-gov-sues-the-art-institutes-for-11-billion-fraud/) [3] (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidhalperin/edmc-professors-and-stude_b_1909449.html). To standout and gain recognition, one must first realize that not everyone is born with the innate talent to be an artist or anything. Some people are born with to be a savant at art or something else within their lifetime, yet for everyone else… we have to train ourselves and be vigilant in our practice. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. You can do most everything in the world, but it usually requires patience, training, practice and a lot of time and work. You usually don’t jump feet first into your own style or the over stylization of someone else’s work. No, you start from the basics and work your way up. This means you start with simple shapes and realism. Learning realism and the simplicity of shapes is where most everyone has to start, like it or not. This is where most of the so called masters started in their adventure in art, and it’ll be where you’ll have to start too. Learning realism and working your way up to your own style will help you greatly as it’ll give you many benefits others don’t have, which is to say: You’ll actually know what you’re drawing or attempting to draw. One tip, though, that I can give you many artists don’t know is that penmanship can help you. Learning to cleanly print your name and graduating into cursive writing and studying something like calligraphy can really help you in the end with your strokes and how to properly hold any drawing implement. ================================================= Don’t blame your tools There’s a saying that goes something like: A poor craftsman blames his tools. This applies to artists, too, regardless of their gender or sex. Many artists believe that if they have top quality, expensive supplies, programs or tools that they’ll somehow suddenly become some supreme being of art and accomplish some massively moving piece that’ll bring about world peace or banish the darkness in the world—these artists are delusional. No matter if you use pen and paper or a tablet and Photoshop, those are but simple tools. They don’t live or breathe, nor do they have the creativity that we, the human race, have within ourselves.  You can’t always rely on tools, programs or supplies. They’re only limited to what you, yourself, as an artist can do. This means if you aren’t born with some innate talent or practiced and honed your skills to a razor edge, than they’re useless. Don’t get caught up in the propaganda-like advertising of companies and businesses. They hire and pay artists to claim that their products are oh-so-great and that if you own their products, too, then you’ll be able to do feats of art like they can. I’ve stated this numerous times, and I’ll state it once more: You need to study and learn the basics. You need to practice and have patience. Hardly anyone is gifted with the innate talent to be a creative genius within a night’s time. Like someone who has trained for decades with their weapon of choice, an artist who has honed their skill can bring to life even a hunk of dead, waterlogged wood ripped from the sea. Your tools mean nothing if you, yourself, don’t have a spark of life within you. If all you do is produce, then how can it truly be called art if it has no feeling of life to it? A true artist not only uses what they have on hand, they also see the true potential in the supplies given to them. Like a statue waiting to be freed from a hunk of stone, the cry of true potential is only seen and heard by a true artist. You must relax, have fun and listen to yourself. You’ll see and achieve wondrous things if you work on not becoming a mindless machine that just produces “art” to sell or to play the part of an artist. You can’t force creativity. ================================================= Commissions Before you even begin of thinking about commissions, you must first analyze yourself, your style and the overall quality of your art. You won’t be able solely live upon commissions online, nor will you able to live a comfortable lifestyle from commissions alone. You’ll be able to supplement your income, yes; however you’ll grow tired and hit a wall with your art. Many artists who take commissions grow tired of art and become bored. They hit a wall both creatively and in quality. They burnout and either lash out, become melancholic or depressed, or simply jump ship and abandon their internet presence altogether. With that said, I also must explain that this is going to be Americentric, so if you’re not from the U.S. take this at face value and not as a means to help you make a living in your home country. I only know a very limited amount of knowledge when it concerns the U.S. and its tax laws. What I’m going to say here may be helpful, to some extent, to non-U.S. citizens; however that’s where this chapter’s helpfulness will end. Now, below will be some miscellaneous sections that’ll hopefully help you jumpstart your little venture in selling your art or product, yet understand I’m only addressing the most common questions usually asked. ==Do I need a business license and permits?== Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Depends. You do need a business license, especially if someone in a business hires you and claims it as a business expense. You also need to figure out the right permits you’ll need to sell your wares or products. You might even need more than one license depending on the items you sell or have to buy in order to complete an order. I, however, can’t give much legal or financial advice. I do urge you, however, to look into the below two links: https://www.sba.gov/content/what-state-licenses-and-permits-does-your-business-need https://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/obtain-business-licenses- ==Aren’t I an independent contractor?== This is quite tricky to figure out, and according to some, an independent contractor (1099) (within the US) doesn’t need to report income made from a client unless it’s more than 600 dollar per year. So, in a sense, as long as a client isn’t a repeat buyer, you can charge upwards to 599 dollars for a commission and not need to declare it—an appealing route for a lot of artists, however it’s a dangerous one. So, yes, each client counts differently, and having signed contracts help keep the IRS at bay, however these waters are quite tricky to navigate and would require legal counseling. ==Do I pay taxes?== Depends if you’ll make 400 dollars or under 400 dollars within a tax year. 400 dollars and over will mean you pay taxes, however 399.99 and under will mean you won’t. This is for the year, not per customer. You should be careful, though. Someone, somewhere, might take notice of your commissions and hire you to do a piece or many pieces of art for them. After this, they’ll try and write it off as a business expense and then you end up with a visit from the IRS asking about taxes and business licenses. So, I urge anyone interested in doing commissions to go to this link about self-employment taxes: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc554.html Understand, too, that your freelance work might actually be in demand or become popular. If this happens, and you owe well over 1000 dollars in self-employment taxes… then you might just have to pay taxes quarterly. You should take a moment and check this link, too: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=110413,00.html ==Are my supplies tax deductible?== Yes, however within reason. This means you need to really, really keep track of your records, spending and receipts. If something can be used as a legitimate expense toward a business or commissions, you’ll need to provide a reason why you needed it and at such a price. You’ll have to, within reason, explain everything near perfectly as to why it had to be used. In a sense you can claim any and all of your supplies to your electricity and even programs. However, you need to keep a good log on what and how, between what hours and how much was used. So, in a sense, you’ll have to really do your research and learn not to waste so much if you want to keep your commissions profitable. Good news, though. You can use a percentage of materials bought, whether they’re for training or studying purposes, and declare them as an “allowable expense”. You can also, within good reason, declare why such a percentage was needed for practicing, like wanting to ensure quality of a commission or product. Failed commissions, returned products and a net loss could, in a sense, be declared as business expense, too. If you’re savvy enough to buy a volt meter or electricity calculator, you can even measure the amount of electricity you used while on your computer or laptop during the commission or work period. Again, cataloguing and keeping every minute detail is key to ensuring you aren’t called a BS’er. If you can prove it vital for your commission or work process and period, you may be able to deduct it. In the end, however, it’s best to consult a tax expert when it comes to what can and can’t be declared as a viable business expense. ==How much should I charge?== Pricing is subjective and should be based upon what your level of quality your product’s considered and what the market is currently offering for similar pieces. So, if you believe your work is slightly better than another (more popular) artist, and they’re priced above 100, you should try to keep simpler pieces under their least expensive work and increase the price a bit above their most expensive work for your more complicated pieces. Don’t be afraid to ask other artists, besides your friends and family, as to what you should price your work as, either. This can provide useful feedback as to whether or not you’re too expensive or not priced high enough. Reddit and deviantART have quite a few artists offering commissions, so check those two sites out and compare your commissions to others for more insight. ==How do I seek payment?== How you seek payment is ultimately up to you. You can use paypal, which is one of your more popular choices. This choice, like any choice, has its limits. You should educate yourself and look through their site’s FAQ page before making your decision. And, if they still allow you to remain semi-anonymous through the use of a business account, you can avoid some potential prying. Patreon is another viable choice; however another issue arises from the fact that a newer trend with such a service is “monthly art”. An artist creates a patreon and enters into a contract, of sorts, where they create monthly art for those who donate on a monthly basis. Depending on the amount donated, and by whom, different quality of art is provided. Gift cards for Amazon (or any other place) are also another form of payment, and while not technically taxable, it can cause the IRS to investigate you due to the uptick in purchases or money placed onto your Amazon account. Some will claim this isn’t possible, however with how Amazon acts at times, it may end up causing more harm than good for you and yourself. Crypto-currency is another option artists love to use, but without proper sanitization and research, exchanging them can lead to several issues with privacy to money being given for them. This route should not only be researched but also used by those who’re more tech-savvy than the common internet user. ==When do I seek payment?== Depending on the work, you can seek half before completion as a “security deposit” and then half once finished. You should honestly work this out with your customer. Sometimes they’ll be willing to pay more if you give them some leniency in payment while others simply will give you a vibe of someone willing to skip out because they feel like it. Payment and when to seek it should be up to not only you, but also the customer. Try to gain a feel as if they’re (the customer) is trustworthy enough, though, as to prevent wasted time and supplies. ==How do I attract customers?== Plain and simple: Kissing a lot of cheeks. In order to attract customers and gain some form of credibility, you’ll need to manage your PR and commit a certain amount of time, energy and supplies to networking. You need to get a name for yourself, your art or product, and basically have a “brand” for yourself. This means you have a blog solely dedicated to commissions. You don’t use your main blog or anything related to any other accounts. Your commission blog or website is dedicated solely to commissions and selling your art or product. You keep it completely isolated from everything else of yours, and while working on this blog and build your brand, you must keep to your Ps and Qs. You have to remain semi-professional, avoid being political, avoid racial and sexual epithets, and most of all the impossible: Try not to offend anyone. You also want to start “gifting” art to popular bloggers and popular internet personalities, like Youtubers or e-celebs. A simple image of them or their persona, posted on your blog and a link sent to them or placed in their comments is enough to get people to click and view your blog (and possibly purchase your services). Besides the above, another good way to get some attention to yourself and your commissions would be working diligently on your SEO; however the PB team will cover that in another PDF. ==How do I let customers contact me?== When you’re trying to take commissions, it’s a good, secure practice to have an email account set aside specifically for that purpose. This should be the only email address that you ever have available publicly. It should only ever be used for commissions. Creating this account may make this easier for you; however remember to make it look and sound professional. Another good reason for making a separate email address is simply because you’ll be able build a list of contacts and their information, which you can use to keep your personal or private communication separate from your professional and business communications. Never delete your emails, either. Simply create a folder system composed of two main folders. Name these two folders: Complete and not completed. Within these two main folders, create sub-folders with each client’s name. By doing this, you should now be able to save each and every email in their proper folders. This will also serve as a means of providing proof of purchase or agreement. This’ll help you during taxes and in case of any possible lawsuits. Be formal, yet professional in your correspondence with your clients, however don’t be too personal. Being somewhat impersonal and simply focusing on the job ahead is better than accidentally leaking something personal that can be used to blackmail you into doing something you don’t want to do. Learn that being somewhat emotional is also a good thing in your correspondence. Stating that you’re thrilled or excited with a certain job might net you extra commission work or a repeat customer. So, remember: Impersonal and formal, yet professional. You’re a person, not a robot. Finally, be descriptive when working with a customer. Some won’ t be able to fully communicate their ideas as much as you might be able to, so take your time and encourage them to try and explain everything as clear and descriptive as possible. Anything that seems awkward or out of place can be pointed out by you or them before the finalized product. Always make a quick “work sketch” to show them what you’re planning to see if they want to add or subtract anything before you’re completed. Never let your guard drop or portray yourself as being lesser than. Always hold yourself to the highest standard possible and try to complete the work for the customer in the highest possible quality. Never be afraid, though, to turn down a customer simply because their demands are too high for you and your current level of skill. ==How Do I Keep Track of My Commissions?== Quite simply make a list and keep as much detail as possible. I use a list similar to the one below, which I urge you to copy and paste into a text document and modify to your needs. Client’s Name: Ensure you list their “Real name/legal name” + their username that they contacted you under. Date of Hire: This isn’t the date they contacted, but the date you’ve officially agreed on the terms and received materials (if any) needed for the job. Contact Information: Their e-mail address + phone number or other information given to you to contact them at. Job Description: A short, precise description on what you’re doing, who you’re doing it for and for how much (E.G: A landscape for John Smith of their OC and game clan. Being paid $200 for the final product). Price: The agreed upon price between you and the client. Payment: How much money you’ve to date from this job. Good to keep in case you’ve been given money in advance or if your client has only paid partially and still owes you. Due Date: Agreed upon date the product is supposed to be finalized/finished and ready for pickup/to be sent. Completion Date: Date of completion. Good to have on hand in case you finish early and the client tries to weasel out of payment or tries to reduce the payment. Also good to have on hand in case the client has contacted you for adjustments or for something to be added or redacted. Fees: A detailed list of your fees that range from how much transaction fees cost you to shipping & handling or even how much you had to spend on a specific tool or program to complete the job. Final Amount: Once you subtract the fees from your payment, this is the final amount of just how much profit you actually made. (E.G: So instead of making 200 dollars, you had to spend 150 and only ended up with a 50 dollar profit.) Always keep this up-to-date and on hand for tax purposes. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what you claim to be or your quality of work or skill level. Everyone has to pay their dues, including taxes. This is just the facts of living within the US, and most everywhere else. Everyone, if they make enough, has to pay a percentage to the state and other groups in order to be seen as conducting business legally. While a lot of people call it theft, the sad fact is that this is how society pays for welfare, certain charities, education and other similar items that a lot of people claim they support or want. The more people that exist within a certain area or in a country as a whole, the more resources are used and are needed. This means more taxes and less money you get to keep that you’ve earned. Voting a specific way or for a specific group will not lessen this, nor will converting fully to Communism or Socialism, or some other setup. There is no cure-all for taxes, as no matter what economic plan you follow, there’ll always be too many people needing help and care because they can’t exist, for whatever reason, in the current socio-economic climate. This is why you, as an artist, need to weigh your options. It may just be better, for you and your health, to move in with some friends or relatives and get a part time job at Starbucks or working as a night bartender. This isn’t meant to make fun of or say a certain economic plan can’t work, it’s just that the more people you have, the less resources everyone gets, and the more you have to give up to the state. There’ll never be an end to this fact of life—you have money, the government needs or wants it. You have to pay your taxes, no matter what. ================================================= Not Getting Your Privacy Destroyed The most careful artist can end up in a situation where they have half the internet breathing down their neck, usually around the same time as the yearly sale at the pitchfork emporium. It doesn’t matter who or what you are or what you said or drew, somehow the internet always finds a way to get upset. This is why you need to really, really think about whether or not having a name connected to your art, and growing out your ego, is worth the risk. No one likes to self-censor themselves because the feelings of others, and with how increasingly volatile a millennial’s emotional state becomes with age, an average artist feels like all they can do are images of kittens and puppies of a non-disclosed gender with some new-age sexuality sprinkled about for extra inclusiveness. No one wants to do that. Everyone wants their creative freedom to draw politically charged portraits of popular figures or to make an image of Mohammed having coitus with an anthropomorphic female pig with an equine penis, or some such nonsense like that to make a statement about corruption, politics or just the state of things. Sadly, this isn’t the 80s or 90s, but the 2000s. Unlike web 1.0 or a backwater BBS, or usenet before Eternal September, the internet will much sooner join a witch hunt for someone who may have offended some obscure minority group instead of actually trying to discern the facts from the lies. So this means you must really work toward the upkeep and health of your anonymity and privacy. You may think you’re the next Banksy or some other artist, and you may feel the urge to release your information and shout from the rooftops “I MADE THIS!” but it’ll only lead to some inexplicable group wanting you beheaded or simply just to ruin your life. This is why this chapter is dedicated to helping you ensure that you keep some semblance of anonymity in order to prevent you from getting your life or work threatened. Before we begin, however, I urge you to check out the Paranoid’s Bible’s Library, once again, for their OPSEC PDF. It contains some useful information meant to help lessen your overall risk. Remember: The less people know, the less you have to worry. To further help you, however, I’ll post a series of some tips and tricks I’ve picked up on my adventures through art and posting it online. ==Everyone has a tell, including you== Everyone has a tell or trait that can be attributed as being only theirs. For artist, however, this is much easier to figure out than for a normal person. Sometimes it’ll be how an artist draws a certain appendage, or a trademark little curve in the nose, or even something as simple as how they draw trees or hide something within an image. Try to gauge what your tell may be, for if you can’t find your own tell, then working on a secondary style for posting more volatile works won’t work and inevitably lead back to you and your other works. Try to sanitize your styles of certain traits, like the reddening of cheeks where it isn’t needed. The more you can learn about your own style and tells, the easier it’ll be for you to avoid when using a style that’s different from your main. ==Learn to clean your EXIF data== As I stated earlier in this PDF, look at the EXIF data guide by the PB. People can learn if an image was made by you or not simply by comparing EXIF data of two or more images. This is especially troublesome if an artist tends to do more digital works than traditional works. The program you favor could inject its own data, like its name and program version, which can then be used to compare against your other works. If you’re like many artists, though, and you constantly recommend programs to your followers and fans, then it’ll be even easier to discern whether or not an image was done by you or not through EXIF data. If you follow the PB’s PDF on EXIF data, you can actually wipe most if not all images clean and even go as far as to modify the EXIF data with your own information that you choose, like for instance you can leave a note stating if you made it or not. This would be beneficial for your main works, actually, to help you advertise yourself. Some artists actually edit their images’ EXIF data to include their penname, main blog and commission info, even. So, really, outside of cleaning your images… it’s up to you as to whether or not you want to modify your EXIF data. ==Keep yourself limited== Limit what you put out there, outside of your art. You don’t need to give your full name, location, age or sexual preference. This can only be used to flesh out a dossier of information about you. If you need to give a name, either use a penname or look into simply going by your last name. You don’t need to do podcasts or talk on the phone, email communication and a blog are plenty enough. You don’t need to provide an image of yourself or state your ethnicity or race, either. Remember the simple mantra of: Keep It Simple Stupid. K.I.S.S. The less people know of you, the less they can do to harm you. ==AVOID EROTIC COMMISSIONS== Erotic commissions, especially furry ones, can be a good source of quick income and repeat purchasers, regardless of quality at times. A lot of people are simply grateful that someone would entertain the idea of producing a visual aide of their kinky, sometimes criminally insane depictions of their fantasies. While many artists don’t think this could be a problem, it rarely ever ends in good news. There are multiple issues with doing erotic commissions, and while your more popular porn artists will say how great and progressive their works are, the truth is you’re going to get doxed. For whatever reason, erotic commissions and porn artists are a magnet for internet drama, regardless of their original intentions. It could be something as simple as a concern troll being a catalyst for a digital crusade to someone being so obsessed with a character (waifu) that a simple paid commission, to them, is seen as rape or the character cheating on them. This is such an issue, for some people, that some will only do erotic commissions of original characters. There’s also the fact that some people are so detailed in their commissions, it turns out they’re having a porn image created of a real person that they know in reality. If you do, for whatever reason, end up doing erotic commissions… invent an entirely new persona, style and set of information. Keep this series of commissions, persona and account completely isolated and separated from your other accounts and personas. You don’t want this to ever come back to you, in any way, whatsoever. Always use a different username and password! One of the simplest forms of OPSEC outside of using different email addresses for each account, however it needs to be said over and over again. Seriously, use a different password and username for each and every one of your accounts. If you don’t, you’ll end up with your information tracked down faster than you can realize your mistake. Inevitable doxing aside, some people will simply sit on this information till you’re at your most vulnerable and utterly decimate your social status offline and online. ==NEVER REBLOG OR ADVERTISE YOUR OTHER BLOGS OR ACCOUNTS== The best planned persona and blog can be completely destroyed, especially one dedicated to erotic commissions, if its owner reblogs or advertises it through their main or non-erotic blog or account. Many think they can simply advertise or reblog their own content from another blog to gain more commissions or views, yet they don’t realize the danger in doing so. Always keep your accounts, blogs, users… everything… separated. You mustn’t cross contaminate your information with another set, ever. This can lead to not only be doxed but, yet again as previously stated, the end of your social status or even trust. ==Avoid social media== Seriously, outside of a blog, social media can only hinder your privacy and security. Avoid using Facebook and similar sites, their benefits are outweighed by the potential damage. You may think it’ll boost your views and potential commissions; however it leaves a near non-removable trail of information and data that can be used to profile you and track your other information down. Twitter may not be that damaging, however tweets are always archived near instantly by several 3rd party sites. Remember: Keep. It. Simple. Stupid. ==Sanitize your Whois if you have a site== Easiest way for an artist to get doxed, or their information saved up for a rainy day raid, is for them to forget to sanitize their site’s Whois. Check to see if your host or Registar offers a service before looking toward a 3rd party service. Godaddy, among several others, offer the service right off the bat whereas some others require you to ask. Do your research; ensure your site’s Whois is clean of your information. ==Avoid using anything that’s local== Doing a commission, locally, for a business, friend or family isn’t a problem. Doing it online or sprinkling references to local sights, attractions or events, though, is a problem and can lead to someone’s interest piquing and them becoming interested enough to investigate you and your information. Never, ever, post anything or draw anything directly to your city or state. It doesn’t matter how small you think it is, don’t cross contaminate your works with anything from your area unless it’s for a local commission and done offline. Also avoid basing anything too much on your experiences. Don’t recycle names of real people, which you know, in your art. Don’t recycle mascots or similar things in your art. Don’t recycle local customs or cuisines. If you do, do so in such an obscured and generalized fashion that it can’t be traced back to you. Think about stripping something down to its base and then rebuilding it in such a way that it’s generalized and represents the entire state and not your city or a local establishment. An example would be gumbo and how people think of the South and Louisiana. ==Separate your lives== If you had parents that actually loved you, then you’ll have heard the adage of “When you leave this house, you represent this family!” or something similar to it. This adage rings doubly true when it comes to capturing that elusive unicorn called a "A job in the industry" (Read: running Nintendo's Twitter PR account). If you somehow struck a deal with Satan or killed a deity, and gained a job with Disney or some other major figurehead of a company, be aware that you need to keep not only your home life separated from your business life, but also your internet life. All three lives should be completely separated from each other. Never let them touch or you can potentially have your family dragged into some internet drama. All in all, it’s simple OPSEC and common sense. As long as you keep your wits about you and treat every account and commission as its own separate entity, no one should be able to pickup on who you are or your information. However, don’t be lazy and complacent. The moment you think you’re safe is the moment someone will find a piece of information to toy with and exploit in order to gain access to further information about you. Keep it simple and keep it separated. ================================================= Afterword Art is meant to be fun and exciting, not droll and tedious. If you don’t feel a spark and suddenly feel pressured into doing art, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Find something else or you risk losing your creativity altogether, and honestly look into doing an actual job that doesn’t require you putting yourself in a constant state of panic over quality. Even if you’re a coffee jockey, it’ll be more relaxing and easier on you than tearing your hair out over deadlines. Commissions aren’t for everyone and the stress of deadlines, quality and competition can lead to you despising art. You’ll find yourself embittered and angry at the slightest perceived wrong, which can lead to you upsetting some community or another that’ll plan your downfall. Art, like the internet, shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Enjoy it and learn to let political nonsense and money not affect your creativity. Don’t censor yourself because you’re afraid of losing commissions or not being popular enough. Do the art and styles you want, yet remember that like everything else you need practice, patience and an actual spark to do it. Seriously, though, go work at a restaurant or at a supermarket. It’ll be a stable paycheck at least and you won’t end up burning your art supplies and/or tablet in a fit of rage.

[zipgrowth]

Here's What Happened When Students Solved Social Media Problems With Design Thinking

A few weeks ago, Aaron, a student in my high school elective class, mentioned he didn’t use social media very often. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical at first. When I followed up, he told the class he found the ads distracting—and said he ended up buying things he didn’t need.

“But how do you hang out with people?” asked another student, Holly, somewhat incredulously.

“Well, I Snapchat,” Aaron clarified. “I just don’t use Instagram or Facebook.”

From behind his computer screen, Hugh, a junior, interjected. “Facebook is just a waste of time. Everyone’s posing like their life is perfect.”

Meet some of the members of my Digital Literacy class, an elective course for students in grades nine through twelve. I’m usually a library media specialist, but with only a few days notice, I had inherited this course from another instructor and was given the added challenge of updating the curriculum.

As daunting as that initially felt, I was liberated to explore topics that would resonate with the students who enrolled. One of the units I envisioned was called “Social: The New Media.” So I got to work, curating a playlist of videos on topics I wanted them to explore—such as the well-publicised problems with social media platforms and false news—and figured I’d let students explore sub-topics that interested them.

I consulted the lessons and ideas published by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), Google's Applied Digital Skills and the archives of The Sift from the News Literacy Project. Clearly, I had lots of stuff I could ask the students to do. But on the eve of introducing the unit I began to acknowledge that I, a digital immigrant, was owning it, as opposed to my digital native students. And something about that didn't feel right.

The goal of the unit—informed by the work of educators like Jennifer Casa-Todd and Kristen Mattson—was to consider responsible online conduct, and then learn to harness the media they were already using for good. I decided I needed a different approach that honored that goal, and realized that I didn’t have to be the one identifying the problems.

Enter Design Thinking

As it turns out, the unit was actually a great opportunity for the class to engage in a full design thinking process in order to own and develop solutions to the social media problems they experience. Having recently completed a design thinking certification with Future Design School, and equipped with their curriculum app, I was ready to go. When I presented the idea to the class, I had no clue which problems the students would identify. In fact, I expected to experience a bit of “say-what-the-teacher-wants-to-hear syndrome.” Yet I maintained hope that we could push past that and into their authentic concerns. What I did know was the students were going to own this unit entirely: the content focus, the resource curation and the product creation.

Design thinking begins with falling in love with a problem. To that end, the students crowdsourced lists of the pros and cons of social media using markers and huge sheets of paper. The only rule: Do not cross out or cover anything you find; only add. When students were stumped for words, I encouraged them to draw what social media would be like if their problem didn’t exist.

Students brainstormed their lists of problems and came up with solutions. (image: Jacquelyn Whiting)

Each student chose the con that most bothered them and pro they most enjoyed and combined them into a question beginning with the prompt, “How might we….” Without being prompted, students chose to tackle ubiquitous issues that impact much wider audiences and users than just teenagers. They took on hate speech, time wasting, money wasting (courtesy of Aaron), digital permanence and inauthenticity. Here are some of their questions:

HMW preserve a way to connect and share ideas while avoiding impulse shopping in response to targeted ads?

HMW preserve the connections between people while fixing the distribution of hate?

HMW preserve the freedom of being able to share what we want and being able to connect with others while fixing the consumption of time it takes?

HMW preserve social media's ability to connect us with varied communities while fixing the way it encourages dangerous comparisons?

Empowered Learning

Once their problems were defined students were ready to continue with the design thinking process, which uses a series of steps to encourage rapid prototyping of solutions. Steps include: empathizing with those who experience the problem, researching and ideating possible solutions, prototyping, stakeholder testing and iteration.

To grow empathy with social media users other than themselves, the students interviewed people in their lives and communities and built online profiles highlighting interesting things their subjects said. They included enlightening or new information they had discovered, and wrote about how those people experienced a given problem, such as feelings of isolation or inadequacy when scrolling through social media feeds.

This is where all of the resources that I collected in preparation for teaching this unit were valuable as the students examined the insights from their interviews and then conducted research in order to develop solutions. As the owners and designers of this unit, the students engaged passionately with their chosen topic, supported by guidance and encouragement from me.

(image: Jacquelyn Whiting)

This process was much more meaningful and empowering than any teacher-directed instruction I could have created, and resulted in deep conversations about our digital connectedness and incredible potential solutions to problems we share.

When building the prototypes of their solutions, some students made paper versions of redesigned apps. Others developed storyboards of what their solution would look like in action by drawing the sequences on Post-Its and then creating a short video. In some cases their solutions leveraged emerging technology in designing their solutions; other times they designed new hashtag campaigns and even entirely new platforms to replace sites like Facebook. Sometimes they became frustrated and said things like, “I can’t actually build this.” Then they would wonder, “What if someone does build it…” and recommit to their research and planning.

For the user testing phase, students left the classroom to engage members of our school community. They watched how those people interacted with their prototypes and interview them about their reactions to the proposed solution both in terms of the viability of the concept and its appeal. Then they solicited opinions using online tools, such as Google Forms and Padlet boards. From there, they incorporated that feedback into their final designs.

During this three-week unit these students brainstormed, planned, researched, problem-solved, reflected, collaborated and revised. They did this independently, and with more investment than they had demonstrated at any other point in the year. In the process they prompted me—and, by extension, you—to ponder some important issues and join forces as part of the possible solution. Consider:

Do all of your social media posts show only your best, brightest, happiest moments? Considering joining the #badday and #authenticself campaigns, and celebrate authenticity by posting about frustrations or setbacks you experience.

Have you ever totaled the amount you spend shopping in response to ads targeted at you on social media? Would you consider paying a fraction of that amount to join a social media platform that protects your private information and is ad-free?

Have you stopped to think about the language you use on social media? Stay on the lookout for machine learning that will prompt people to reconsider the vocabulary in their posts if they use offensive language, and warn you if you are about to friend someone who does.

All of these innovations are brought to you by the creative, collaborative, design thinking work of teenagers who own their learning.

Here's What Happened When Students Solved Social Media Problems With Design Thinking published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

[itbeatsbookmarks]

(Via: Hacker News)

I love a good tech talk. I like to watch them, I like to give them, and now that I have lots of free time on my hands, I’ve put together a list of the must-see talks for every programmer. In this list, I’ve avoided language or library specific talks and instead focused on high-level, general topics that apply to everyone:

The future of technology

User interface

Programming language design

Software engineering

Computers and learning

A career in programming

Computer gaming

Fun talks

If I missed a talk you love, leave a comment. Happy watching!

The future of technology

The Future Doesn't Have To Be Incremental by Alan Kay

When thinking about the future, you can’t do better than Alan Kay. In The Future Doesn’t Have To Be Incremental, Kay describes how Xerox PARC was able to develop so many new technologies in such a short time, including the personal computer, bitmap displays, GUI, desktop publishing, word processing, laser printing, Ethernet, and object oriented programming. The key was a culture focused on invention - that is, fundamentally new research - instead of incremental innovation. Invention requires a significantly higher investment of money, much longer time frames, and a different approach to problem solving (“wouldn’t it be ridiculous if in 30 years we didn’t have…”).

Other essential talks on the future of technology:

The Mother of All Demos by Douglas Engelbart. A demonstration of hypertext, graphics, video conferencing, the mouse, word processing, and much more - all in 1968! This is the kind of leap frog invention Kay is referring to.

The Future of Programming by Bret Victor. A brilliant talk where Bret Victor takes us back in time and reminds us that “the most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person is to think that you know what you’re doing. Because once you think you know what you’re doing you stop looking around for other ways of doing things and you stop being able to see other ways of doing things. You become blind.”

The Computer Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet by Alan Kay. “I made up the term object-oriented and I can tell you I didn’t have C++ in mind.”

User Interface

Inventing on Principle by Bret Victor

Bret Victor’s talk Inventing on Principle will make all of your programming languages and tools feel obsolete. He presents a new way to write code: a user interface that makes the computer do the tedious work so that you can experiment with and react to your code instead of trying to simulate it in your head. This not only makes it much easier to learn programming, it fundamentally changes how we go about solving problems.

More UI goodness:

Stop Drawing Dead Fish by Bret Victor. Using computers to bring art to life.

Media Thinking for the Unthinkable by Bret Victor. Designing a new medium for science and engineering.

Doing With Images Makes Symbols by Alan Kay. How humans learn and how to build user interfaces that support it. “The parts of the body you want to have learn don’t understand English.”

Programming language design

Simple Made Easy by Rich Hickey

Rich Hickey, the creator of Clojure, has the ability to make you see basic concepts in computer science in a whole new light. Complexity is one of these basic concepts and Simple Made Easy defines some of the best tools - the best language - to reason about it.

A few other talks to add to your playlist:

Are We There Yet? by Rich Hickey. Another foundational talk by Hickey that will force you to reconsider state, time, identity, values, and types.

Growing a Language by Guy Steele. One of the most clever presentations I’ve ever seen on programming language design. Give it about 10 minutes - the payoff is amazing.

The Science of Insecurity by Meredith Patterson. Why current systems and protocols are inherently insecure and how to fix that in the future.

Software Engineering

What We Actually Know About Software Development, and Why We Believe It's True by Greg Wilson

Greg Wilson will force you to look closely at how you make decisions in software engineering: should you use Java? Ruby? Play Framework? Rails? TDD? Agile? Code reviews? Most of your answers are probably based solely on opinions, memes, trends, and anecdotes. What We Actually Know About Software Development, and Why We Believe It’s True is an important call to change our practices and move to a world of evidence-based software engineering.

Other great talks:

Real Software Engineering by Glenn Vanderburg. Software engineering as it’s taught in universities simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t produce software systems of high quality, and it doesn’t produce them for low cost. Sometimes, even when practiced rigorously, it doesn’t produce systems at all.

Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey. “Most of the biggest problems in software are problems of misconception.” To solve hard problems, step away from the computer, take some time to think, and write it down.

The Language of the System by Rich Hickey. We focus extensively on the perfect programming language to build a single system, but what about languages for how multiple systems communicate with each other?

Computers and Learning

What we're learning from online education by Daphne Koller

Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng are trying to reinvent education. They created Coursera, which offers real university classes, online and for free, to anyone in the world. What we’re learning from online education talks about some of the techniques they are using to run classes of hundreds of thousands of students - including video, discussion forums, interactive UI’s, automatic grading, and peer grading - and how this experiment is giving us unprecedented insight into how humans learn.

A few other powerful talks on education:

Let’s use video to reinvent education by Salman Khan. Whereas Koller’s talk is about university classes, Khan’s talk is about online education for K-12 via the Khan Academy.

Teaching Creative Computer Science by Simon Peyton Jones. Every child should learn computer science because it teaches them a new way of thinking.

Machine Learning, A Love Story by Hilary Mason. The talks above are about teaching people; this talk is about teaching computers.

A Career in Programming

You and Your Research by Richard Hamming

You and Your Research is the blueprint for a successful career in any discipline, not just research; in fact, the talk has the nickname “You and Your Career”. In this lecture, Richard Hamming shares his observations on “why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?’’ Some of the key ideas include courage, luck, drive (“knowledge and productivity are like compound interest”), a focus on important problems (“If you do not work on an important problem, it’s unlikely you’ll do important work”), open doors, selling the work (“I suggest that when you open a journal, as you turn the pages, you ask why you read some articles and not others”), and much more. This should be required viewing for every high school student.

More talks on how to succeed in the programming industry:

The Myth of the Genius Programmer by Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman. This talk isn’t about geniuses or 10x programmers, but rather, about building a culture that avoids elitism and provides support for personal growth, collaboration, and ideas.

Programming Well With Others: Social Skills for Geeks by Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman. The Fitz and Ben duo are back to remind you that you need to learn more than just programming languages, compilers, debuggers, and algorithms to be a successful software engineer

JavaScript Masterclass by Angelina Fabbro. Don’t let the title fool you: this talk is a tutorial for how intermediate developers can become experts in any topic, not just JavaScript.

Computer Gaming

Gaming can make a better world by Jane McGonigal

By the time kids graduate high school, they have spent 10,000 hours playing games: this is roughly equivalent to the time they spend in school (if they had perfect attendance!) and the amount of time it takes to become an expert. What are they learning during those 10,000 hours? Jane McGonigal will show you how this time and learning can be used to make a better world.

More gaming goodness:

The game that can give you 10 extra years of life by Jane McGonigal. A powerful talk by McGonigal about how games can improve our lives and how they helped her recover from suicidal depression following a severe concussion.

Human Computation by Luis von Ahn. We can use human brain power and gaming to solve problems that are difficult for computers, such as image recognition, translation, and “common sense”.

Design Outside the Box by Jesse Schell. What happens when games invade every aspect of our lives.

Fun talks

Wat by Gary Bernhardt

Now, it’s time for some fun. Gary Bernhardt’s talk Wat is 5 minutes of pure awesome.

A few others to brighten your day:

Computers are a sadness, I am the cure by James Mickens.

Programming is terrible - lessons from a life wasted by Thomas Figg.

The Web Will Die When OOP Dies by Zed Shaw.

[eelgibbortech-blog]

Free online marketing courses to improve your digital marketing skills

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Improve your skills to become a ‘T-shaped Marketer’ via these free online courses and tutorials

When we look at where to focus our free blog content at Smart Insights, our main aim or filter we use is that the content must help digital marketers plan, manage and optimize their business results or improve their digital skills. This is also what our member content, in our guides focuses on too – starting with digital strategies and planning templates then more specialized marketing tactics like email marketing, social media, SEO, video and many more digital skills.

Of course, there is a lot of great free, structured online courses around developing digital skills, so we thought it would help to share our thoughts on this – and give a shout out for our free online course content.

We agree with the Co-founder of Moz Rand Fishkin that modern marketers and particularly hands-on Content Marketers need to be ‘T-shaped’, that is they should specialize in one area but also have a good understanding and basic skills across the many different areas of digital marketing today.

The T-shaped marketer needs many skills, which once would not have been needed for marketers but are now key to being able to perform their roles effectively. For example, knowing the basics of HTML is essential to my role, and I’d be useless without it. I’m no expert, and if you told me to code a website it would look like a dog’s dinner (there are probably nine-year-olds that know more about CSS than me) but the point is that although it is not an area I specialize in, I know enough to have a basic comprehension and make tweaks when they are needed. Similarly, I’m no Photoshop wiz, nor am I a master of InDesign, but being able to use these design tools is essential to my role and so, I need to know how to use them.

Marketers need to hone their skills in many different areas to give them a basic grasp of how to use many different platforms and tools. We think good training is worth paying for, but whilst it’s definitely worth paying for learning resources in the areas you are trying to learn in-depth, if you are on a tight budget then it may be expensive for you to pay for training in all of the many areas the modern marketers needs to know about, plus resources on how to handle all the different pieces of software you’ll need to be able to use to be an excellent ‘T-shaped’ marketer.

That’s why we’re recommending these free online courses to you to improve your digital marketing skills.

Free online marketing training resources

Planning Digital Marketing – RACE Digital Marketing Planning Elearning Module – free introductory topics

It’s no good being up to date with all the latest marketing tools and ancillary software if you can’t put it into practice as part of a well thought out marketing plan. That’s where our RACE Digital Marketing Planning Elearning Module comes in.

It will show you how to create a Digital Marketing Strategy using the Smart Insights RACE Planning system, and help you learn the fundamentals of successful digital marketing, to create a long-term plan to grow your business using 25 key digital marketing techniques.

It’s designed to be super-practical – as you complete each topic, you can create a Digital Strategy or Plan for your business or your clients.

Only the first topics are free, but somewhat obviously, we think it’s worth letting you know about it!

Assessing Digital Marketing – Smart Insights’ Interactive Benchmarking tool

Knowing where your organization is currently ‘at’ in terms of digital marketing and discovering the next steps to improve this can be really helpful to businesses no matter how basic or advanced their current use of digital marketing. Our free interactive benchmarking tool will do just that. You have to be a member to access it, but basic (free) members can still use it once to see where they rate and how they can improve. Expert members can use it as often as they like.

Watch our 15-second video to see how the tool works:

HTML – Codecademy

Codecademy is great for taking you through the basics of HTML and it really guides you through and holds your hand when you are starting out and code just seems confusing. Often free learning is okay but not the same quality you would get if you paid for it, but Codecademy is genuinely really useful and rivals paid tools for functionality. It does much more than just HTML, so if you want to take it further you can learn CSS, Java Script and even PHP, Python and Ruby if you want.

Photoshop – Free course on Udemy

This free course is perfect if you’ve used Photoshop before but need to update your skills. 29 lectures take you through new features and productivity enhancements and will be useful whether you are brand new to Photoshop or if you’ve been using it for years.

InDesign – Free course on Udemy

This course takes you through the basics of this powerful but often intimidating design program. Over 11 hours of content split up into 105 lectures take you through your first steps right up to more advanced features. Plus the author has included more than 2GB of work-files so that you can work alongside him as he teaches you the ins and outs of this powerful desktop publishing software!

Google Analytics – Analytics Academy

Google Analytics is a great tool, and getting to grips with it is essential for all digital marketers. Even if you think you’ve got a handle on it, there may well be features you don’t realize exist that you could you to generate insights which could help you increase your conversion rate or attract more visits. The Google Analytics Academy is a great free resource to help improve your skills. You can view lessons from experts and test your knowledge. Whilst it is great for learning how it works, it isn’t always easy to infer insights and how to apply Google analytics to improve results without further training.

On the topic of Google, Google Digital Garage is great for beginners wanting introductory fundamentals of different marketing channels. They offer free online starter courses on search, social media, mobile etc. and many more in their library of topics. These are only a starting point and more advanced training will be needed to specialize in any marketing channel.

UX Design – Hack Design

This free online course is more of a very well put together reading list than a course per se. But it is a great way for digital marketers to get to grips with the basics of UX design, which can help them in many different elements of their role.

Our Research Analysist with over 5 years experience in insights and UX, Robert Jones, recommends Interactive Design Foundations on Lynda. This course includes topics covering:

Understanding the origins of interaction design

Understanding gestalt principles

Designing with grids

Understanding design patterns

Exploring how people respond to motion and color

Communicating through labels and icons and more

Video editing- Open University Podcast ‘the final cut’

This podcast from the Open University is delivered by Ben Harrex of Final Cut post production studios, and gives you a good idea how important editing your video is to how the final product looks – important to bear in mind for your video marketing. He makes a lot of good points, but it is not always the most actionable advice. On the plus side though, the podcast format means you can listen on the bus, or when out for a run, so no time wasted!

Marketing for Startups- BlueMint Marketing

This quick online marketing course is designed specifically for those looking to market start-ups and want to get the most out of their marketing budgets. It will teach you a valuable marketing system to make your efforts much more effective, helping you gain traction and grow your business.

Pay Per Click Ads – PPC University

Wordstream have created a series of free PPC courses to help you get more bang for your buck when using Google AdWords or other PPC options. The courses cover all levels, from introductory to advanced, so you can learn more no matter what your current level.

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