Stop whining and write (you're more valuable that way).

I recently read three questions in writer's online groups and an article in which writers question or complain about technical and client-centered writing. The authors are worried they are not getting their own voice across, not allowed to show enough creativity, aren't receiving enough credit.

I say: stop whining and write. You're more valuable that way.


Stop measuring your worth by your byline. I know you're hoping to write a novel or creative work that changes the world. I am too. (I fantasize my work of genius will be found alongside To Kill A Mockingbird as required reading. Or that at least TKAM is restored to required lists in all schools. But I digress). 

There is something to be said for technical accomplishments.  I have been a creative and technical/proposal/PR writer for 20 years. Despite being moderately successful at the creative endeavors, I've been told by creative writers that I'm not a "real" writer [insert "but it's cute you think so" tone here] because I spend more time on technical writing.

So humor me (though I'm not kidding) when I say:

• Consider that a grant I wrote - a boring, research-laden federal grant - created an innovative education program for my city and has since revolutionized the way we look at parent engagement in education.
• Leadership articles and blogs I have written have been institutionalized into training programs through which people are learning to work better in teams and have greater impact in their organizations.
• A fellow technical writer/friend of mine wrote the guidebook to a complicated medical device that helped people finally understand how to properly use it - and is potentially saving lives.

You get the idea. Writers have a gift: we give life to the thoughts of our collective subconscious. We articulate humanity. Therefore any time you are writing, for any purpose, you are valuable. I'd rather know that right now my writing is helping the media change how they treat victims of violent crime than collecting dust in a publisher's office because (for whichever of many valid reasons, of which bad writing may not be one) it didn't sell well. And by the way:  technical writing pays the bills. Pretty well, actually.  

So just write. Use your talent and credit will follow. Creativity? Anyone can start from scratch and write a story (well maybe not a decent story...). But not everyone can make colonoscopy equipment sound inviting. Now that's creative talent.


(image source)

Technology: Talent Need Not Apply

Any sufficient advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.     -Arthur C. Clarke

"When did software become my medium?" my artist friend asked last week via chat, lamenting the amount of time she spends creating, promoting, selling, collaborating and working online. This is a sad question from a woman who used to say that, to her, the smell of paint in her studio was "what baking cookies is to other people."

Coincidentally, two days later I saw Sound City, Dave Grohl's documentary about Sound City Recording Studio. The history of this charmingly lackluster studio was a front for the documentary's real purpose: exploring technology's effect on musical talent.

Viewing the documentary at the Tivoli Theatre (itself an historic presence in entertainment), I waxed nostalgic about my early days working in radio. We spliced tape and ran it carefully reel to reel, our voices hoarse from 20+ takes because there was no "edit" button. We wrote scripts on scrap paper or CD inserts. We didn't have a delay option to cover slips of profanity (just an angry station manager and an unhealthy fear of the FCC).

And I never grew tired of the beautiful sound that was created in those small, minimalist rooms with dusty equipment - and raw talent.

Fast forward to today (which, by the way, is not that many years later) and I revel in how productive and creative I can be with technology. From my phone I can be a writer, videographer, producer, photographer and editor. Talent need not apply - software and apps will do it for me. And this is great, right? Amateurs can be the creative masterminds they've dreamt of without investing a great deal of time, practice or money. 

But it also means we don't need talent. It is no longer necessary to engage all our senses to be creative. Are we intrinsically missing something? We may not know the satisfaction of working at something long enough to truly master it. And those who master their craft - like some of today's great musicians, artists, writers, filmmakers and television production crews - are minimized by the assumption that technology is responsible for their success. 

It's hard to recognize true talent when singers' voices are fixed with autotune, Instagram makes a dull sunset look spectacular, and for less than $200 I can write a best-selling novel using software that structures my plot and creates my characters (I picture Hemingway chasing his daiquiri with a double shot of absinthe in protest). It seems very little distinguishes real artists from hobbyists.

Don't get me wrong: I like (and use) technology. Thankfully, gone are my newspaper editing days of performing paper surgery with an X-Acto knife to replace misspelled words on production-ready copy (that really happened. A lot). I recently recorded a commercial and was pleasantly surprised that it was ready for production in two takes with the help of a brilliant editing suite. I don't even remember life before Google. And since I've always loved photography, I'm sort of partial to Instagram's fun filters (and Typic, Snapseed, Pic Stitch, Hipster...). 

And so this is today's watershed. I don't want to give up the convenience technology affords me, but I also don't want to misdiagnose technology as talent. If we want to be good at something, we need to practice it. Study it. Engage as many of our senses and as much of our imagination as we can to fully appreciate it.

Or, quoting Sound City, "Technology must be a tool - not a crutch." 

 I couldn't agree more.
 

Image Source

For more on this topic, here's some good stuff I found: 

How to use technology to make you smarter  Time Magazine 2012

Technology and Health: Is the Digital World Huritng us or Making Things Easier?  Huffington Post, December 2012


 
(or just for fun Google "does technology make us stupid?" You'll have nearly 12 million blogs, articles and books to choose from. Wow.)

Productivity Gremlins are eating my lunch

Productivity Gremlins are eating my lunch

I know you sympathize: it's the time of year when life seems to come to a standstill, flu germs strike down our colleagues one by one and we just want to crawl under a blanket for a day month. I try to keep up with my own duties and the duties of those who are out sick, while not feeling particularly motivated to do either. 

And I am left wondering: where did my lunch go?

When I realize at 2 p.m. that I haven't eaten (and by "realize" I mean someone points it out to me, usually because I've got a spaced-out look on my face due to carb withdrawl), I know that what I call "productivity gremlins" are nearby. Rarely do I miss a meal because I'm that busy...it's more often that I'm not that focused.

Productivity gremlins sneak up on us in a lengthy phone call, the "urgent" problem that isn't really urgent, a colleague who has a lot of time on her hands to talk (and so should you, apparently), the email that takes twice as long because you can't find the right words...you get the idea.
 
When this happens, I'm frustrated that I'm not managing my time. The more time I lose, the further behind I get...and the further behind I get, the less motivated I am. And the gremlin laughs and laughs.

You might be expecting tips and secrets to increasing your productivity. If so, I'm going to disappoint. Instead, I want to suggest something radical: allow yourself some slack. Sometimes we need to slow down, reassess, do nothing. We need to recognize that we, like all of nature, ebb and flow. If we allow ourselves a bit of room to slack, to be briefly lazy, our productivity will be better in the long-run.

When our to-do list stacks up but motivation lags, try to appreciate getting only a few things done. I know - your list is full of things that need to get done. But is it, really? By taking a couple of days to allow yourself to slack you will find your energy and focus is renewed for getting many things done. Sometimes just getting by now is exactly what we need to excel later.

New York Times writer John Tierney published a great article this month on allowing ourselves to slack (click here to read it). In this article he champions "positive procastination." My kudos to a writer who would even suggest such a crazy idea, much less back it up with research. Bravo, Mr. Tierney!

And for those of you who need to vanquish the gremlin completely, check out the productivity blog "Getting Things Done."  There are great tidbits on increasing your time management and productivity skills. 

And now I'm going to go eat lunch. It's 1 p.m. I'll take it.
 

Get out of your own way

When I moved my blog to Blogger in July, I gave myself permission to take time off. A lot of time, apparently. A special thanks to a few friends who reminded me to get back online! Now, to the topic at hand...

Over amazing french toast at Mud House in St. Louis (truly, it was good french toast. I highly recommend it), a friend and I discussed a common phenomenon for small business owners and managers:  how to be good at everything, even when you're not.

That was Monday. Thursday I joined a group of hard-working women business owners at The Rung (another amazing place, albeit not food. Clothes. Really great clothes for a great cause). We discussed challenges and opportunities of daily business, and I found myself answering the same question: how are we to be expected to be good at everything?

Of course the answer is we're not. No one is good at everything. We must align ourselves with the right people or resources to fill the gaps of our own shortcomings. But that's only half the solution. The other half is to ask ourselves a better question: Are you good at what you want to be good at doing?

Business owners, founders and top leaders go into business or volunteering because they are passionate about a specific topic, field, or skill set. But they often find that they are not, in fact, doing what they set out to do or want to do. I met a baker who spends more time filling out tax forms, advertising, networking, deliveries and administration than on recipe development. She's not unusual, and neither is her frustration.

We gravitate towards activities and careers that reflect three factors: what we are good at doing, what we like doing, and what we want to be good at doing.  Are you doing what you want to be good at doing, or are you spending the majority of time doing what needs to be done? More importantly, are the tasks you want to be good at doing inherent to your current role? If not, it's time to rethink. Subject matter experts are not necessarily the best people to lead the subject matter.

As difficult as it is, we must know where we are needed and best serve. We need to outsource all activities that we do not want to do well, even if it means stretching our budgets, exchanging services/goods or letting go of control. We must rely on mentors and friends to help us.  Finally, we need to consider that we may not be playing our best role. If you are my baker friend and find you never have time to bake, it may be time to get a business partner or hire someone to fill the business's leadership role. It may be in our best interest to get out of our own way and concentrate on what we are good at and want to be good at doing. This does not mean we have failed as leaders. Quite the opposite: there is no greater success than fulfilling our true purpose.

Sentencing reductions affect many...including me

Victims are paying a heavy price for economic instability as several states reduce sentences to relieve overspent government budgets. Much of this happens on paper, unnoticed but to a few who are the victims or those who advocate for them. I am one such person.

I feel lucky to have my offender in prison. Many victims don’t have the opportunity to see their perpetrator apprehended or sentenced and live the rest of their lives with an unbalanced sense of justice. My perpetrator is not even in prison because of me…it is because of an even more horrendous crime he committed.  Nonetheless, I’ve been enjoying a cloak of imagined safety for several years.

For reasons I can’t fully explain, victims create timelines around their offenders' sentences. As though our lives are now intrinsically linked to the perpetuation of justice. I’ve heard victims make life plans in context to the length of their offenders’ term. Three years ago I was describing this phenomenon to a group of correction officers for the State of Missouri in hope that they would be more sensitive to victims’ needs upon offender release. A small voice from the back of the room said, “I get it. I have 10 years, 3 months and 14 days left to live.” I smiled and said, “I have 13 years, 6 months and a handful of days.” That’s just how it goes.

I was wrong. My offender gets out in a few days, a casualty of a defunct economy. And I am angry and scared.  He doesn’t know my name, where I live, maybe even what I look like today. For that I am luckier than most victims. But it doesn’t help me sleep easier. These are the setbacks we warn victims of, and I’m struggling to allow myself the same space to heal.

I am a proponent of sentencing reform. I have been rallying the Dept. of Corrections to provide alternative programming for nonviolent offenders so that there is space available in prison for men like my offender who beat and rape women. I am able to do this because I have the honor of serving as the President & CEO of the Crime Victim Advocacy Center. I have the opportunity to give a voice to victims who are not heard. And to make sense of my own story in the meantime. For that I am most fortunate. 

You can help, too. Talk about victimization. Give it a voice. Let it not be the dirty word in the room. 

The louder we are, the quieter the violence is. 

I write this entry in both my own and CVAC's blogs.  This is unusual, because I make a careful distinction between being a victim myself and serving others. Thanks for reading in either location.