Don’t get me wrong. I still think we all need validation, encouragement, and love. And you should still hug your favorite creative person from time to time. But I’m going to balance that sentiment out this week by telling you to kick them also.

The myth of the creative person

For one thing, the idea that any one person is more creative than any other is a myth. Creativity isn’t a talent – it’s a mindset. Any person of any disposition and IQ can get into that mindset, and regularly does.

Don’t believe me? Take the time to watch John Cleese explain creativity.

So listen, ‘creatives,’ don’t feel so special. It only matters if you actually take the time to think through problems and make stuff. You know, work.

Creativity isn’t magic (nor magick), so don’t treat it as such.

Mike Monteiro’s new book, Design is a Job, challenges the notion of the magical creative within his first 5 pages. He explains how these lucky people live in a beautiful myth where they are not weighed down by boring work, but instead feel their way to success by divine inspiration.

… you are a child of magic (or magick, if you’re a goth). Knowledge of these base matters would only defile your creative process. Your designs come from inside you.

Mike Monteiro from Design is a Job

To paraphrase Monteiro, this is bullocks. This prevalent myth is destructive and makes successful projects more difficult than required. Why, Mike?

A designer requires honest feedback and real criticism, and that’s not going to happen in a realm where collegues or clients are worried about crushing the spirit of a magical being. The sparkly fog of affirmation gets in the way.

Mike Monteiro from Design is a Job

Well said. True for designers, true for any creative pursuit.

Making stuff is work, so get to it.

Feel like giving out hugs to struggling artists now? Maybe they really need a swift kick and some honest feedback to get ’em back up and back to work.

So, here’s a challenge for you today. We know that our creative friends are passionate about what they create. That’s why they pour their heart into it, and that’s why the results often feel special or magical. So hold them accountable to their own passion. Ask what they are working on, and demand to see some results. Give honest feedback. Ask them why they are doing what they are doing, and don’t accept a pat answer.

Above all, crack the whip and demand sweat.

Some simple ground rules

1. I’m guessing this works best if it’s someone you know personally. And even then, tread carefully. Remember this is tough love – the goal is still enouragement in the end.
2. Lower your gaurd and take a kick or two back. We only give these kicks because we realize we need them just as much as the next guy.
3. Consider following it up with last week’s hug, for good measure. Or, once I heard it’s good to start with a hug, then kick, then hug again.
4. Timing is important. Don’t kick a dude while he’s down, that’s just cruel.

Okay, that’s it. Go kick a creative person.

Watching 9 year old Caine get noticed for the love he put into building his own arcade had me (very) nearly choked up this morning.

Maybe I was already on an emotional high from seeing zefrank get all vulnerable in his Invocation for Beginnings.

Or maybe it’s because I had just been reflecting on a great talk by Ray Bradbury about his life and writing.

…what you are all looking for, but maybe you don’t know it… what you’re looking for in your writing and your life, is for one person to come up to you and say, “I love you.”

Ray Bradbury from An evening with Ray Bradbury

I just know that, when I’m honest with myself, deep down much of who I am is all tied up in simply wanting to be loved.

We all want to be noticed. We all want approval. No matter how much success we see or don’t see, we’re still fragile people looking for a pat on the back.

So, here’s a challenge for you today. Find someone whose work brings you joy. Maybe an artist, writer, musician, entrepreneur – anybody that puts him/herself out there to make the world a more interesting place. And do the thing you need most for yourself: let them know that what they do is awesome. Find some way to love ’em.

Some simple ground rules

1. If someone came to mind, do it right away. Don’t put it off.
2. Be genuine. Don’t do it just to make yourself feel good. Really mean what you say or do.
3. Be specific with your praise. It can be really easy to discount someone’s compliment when it’s too general.
4. Don’t be creepy. Nobody wants a stalker.

Okay, that’s it. Go hug a creative person.

Once upon a time, that moment would discourage me to the point of quitting. Now, I’m learning to be ok with skill gaps. Turns out, they are completely normal.

I love this video. Ira puts into plain english exactly how I’ve felt time and time again: I love what I’m working on. I know what’s good. What I’m working on isn’t good. Argh.

When this happens to me, it’s tempting to give up. It’s good to remember Ira’s encouragement to keep working, even when your work sucks.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.

When I was in college I took up guitar. Like many, many, other kids. You know, I was becoming an artist. I had songs to write, to sing. I had Oasis covers to learn. And yeah, it was a pretty effective method for winning the hearts of the ladies (hello, wife).

For a few months, the rush of learning to play and sing my favorite songs kept me going, and I progressed rapidly. I’d grab the guitar and play for hours, figuring out new and more challenging songs to perform.

What I didn’t do was play scales or learn music theory or study chord structure (much).

At some point my playing and singing got just good enough to get what I initially wanted (attention, heh), but not good enough to move me forward in a music career. I could pick up a guitar at the party and sing out a solid rendition of “Slide Away,” and hearts would melt. I could even string together my own chord progressions and sing my own tunes. But should any fellow musician suggest I come jam with them, the game would be up. I didn’t really know how to play guitar. I was faking it.

At least, that was my mindset. In reality, my learning had plateaued. I had gotten good enough with my performance of the 50 songs I knew to keep doing them over and over again. I stayed with what was working and stopped learning.

Bring It On Down.

The more I played with others, the more aware I became of how I’d stopped growing as a musician. These guys and girls would be wailing, but I was stuck. I felt terrible about my skills.

I remember picking up a guitar and playing scales for the first time. It felt like starting over. My fingers didn’t move that way so readily. I was flubbing a lot, and I couldn’t make sense of how things fit together. What does one actually do with these scales?

I’m sad to say it, but 9 times out of 10 I’d fall back on the simple chord progressions I already knew.

Don’t Look Back In Anger.

It’s now eight years later, and I never did make it past those simple chords.

Maybe there are more reasons for this than just the discouragement I felt from not being as good as I thought I should be. I came to terms with the fact that I didn’t really want to be a musician, and other interests surpassed my desire to be a rock star (who’d of thought?). My time and attention gradually shifted elsewhere.

Still, I picked up a guitar the other day and couldn’t help but wonder about those glory days. Could it be that if I had known Ira’s wise words and stuck with it when it was hard, I would now be the accomplished musician that some college kid looks up to with amazement?

It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!)

It got me thinking about other areas in my life similar to my guitar playing plateau.

Do I let discouragement over the quality of my creative work get in the way of continuing to produce it? How do I respond when I don’t meet my own standard of perfection?

And what about areas of life, creative or otherwise, where I grow complacent with where I am? Have I stopped looking up? Stopped working towards a more meaningful life and career? Towards more meaningful relationships? Are there even some things I need to learn to be content with – to let go of and stop striving after?

These are big questions, and I hope to have a chance to explore them further on this blog. I have some cool stuff on the creative side to mention in light of these thoughts in future posts, but in the meantime, what do you think? Got any ideas about what it means to plateau, and how to escape when you do? Hit me up in the comments or on twitter.

“It’s stupid!” she growled.

“It’s not!” I shouted.

This went on for awhile.

Marital strife and the “check-in.” Er, I mean, “story.”

Gowalla, the subject of our bitter feud, was a wonderfully designed mobile app built in our hometown of Austin, TX. It enabled you to “check-in” at your favorite places, share pictures and stories from those places, and keep a record of the best stuff to do as you move about the world. On Dec. 5 they announced that they were acquired by Facebook, and that the Gowalla service would be shut down at the end of January. I was sad about this. Amy was not.

When I first discovered Gowalla I thought it would be the perfect way to share our travel experiences with friends at home and new friends we’d meet on the road. I liked the idea of documenting sights and stories from our journeys. But I soon discovered that “checking in” is not wife approved.

As Amy has pointed out, fumbling with a mobile phone usually turned out to be annoying and antisocial. “Checking in” usually meant “checking out” from wherever I was claiming to be. She thought it was silly.

Nevertheless, I was pretty excited when Gowalla announced version 4, a complete overhaul of the app that shifted its focus from simply “checking in” to a sort of social storytelling. You would publish where you were and who you were with, and then anyone in that “story” could upload pictures or post commentary. From Gowalla’s blog at the time of the launch:

We’ve broadened our concept of “checking in” as well. We call them stories now. It’s easy to add friends to a story so you can add photos and comments together as a single experience…

A NEW GOWALLA BY GOWALLA

I liked the communal aspect of this. I thought it had potential for bringing together the virtual world and the physical one as we shared experiences with our friends. It seemed forward thinking. As a traveller and a storyteller, I was excited to try it out.

Amy, however, said that new Gowalla was even dumber than before. She thought their take on “stories” was stupid. And gimmicky. I tried hard to convince her otherwise. Back to our kitchen.

“Story is a buzzword,” she said. “It’s trendy. These aren’t stories. Gowalla’s move is lame.”

We fought tooth and nail over that point. Admittedly, “I’m at the pub” is a pretty lousy story, no matter how many pictures my drinking buddies post to it (depending on how colorful the pictures get, I suppose). But it’s still a story, technically speaking, isn’t it?

It really doesn’t matter now, because Gowalla is no more. Amy gracefully sent her condolences to me, despite our domestic dispute, and we’ve put the issue aside for the sake of love. But, her simple gimmick argument has been lodged in my mind, and now I have some thoughts about “checking in” and “storytelling.” I present them here as a sort of final memoir of my relationship with my favorite check in app. So, here’s to checking in one last time.

Invisible storytelling

I’ve been reading Robert Mills’ A Practical Guide to Designing the Invisible from Five Simple Steps. In the chapter “Telling the Best Story”, Mills draws attention to the invisible nature of stories in web design.

Many stories are invisible because the person hearing it doesn’t realize it is one. Magazine adverts, for example, are carefully constructed stories, but most readers wouldn’t see them that way. And a story in a website will also be invisible a lot of the time because the person visiting the site doesn’t see it as one.

A Practical Guide to Designing the Invisible by Robert Mills

I read this just after arguing with Amy about whether or not a check-in could be a form of story, and it got me thinking. I wonder if his point about the invisible nature of some stories goes the other direction as well? Not only are we unaware when we hear a story, we don’t always realize when we tell one. We have a natural inclination to share the events in our life, but wouldn’t always couch them under the term “story”. After all, how many snapshots of life get shared each day on Facebook or Twitter?

Mills explains that we tell stories to create order from chaos. We need to make sense of the world. We seek emotional connection with an audience, like friends and family or coworkers. And ultimately, we want to give meaning and purpose to the things that happen around us and to us.

We do all of this invisibly, without trying or realizing we’re doing it, and the advance of the social web has made this easier than ever. With tools like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and myriads of others we can now share snippets of our lives as they happen, where they happen, right from our mobile phone. Drop a photo here, status update there – and whether we realize it or not our social behavior online is building the story of our life, piece by piece.

Take Facebook’s new Timeline feature, for instance. I’d say most people didn’t realize the story we’ve been crafting exists, but give it a fancy design that we can visualize, and we all say, “wow.”

Admittedly, I got a little smug at this point. I’d figured it out. Amy was wrong because she wasn’t as brilliant as me or Gowalla to see this invisible storytelling for what it is. Man, I’m so deep.

It’s a good rule of thumb, particularly in marital affairs, to never stop at your first conclusion, especially if that conclusion validates you as right. So, let me think some more, how does this actually work in practice?

Well, I never open Twitter and think, “what story can I share right now?” In fact, even though storytelling might be a completely natural part of our social behavior, it is true that the word “story” can be intimidating and often implies something crafted or of extraordinary interest. But I tweet, the theory goes, because I am compelled to by my quest for meaning and emotional wellbeing. What I choose to share online gives me some level of personal satisfaction and defines some event, thing, idea, or person as valuable to me. In other words, social media is simply an extension of our normal, offline, social selves.

No duh, right? Well, if we tell our stories invisibly (without recognition of the process), it follows that the power of storytelling in social apps can be utilized without any need to point this storytelling out. Oh…

Facebook’s status update bar, for instance, asks “What’s on your mind?” It’s worded to encourage me to do what comes naturally. To share what’s up.

Foursquare, another popular check in app, turns location into a social game. People earn virtual rank at locations, ousting their friends to ultimately become Mayor of their favorite spots and earn rewards. Is it far fetched to say that people get into this because it’s fun to construct a fictional narrative for themselves? A sort of rise to power, or an assignment of purpose and importance to the places they choose to go and share with friends? I think tweeting that you just became the Mayor of the McDonalds at Barton Springs and Lamar is satisfying because subconsciously you see yourself as a hero (because, really, why else would you be proud of that?).

But if Foursquare made a big deal about ‘telling the story of your rise to power at various GPS coordinates”, that would sound silly, wouldn’t it?

It dawned on me that Gowalla did the opposite of this. In the new Gowalla they had taken away the game-like aspects of the app – the abilities to leave notes and to collect and share virtual items from locations you’ve visited. Despite the fact that they superficially realigned the app specifically around sharing stories, you could argue that their move cut the legs out from under the deeper, subtler ways people were actually caught up in storytelling.

It’s no wonder that the loudest outcry against the new Gowalla came from the “2%” of those using the removed features. They were the ones most emotionally invested in the app, assigning meaning and value to their experiences through what items they collected and what knowledge they passed on to friends.

Conclusions

It’s rather counter-intuitive, then. Calling the “check-in” a “story” does not an engaging experience make. Rather, an experience needs to be designed around the reasons we tell stories to begin with. The need to assign meaning, to find purpose. The desire to connect emotionally with an audience. Any story is just a means to those ends.

I have to conclude that on some level Amy and I were both right. A “check-in” could be labeled a “story”, or at least a part of a story. But doing so is not necessarily a good idea.

I do believe, however, that the new Gowalla would have eventually been successful. I don’t think I was alone in wanting an app that was for the direct purpose of sharing stories around travel and such. I’m guessing their user base would have shifted a bit and then really taken off.

But, alas, they are no more.

Goodbye, Gowalla!

For the past 5 years, I've been at war. If I may be so dramatic, a war of the worlds.

I'm not sure if Martians invading Earth is an apt analogy to my war, but I do like the imagery. The H.G. Wells novel is gripping: mysterious metallic cylinders from outer space land all across the country. Then, horrible machines of destruction emerge from them and methodically destroy society. The only way to make this story even better is turn it into a radio drama, air it on Halloween, and accidentally fool the public into thinking alien invasion is really happening (Orson Welles did just that in 1938, depicting the story as if it were a live news broadcast).

The story begins.

I love stories. Everything we do revolves around stories. We tell them (and hear them) all day every day. Most of them are mundane, like what happened today at the office. But good stories, crafted stories, can be powerful – playing on emotions never put into words. In an atmosphere of pre World War II tension and anxiety, The War of the Worlds radio drama genuinely frightened people. Were they really scared of alien invasion? Or did a realistic story of alien invasion bring their sincere fear of an uncertain future to the surface?

Eleven years ago I decided to study Film at the University of Texas so I could become one of the storytellers I'd always looked up to. I graduated with high hopes of becoming an independent film maker, enterprising animation and film projects that would take me – well, who the heck knows, that was a life time ago.

I didn't want to move to LA, so I stayed in Austin and worked in coffee shops. I got married. I studied drawing and animation in my free time. I made attempts to get a few projects up and running. I even had a few successes, most notably some animation for @scottythep's indie classic, Kabluey.

But then it happened. The first few metallic cylinders crashed on my world.

Invasion!

The short story: Someone I knew needed a website.

I had taken a ‘new media’ class back in school, so I knew this internet thing changed the way we think about media. By this time YouTube was YouTube, and I was listening to everything the TWiT network put on air. The message of the era: there has never been a better time to be an independent creator. And the place to do it is the Internet.

Be free! Make stuff! Make it free! Somehow profit! 

Yeah, that's sarcasm – but I have no one to be bitter at but myself. At the time it really felt like I was on the ground floor of a revolution. In retrospect, I probably was, but skipped that all important step of making stuff.

Instead, someone I knew needed a website.

“Well,” I thought. “The internet is where it's at. Making web pages would be cool. I can use that knowledge to make websites for all my creative ideas too!”

So I learned how to make a website. And then I made another website. Before I knew it, I was making lots of websites for other people's creative projects, but not working on any of my own. I even got a job - I became a full time front end web developer. What a happy discovery that I could be paid to make some cool stuff. And I was good at it.

But something wasn't sitting right.

The cylinders open!

I know many creative people who became web designers/developers on accident – and for good reason. To paint a picture of web development as a bad thing would be a terrible disservice to an incredible industry.

Building websites is intoxicating. I fell in love with web design and development because, like drawing or filmmaking or writing, it's the art of taking nothing but a thought or idea, and then building something real from it. Something tangible, yet something that communicates beyond words. At the end of the day, you have this thing you made that (hopefully) enriches people's lives. It's fundamentally creative in that way.

But, for all my love of the internets, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was never my intention to do this for a living. My hopes and dreams were being invaded by a new set of creative goals. Instead of picking up a pencil and storyboarding cartoons, I was learning about the triune god of HTML, CSS, and Javascript jQuery. I was becoming an expert at making other people's ideas a reality, but my own ideas were disintegrating under Martian death rays.

By the time the cylinders had opened and I realized what I'd been doing for the last few years, it was too late. My identity was under attack…. albeit by myself. Commence inner conflict.

I am my own worst enemy.

The first response to an alien invasion is panic. Plain and simple. Run around like a chicken with your head cut off and write the doomsday scenario over and over in your little brain: my creative life is over I am now a slave to the Almighty Code. It will devour my time and attention and I will whither away, soulless. What was once a life-giving creative job is now the crusher of my dreams. Weird how that happens.

Eventually the panic subsided into a more sustainable inner turmoil. Want to see it in action? Just ask me “what I do.” I hate that question. One part of me says, “I'm an animator and illustrator!” But another part of me says, “heh, that's funny. You build websites all day every day. And let's face it, you enjoy it.” So my mouth spits out a bit of rubbish that comes off as “I don't know what I do.”

And it's not necessarily untrue, because at that point I'm just spiraling: When you don't know what you are doing, you lose sense of who you are. And you can't represent yourself well if you don't know who you are. But if you don't know who you are you can't figure out what you are doing. See how this works?

In the end, I stopped being social in relation to my work. I couldn't fully commit myself to my job because I couldn't decide if it was my “real” job. I never built myself a website or blog or any kind of presence online because what would I even say there? I became a recluse, hiding from more death rays, quietly trying to stay productive.

The invasion is coming from inside the house…

Boy, after being so long winded about the “problem” where do I begin with the “solution?” Perhaps it starts where it began: making things.

Credit where credit is due – Merlin Mann. That guy. Man. I could say so many things about what I've sorta learned from his ramblings, but I'll try to sum it up succinctly: Be honest about it and just do it. Honestly, do it. Or honestly do it. Something like that. Really I can never pin his ideas down, but mostly I “get” that creative work is hard, and creative work really is work.

If I'm looking over the great expanse of career and creativity, and I'm unhappy with what I'm cranking out, can I really blame that unhappiness on Martians? Metaphorically or actually?

No, but it's a good story. See I like stories. And the story that building websites was this foreign thing that invaded my creative life and destroyed all my aspirations as I knew them is a good, comforting story. Because in that story, I'm not the villain. I'm the unfortunate hero holding out hope that somehow the alien invasion will be stopped and we'll all get back to the way things were.

But the thing is, way back when, I chose to build that website. And I chose to build the next one and the next one and the next one. And somewhere along the line it became easier to build other people's stuff than to take up the challenge of putting my own thing out there. Whether it was a skill thing or a money thing or a confidence thing – it doesn't matter.

I've written a nice little synopsis for myself where I don't have the time or the skills or the whatever to make the stuff I claim to be passionate about. Talk about a powerful story.

Poof, you're home. Or, resistance is futile.

So, what do I do? For starters, I built this website. I cried, “To hell with website building! I'm going to build a website!” And then I added, “From now on it's going to be about my animation and illustration, and nothing else!”

And then I proceeded to spend months on said website, making sure to use HTML5, CSS3, web fonts, responsive design, and any other buzz word you can think of. Because to hell with website building!

I showed an earlier version of this site off to my friend and mentor, @lgani, and I made a remark like, “I know, I need to pick a career, right?” He paused, then replied, “poof, you're home.”

That phrase hung in the air like the smoke from a Martian death ray. He was right. I wouldn't pour so much of myself into building a website if I weren't actually passionate about building the website. It goes beyond just being pretty good at something. I… I… I really like it.

Oh God oh God oh God. Death rays! Explosions! Destruction everywhere! Ruuuuuuuuuuun!!!!!!!

Exploration and opportunity. Or, I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.

Boy, it's so much more complicated than any silly metaphor or narrative I can come up with, isn't it? When the smoke clears, I have to look up and face the fact that I like all of it. I like making websites. I like telling stories. I like animation. I like illustration. I like ice cream.

The web design and development community is the most awe inspiring group of people I've ever experienced. There is a jaw dropping amount of awesome stuff these people produce every day. And I'm not talking about clever new website widgets. I mean real tools and resources that make our world a better place. Even non “web” things like books, magazines, music, entertainment – you name it and some developer has an incredibly cool side project that's related. If there has ever been an industry to be inspired by to get your own creative work done, it's this one.

I'm never gonna figure it out. We all have tons of interests and ideas that compete for our time. The moment I first typed <html>, my future was changed forever. But, the error I've made is thinking that the choice I need to make is which thing I'm going to do. Which world wins the war?

False choice. If one world wins, nobody wins. Web development has taught me that every interest and talent can influence and improve every other. The real choice is the one I make every day when I get up – that today I'm going to work on something I care about. I'm going to use all the tools, interests, and talents at my disposal to do the thing in front of me today. And it's going to be awesome.

That's basically my manifesto for this site. It's a new world out there for me, Earthlings and Martians hand in tentacle. So, what is it “I do?” I have no idea, but I'm ok with that. And hopefully it will make for a good story.