JayPosey.com

Jay Posey

Stoplights and Brick Walls

by

No stoplight ever actually stopped a driver.  It’s just a light, after all, and it’s all the way up there in the air.  You can literally drive right under it and it won’t do anything except maybe glare at you with extra red as you pass by.  (Unless you have a very tall car, I mean.)

Brick walls, on the other hand, tend to be fairly substantial and have no qualms about JACKING YOU UP if you try to drive through them.

It’s not unusual for us to find ourselves confronted by a few stoplights when we’re trying to do something new.  They can be useful indicators of when we need to slow down, or when we need to take a break.

But sometimes it’s tempting to pretend a stoplight is a brick wall.  Because it makes it easier to quit.

It’s not my fault!  I tried my hardest, but darn it I got there and the light was red and it just stayed red AND I WAITED SO LONG, so what was I supposed to do besides turn right on red and drive all the way to some other place I didn’t want to be?  IT WAS RED.  WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

Well … sometimes running a red light might not be such a bad idea.  You slowed down.  You checked all directions.  There were no cars coming.  There’s definitely not a police officer sitting behind you. Go ahead.  Run the light.  It’s just a light, after all.  Use that sentence fragment!  Mix those two colors that are so outdated!  Take that sentimental picture!  Write that story that’s “just genre fiction”!

(That’s a metaphorical red light, of course.  I absolutely do not suggest, recommend, or endorse the violation of traffic laws at any point in time ever at all, Mr. Officer, sir.)

But brick walls?  Usually the faster you charge at them to take them down, the more you’ll end up damaging yourself.  Brick walls require us to change course.  Sometimes we just need to take a detour to go around and approach our destination from a different direction.  Sometimes, along the way we find a new, better destination.

As tough as it may be to admit, there are things in life that will never work out no matter how hard we work at them.  Or worse, they will kind of limp along in a broken and increasingly frustrating state for as long as we’re willing to give them our time and attention.  And they might be things that we really and truly want.  And usually they are things that we really and truly aren’t built to do.

It’s a hard truth that most of us can’t actually be WILDLY SUCCESSFUL at anything we put our minds to.

I could study quantum physics for the rest of my life, and no matter how much I applied myself, I would never be as good a quantum physicist as the people that are naturally wired to understand that particular field.  Which is why I think we can all agree that quantum physics is stupid and only for nerds!

The trick is learning to tell the difference between stoplights and brick walls.  The sooner you can recognize which one you’re facing, the quicker you can adapt your strategy for overcoming it.

And once you are WILDLY SUCCESSFUL, you can totally waggle your various accolades in the faces of all those quantum physicists and make them spill their juice on their pants because nerds!

(I actually think quantum physicists are incredible people.)

(Because I’m a nerd.)

The One Mistake That Ruins Your Networking

by

I know networking is important. Knowing it actually makes things worse for a hardcore introvert like me though, because even when it’s not “important”, I’m already nervous about striking up a conversation with a stranger because I am terrible at small talk and APPARENTLY IT’S POOR FORM TO GO DEEP RIGHT FROM THE GET GO.

Me: Hi, I’m Jay Posey, I just wanted to introduce myself and ask if you have ever thought about how what you’re doing with your life might actually be completely irrelevant and meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Generous Celebrity: Hi, Jay, that’s a great question, and I think every artist struggles with that question from time to time.

Me: Here’s my card.

Generous Celebrity: Great, thanks.

Me: NETWORKING!!!!

(And then I snort/laugh awkwardly and a little bit of spit flips out of my mouth, catches my upper lip, and somersaults acrobatically onto my glasses.  We each pretend this didn’t happen.)

That never actually happened of course (OF COURSE, I SAY), but that is literally the best case I can imagine.

For a while I kind of gave up on “networking” because I recognized I was really bad at it and all of the advice people gave me didn’t really help because it was too many things to remember when it came time to Network.

Be polite, but act important!  Speak confidently!  But don’t be confrontational!  Eye contact!  But don’t stare!  Firm handshake!  Now, quick, make small talk!  No, not like that!  Oh no, no, no, quick make a joke!  No a funny one!  Just laugh so they know you were joking!  Aarrgh not the spit again!  The card, give the card! EJECT EJECT!

And then (probably as most socially adept people naturally recognize) I learned a great lesson.  I was actually more successful at “networking” the less I tried to do it!

IF YOU’RE ONLY HERE BECAUSE OF THE HEADLINE, SKIP TO HERE:

The crucial mistake I was making?  I was networking as if I expected something from everybody.  

I tended to gravitate to the people I thought had the most power to help me get where I was going (the same five people everyone else wanted to talk to), and I ignored the people I didn’t recognize (many of whom were awesome pros who didn’t feel it necessary to draw attention to themselves).

Getting That Movie Exec’s card, or meeting That Screenwriter, or talking to That Actor, or sitting next to That Creative Director, any one of those things could be my ticket!  My ticket that would pay off instantly!!  AND THEN GLORY AND RICHES AND THEN I AT LAST WILL COVER THE WORLD IN DARKNESS MUHAHAHAHAHA etc. etc.

Even Generous Celebrities get tired of people thinking of them as a stepping stone.

When you’re setting out to Network, just being kind, friendly, and generous and not expecting anything in return is a really great place to start.

It’s even better when you can be the person who connects two people who need each other to Make Things Happen, even when there’s literally nothing in it for you.

Maybe especially when there’s nothing in it for you.

How My GPS Makes Me a Worse Driver

by

So as the title may have suggested, I made a discovery recently.  I’m a noticeably worse driver when I’m using my GPS.

At first I thought it was just my imagination because clearly a GPS isn’t that much different than having an eager-to-help friend or spouse sitting right there next to you, telling you exactly what your next turn is going to be in 22 miles, and then reminding you of it when it’s just a mile away, and then reminding you again when it’s 0.2 miles, and then pointing out cheerily that you missed your turn and that you should return to the highlighted route, and then diplomatically refraining from commenting when you do a three point turn in heavy traffic and everyone is honking at you.

But then I started keeping track of things like how much my speed varied or how many times my tires drifted out of a lane and I noticed that yep, empirically, I’m a worse driver when my GPS is on.

Naturally being the inquisitive guy that I am I said to myself, “Self, why is it that you are so much worse at driving when you have your GPS on?”, to which I replied “NOT NOW, WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THIS CORNFIELD FIRST!”

Later, I realized there was a pretty simple explanation for it.  See, my particular brand of GPS (which I shall not identify because they don’t pay me enough to endorse them and also I’m talking about how their product makes me bad at things) has all kinds of Good Information it can tell me besides just how to get where I’m going.  It can tell me what direction I’m currently headed.  Or my elevation.  Or my expected arrival time.  Or how fast I’m going.

The problem is, I don’t generally need all that information.  But because it’s available, I find myself constantly monitoring all of it.  Why I feel the need to check my speed on my GPS and compare it to my speedometer, I don’t know.  Nor do I understand why I need to look to make sure I’m STILL on the right street, even though I just looked six seconds ago, and I have 83 more miles to go before my next turn.  But I do it anyway.  And all of this data monitoring, while interesting, takes me away from the Primary Thing I’m supposed to be doing which is NOT DRIVING INTO THAT CORNFIELD.

And then I noticed I do the same thing when I’m writing.  I have all these ways to measure things like page number and red squigglies for typos and word count and what not and so forth and because I have deadlines I find myself constantly monitoring various metrics that are all very interesting and useful indicators of progress but are also taking me away from focusing on the Primary Thing I’m supposed to be doing which is NOT WRITING INTO THAT CORNFIELD.

Certainly there’s a time for analysis and evaluation.  Is this plot point working?  Is that character more than just a stereotype?  Am I on track to hit my deadline?  Is squiggly actually a word?  Are there really that many cornfields in Durham?

But constant monitoring is a trap.  It’s a great way to distract yourself from doing and, in the worst case, to deceive yourself into thinking you’re actually accomplishing something when you are in fact hamstringing your own productivity.

Focus is underrated.  Metrics have their place.  But mostly the way to get where you’re going is to keep your eyes on the road, your hands on the wheel, and your foot on the appropriate pedals depending on your circumstances.  Accelerator for road, brake for cornfields.

 

Lawn Watering

by

I never wanted to be the guy standing out in his yard with a garden hose watering his lawn.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it, mind you.  I’ve just never been the kind of dude to get all excited about TURF BUILDER and BROADLEAF KILLING ACTION.

But I did sometimes sit around dreaming about what it’d be like to own a home (you know, having a house on a nice plot of land and a nearby stream and a dog and a little writing cottage where I could sneak out back and write while wearing an over-sized woolen cardigan and sipping a steaming cup of tea while it snowed).

Somehow in becoming a home owner, I became the guy who stands in his yard with a garden hose watering the lawn.

Dreams are funny like that.  Even when you achieve them, they often come with a bunch of other stuff that’s just as annoying or tedious as anything you had to deal with before you accomplished them.

Many authors discover that once they’ve Become Published, they have to spend an awful lot of time doing things that aren’t Writing, like interviews and book signings and guest blog posts and generally all the other self-promoting type activities that most of them never wanted to do in the first place.

A lot of entrepreneurs leave their humdrum 9-to-5 40-hour-a-week corporate job to go do The Thing They Love, and discover that now they’re working 8AM-to-midnight 100-hour-a-week jobs (because they only work 4 hours on Sundays) that include a whole bunch of stuff like sending out invoices and filing taxes and wondering why they’re making less now than they did working for The Man.

And don’t even get me started about what designing video games is REALLY like.  (Hint: It, surprisingly, from what I can tell so far, does NOT involve dropping off that 149 page notebook you filled up with GOOD IDEAS when you were in high school and returning 6 months later to find it implemented Just As You Envisioned and awesome.)

SPOILER ALERT:  The tedious will always be with you, wherever you go.  It’s part of the hidden cost of The Dream. But it’s a whole lot easier to handle when you’re dealing with the tedious bits of The Dream, instead of the tedious bits of the other thing you’re doing instead of The Dream.

(And by a whole lot, I might actually mean only marginally so.)

Because at least then there is Purpose.

At least, that’s what I try to tell myself when I’m standing in the front lawn in my bathrobe, dark socks, and flip flops, garden hose in hand, showering my precious baby grass seedlings and desperately hoping that maybe this will be the year they turn the tide against all the brown and yellowy gross creeping plant things that require no tending whatsoever to completely dominate a lawn and yet are, for some reason, not considered suitable ground cover by anyone else in the neighborhood not that I’m bitter.

The Myth of Comp Time

by

There’s this thing about working in game development where you work lots of overtime and then at the end of the project, sometimes the Overlords will be kind enough to give you that time back.  They call it comp time.  Because, you know, they are compensating you for all the extra time you put in.

This isn’t unique to the games industry of course.  But regardless of the industry, the fact is IT’S ALL A LIE.

You can’t give time back.  Time used is gone forever.  It’s irreplaceable.  Sure you might get a few extra days to kick back and relax (or to finally do laundry! or shower!!), but that doesn’t do anything to give you back the nights you didn’t tuck your kids in, or the weekends you sent your significant other off on a vacation without you, or the opportunities you missed to pursue that side-business, or the meals you skipped, or the exercise you didn’t do.

Just another way that The Man is keeping us all down and stealing our dreams and keeping us sedated so we don’t realize it.

Except it’s not just The Man.  We do it to ourselves all the time.  We put off doing the things we know we should and promise we’ll double down tomorrow.  Or next week.  Or for the New Year.  But that’s not really how it works.

Every day that we spend not reading to our children, or listening to our spouse, or praying, or Doing The Work is another day we gave up to do something else, like watch reality TV.  Which ISN’T EVEN REALITY (spoiler).

As much as I want to, I can’t go back and cram five days of intense Lego-building into the lives of my kids and think that’s going to somehow undo the three weeks I spent on a business trip.  Those three weeks are gone.  I can’t go a month of avoiding The Novel and think that I can make up for it with a flurry of Intense Devotion the next month.  Ignoring your blog for two weeks and then writing five posts in a row doesn’t bring back the people who gave up looking at the same old posts on Day 10.

(I’M LOOKING AT YOU, ME!) (I’ve never written five posts in a row, so don’t talk to me that way, self!)

All that said, there’s no reason to beat ourselves up when we haven’t been as diligent as we would’ve liked, or haven’t devoted time to the things we really wish we had.  There’s a saying that I really like that I totally just invented right now which is trademarked TM me that goes:

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.  The second best time is now.

(Google may tell you that this is actually an ancient Chinese proverb, but I like to think of it more as spontaneous, completely independent invention, which I thought of totally on my own, at the exact moment or possibly the split-second after I read it somewhere else.)

Which is all just a way to remind myself that tonight is a Writing Night, not a Refresh Twitter Constantly one.

Between Inspiration and Perspiration

by

There’s the old saying that goes:

something something something is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.

It’s not a very good saying obviously, but for some reason it’s stuck around.  As we’ve seen elsewhere, inspiration is never actually more than 3% according to scientifically-proven FACT, it’s true you don’t even need to Google it.  And it turns out that the amount of perspiration is vastly overstated as well, and one crucial piece is missing, which basically makes the whole thing useless.

Okay, it’s not completely wrong I guess.  Inspiration and perspiration are both important parts to Doing the Work.  But it leaves out a crucial piece that is frequently overlooked when we’re going back and reconstructing the Narrative of Our Moment of Genius.

That critical component is cultivation.

The mythical Flash of Genius is mostly just that … a myth.  More often than not our A-ha moments aren’t lightning flashes from heaven as much as they are Take On Me, or maybe The Sun Always Shines on T.V.

BOOOOO!  Sorry, that was terrible. There was this band, see, and they did these songs …

ANYWAY, what I meant to say there was that the Sudden Flash of Inspiration is most often actually the exclamation point on a slowly unfolding process that we sometimes don’t even notice is taking place.  Frequently it starts as a sort of hunch, that maybe there’s an Interesting Solution out there worth thinking about, and maybe we’ll get around to thinking about it at some point.

When we get that initial flash of Inspiration, it’s tempting to think that all that remains is the Perspiration, and sometimes we jump the gun trying to Do Work before we’re really ready for it. This happens frequently in writing, but most certainly isn’t unique to writers.

In any creative endeavor, it can be extraordinarily helpful to set things aside for a time and do Something Else.  Sometimes when we chase a solution, it’s squirrely and evasive and annoying and it thinks we’re playing WHEN WE’RE REALLY NOT.  But when you go away for a little while, solutions have a way of coming to find you.  It’s why so many of us have our Epiphanies when we’re driving or sleeping or showering or generally somewhere where there’s most likely not a pen handy.

So if you’ve had a Great Idea and you haven’t quite gotten around to Doing Anything About It, don’t beat yourself up.  Between inspiration and perspiration, there needs to be room for cultivation.

Which is a fine way to explain why it is you’re sitting in a coffee shop perusing Twitter instead of finishing up Chapter Eight of your sequel, POSEY!