I’m even cool knowing my limitations within comedy. I think, after nearly 25 years pursuing my craft, that I’ve become very very good at this. But I’ll never be as good as Jim Gaffigan, or Louie CK or Paul F. Tompkins or Maria Bamford or Brian Regan. Never reach the plangent brilliance of a Richard Pryor or the surreal mastery of a Steve Martin. I’m okay with that. I still get to be creative – on my own terms, and purely on my own work.”

Patton Oswald

View post: Patton Oswalt on Creativity in the Presence of Giants

The good news is that there are more opportunities than ever, and it’s a thousand percent possible for people for whom it was zero percent possible before. The bad news is that all this competition has driven prices down and people on the Internet don’t expect to pay for things. So there’s no perfect way to make money making media.”

Jesse Thorn

View post: Jesse Thorn on the Opportunities

Today is the release of a new podcast I’m thrilled to be a part of. It’s very easy to enjoy and I’m exceedingly enthused about it. If you like Ice to the Brim, you’ll love this… I hope.

I would like very much for you to listen to the podcast. Here are some ways:

• iTunes: click here to subscribe in iTunes
• Instacast: If you have Instacast (my preferred app) or another podcatcher app on your device you can click here to subscribe.
• Other Apps: Simply open the app and search for “The Fizzle Show” or copy this RSS feed and paste it into the “Add New URL” feature of your thingy.

If you listen please leave a review in iTunes and tell me what you think… it helps other creative entrepreneurs find the show and, hopefully, will help them feel comfortable in their own skin. (You may need to click the blue “View in iTunes” button and then the “Ratings & Reviews” tab).

Note: we’ve written more about this first episode here: Finding Your Voice — The Fizzle Show 001.

How We Got Here

So, you may or may not know this, but I’ve been working with a friend full time building Fizzle — honest training + vital community for online business builders. I’ve been playing the part of creative director (and other stuff).

Working on this project has been a big deal for me in a few ways.

1. I’ve found my sweet spot. Working to educate talented, hopeful and conscientious entrepreneurs started as simply a project but has evolved into a calling. (I should know, Jesus and I used to date… like, a lot).

I resonate so hard with the journey of the independent entrepreneur… the excitement and energy, the fear, the broken heartedness, the isolation, the dreaming, the trying-to-be-so-smart-ness, the I’m-super-dumb-but-it-still-worked-out-ness, the delighting the audience, the creating, the discovery, the “why the f’k hasn’t anyone built this yet”-ness…

These are my people. In this mission I’ve found the right mix of mission and commerce and art and joy. This is what I was talking about in the Focus Factor™ thing. It’s a big deal to me.

2. I’ve found a partner. I always pictured myself as the lone gunman… but those endings are always sad. Corbett Barr and I have worked through Fernet, project redesigns, homemade manhattans, our wives’ giggles+cheese-feeds and the development of Fizzle from the ground up, and in the process we’ve found a harmony in work that hints at more than just the next couple years.

Seriously, this has changed how I work and how well I work. The way Corbett and I {cough} fill each others’ gaps {cough} has made a serious dent in how I look at the next 10 years. We look at this partnership like a marriage — we’re planning on the long haul.

But as my favorite old boss says, “that’s all fine and dandy for now, but in a few years when you’ve got a pile of money and two egos at the table the shit can really hit the fan.” Smart words we’ve taken to heart. It’s been a wild journey through these contract conversation and long-term dreaming with Corbett, but he’s been gracious and smart and made an avid fan of me. Corbett, if you’re listening, I like you very much… you’re a big deal to me.

Also, Caleb, you’re a big deal to me too… a much taller and balder big deal.

So, Weren’t We Talking About A Podcast?

Those two points above have been the critical path to where we are now: launching this podcast (which, if you’re not familiar, is like a radio show you get to play on demand; you should try it sometime).

Podcasts are easy to start and hard to make stick. So I won’t paint myself into a corner with a bunch of promises, but I’ll be damned if I don’t feel like this is the kind of shit I was made for. I was literally made to talk. And I literally feel for budding entrepreneurs. And I literally need to talk about these things with other people who actually know what their talking about (I’m all heart and jargon in the end… but it’s hearty jargon… literally).

So that’s where we are, launching a podcast. It’s a little thing, but it feel like a lot more than that to me. It feels like my shovel finally landed on something solid. I’ve hit something to launch off of and work towards, and it just so happens I’ve got people with me who make the work stronger, more fun and a lot more classy (in a boozy kind of way). The podcast will play a role in that.

Now the real work begins.

View post: A Podcast & Why I’m So Excited About It

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it -honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”

Neil Gaiman

View post: Neil Gaiman On The Rules

When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”

Neil Gaiman

View post: Neil Gaiman On Feedback

I love the matter-of-fact-ness of this list. All are good to remember but the last is particularly fresh. Via BrainPickings.

1. Find a Subject You Care About: Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style. […]

2. Do Not Ramble, Though: I won’t ramble on about that.

3. Keep It Simple: As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. ‘To be or not to be?’ asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. […]

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.’

4. Have the Guts to Cut: …your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.

5. Sound like Yourself: The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. […]

I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have?

6. Say What You Mean to Say: I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. […]

Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.

7. Pity the Readers: Readers have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school – twelve long years.

So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists. Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify, whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales.

That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique constitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment. So the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.

View post: Kurt Vonnegut’s Style Tips

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”

Kurt Vonnegut

View post: Find A Subject You Care About

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

via Brain Pickings

View post: Kurt Vonnegut’s Story Pointers

The Macro Change is a switch from being part of an organization (I hesitate to say “community,” though that’s probably the effective emotional term)-General Motors, Apple, the army, Harvard or State U.-to being Just Ourselves. But it’s not just being part of, it’s thinking like a part of.

Is it necessary to have an actual “job?” A salary? A boss? I’m speaking emotionally, not financially. Is our mental setup such that we are dependent for our inner well-being upon an externally-imposed structure? Are we capable of acting without external motivation or validation or reinforcement?

Today you’re a free agent and so am I. Even in long-term jobs, we must think like entrepreneurs. Our 401-Ks are gone with the wind, along with Tower Records, Borders, and the steel industry.”

Steven Pressfield

View post: We’re All Free Agents Now

It’s about being appropriately engaged in your life.”

I recently created a course for Fizzle on the essentials of productivity specifically for someone building an online business. David Allen featured prominently.

View post: David Allen on The Basics of Productivity