Tag Archives: writing

Yes, I Get Paid to Do That

May 27, 2014 Liz Kerin Leave a comment

Someone (or many someones) once (or many times) told me that the hardest thing in the world is to turn your passion into a living—probably in an attempt convince me to attend law school instead of doing whatever it was I called daily life in my early 20s. But doing hard things is kind of my thing, so this sage wisdom only served to reinforce the borderline-masochistic work ethic I already had.

Writing was the only way I’d ever wanted to spend my life and, lucky for me, it also happened to be the only thing I was pretty decent at. When I graduated high school and went to college, the only logical choice for me was to enroll in a creative writing program. And when I graduated college and started forging my path into the belly of the beast known as The Real World, the only logical choice for me was to keep doing what I knew I was good at. To keep doing what I knew I cared about the most. I saw no reason to divert from the plan—the plan to write professionally, to pay my rent with words. I knew it would take some time and a boatload of dedication and that I’d probably have a succession of mind-numbing day jobs to pay the bills until then, but like a great many someones said: Turning your passion into a living is hard work.

By no means am I any kind of expert on this topic. I don’t think anyone is, because everyone’s journey towards gainful, fulfilling self-employment is 100% different. But I can say that I’ve learned a few really vital things about this whole process that probably do apply across the career spectrum, whether you’re busting your ass trying to get a tech startup off the ground or rousing your neighbors at 7 am with your vocal warm-ups in hopes of one day joining the Metropolitan Opera.

Make Time

First of all, there’s this: If you really care about it, you’ll make time for it. It’s so easy to say, “Ohhh, but I am le tired. I think I’ll have a beer and watch Top Chef instead.” It’s especially easy to say this if you’re working full-time in an arena that doesn’t relate to your ultimate goal. Trust me. I’ve been there. A beer and Top Chef sounds like the best thing most nights. And yes, you should treat yourself with a mental break now and then! But as soon as those credits roll, it might be time to turn off the TV and re-focus on your double life. If you care about your startup, your novel, or being prepped for your audition tomorrow—you will put in the hours.

By now, most people have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours thing. If it takes 10,000 hours of hard work and epic failings to turn a novice into an expert and you spent three hours watching House Hunters after work, you cheated your own damn self out of that valuable time. Three hours might not seem like a lot day-to-day, but it adds up over weeks, months, and years (you do the math—just be prepared for the subsequent existential freakout). But if you’re that guy or gal who makes a point to clock a fraction of your 10,000 hours every day, you’re not doing it because someone is making you do it: you’re doing it because there’s a little voice in the back of your head that keeps feeding you inspiration: ideas that you’ll continue to be excited by. You make time, because it’s easy to make time when you truly, deeply, give a shit about something.

Expand Your Definitions

Something else I figured out in my journey towards paying my rent with words is how important it is to challenge yourself and expand your range. This was a major revelation for me and is probably the #1 reason I can use words to keep a roof over my head.

I studied creative writing in college, with a focus on screenwriting and playwriting. I still do both of those things, and I still love both of those things with the same fervor as an 18-year-old college freshman. But it was only when I started blogging, editing, and writing creative prose as opposed to dialogue-driven drama that an actual need for my services began to crop up. People asked me to write blog posts and articles. They asked me to write jokes for their company’s Twitter feed to attract a certain type of audience. I was approached to contribute a short story to an anthology.

I realized that I didn’t need to sit behind a desk or wait tables or sling lattes all day while I cultivated my writing career. I could have a writing career right now, even if it wasn’t quite the type of writing I originally imagined myself doing. But I’m so psyched that I ventured away from my comfort zone and took on different types of projects. I can parlay the experiences I’ve had ghostwriting for other people and researching unfamiliar topics into my personal projects. It helps keep my ideas fresh and I’m constantly learning new things—not to mention I was able to pay my hefty electricity bill last month (woop woop).

There are so many other ways that people can use their talents and passions aside from the way they might have always imagined. That’s not to say you can’t and won’t ever use them the way you want most! It’s just a nice way to bridge the gap while you work towards your ultimate goal. It’s also a major confidence booster: nowadays, when people ask me what I do, I get to tell them what I do. I don’t get insecure anymore because I have to explain the origins of my totally mundane double life or fudge an answer that godawful question, “Do people ever pay you for that?” If I hadn’t forced myself to expand my range, there’s a good chance I’d still be awkwardly avoiding eye contact at family reunions whenever the subject of my “career” came up.

Move Forward

The final lesson I’ve learned since I joined this whole circus is an ongoing one: as long as I keep moving forward, I’ll always be improving. My most recent work is almost always my best work, which serves as near constant incentive to continue plugging ahead. I always tell people that the best idea I’ve ever had is something I haven’t even thought of yet. If I put a stopper in my pursuits, if I focus on something else, something easier… I might never have the best idea I’ve ever had. And that’s the thing that scares me more than anything else, even more than having what some people might call an “unstable” career path.

If you’re the type of person who can’t fall asleep at night unless you can assure yourself every day that you did something to further your own cause, then guess what: somehow or another, you’re going to make this thing work. You care about it too much. You know that there’s a difference between a job and a career. You might occasionally wonder what will cause you to stop trying—if there will come a day where the uphill battle finally makes you its bitch. But I personally wonder about that potential doomsday less and less as time goes by: I’m not sure if that means I’ve finally accepted the delusional veil I’ve been pulling over my eyes since I was 18, or if it’s a sign of actual progress. Either way, I feel good about where I’m at, even if most days are fraught with daunting rewrites and difficult clients and insecure inner monologues every time I hit “Send.” I’m doing my thing and I get to do it everyday. I’ve worked hard for my right to do my thing. If you have a thing, and if you truly care about it, you will make time to do it. And that’s how you do it for life, whether you’re a pro or a soon-to-be pro.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Travel

Let’s Ask: Yeah, I Lived in a Castle

January 28, 2014 Lisa Frye 1 Comment

Once upon a time, wicked far away, I totally lived in a castle. (Yep, sure did). It was part of a semester abroad that took place in the Netherlands, most of the time, and included a once weekly romp out into the EU, except for that jaunt we took to Croatia. It’s one of those things I’ve done in my life that, when mentioned in casual conversation, usually garners a “wait what!” followed by a slew of questions. So, to set the record straight and to shed some light on the topic of studying abroad and living in castles, I’ve compiled a number of questions that have come up over the years (and a few that have not—but seemed really basic) and I give to you my most honest answers:

“Oh, you studied a broad? What was her name?”

Very funny. This is a serious article, thank you very much.

“Did birds in tiny bonnets and mice with teenie jackets help you clean the place and get dressed in the morning?”

Only on Tuesdays…

“How? Why in the world did you end up in a castle?”

I attended a private college in the Boston area that had, many years before my attendance, acquired the property. Moat included. The inside had been remodeled to accommodate dorms and classrooms. Over the years (I’m fuzzy on the facts here), the school started relying on the support of the town’s two local dining establishments to feed the 80-some students. The facility was so limited, and the burden on the restaurants to great, the school started including a Eurail pass in tuition so that the students could leave the country in order to get a well-rounded meal on the weekends. Expensive. Awesome. Tomato. Toh-mah-toh.

But, wait, that’s not what you asked. I ended up there after weighing my study-abroad options. It was basically a no-brainer. I could go to Los Angeles, where I currently reside, and live in a luxury apartment or I could go to the Netherlends and live in a castle. It wasn’t a tough decision. It was also not a tough application process…

“What is it like to live in a castle?”

Well living in a castle is kind of a lot like living in any other old stone building. Come to think of it, it’s a lot like living in a concrete or wood building. Sorry to disappoint with this one, but it was basically a really adorable quaint old building. It creaked a lot and the bathrooms were strangely designed. The electrical circuiting was sensitive, the kitchen was reminiscent of a stone hobbit home, and aside from the ghosts, it was a lot like most apartments in Boston.

I’m only kidding. Boston has ghosts, too.

“Wait, there were ghosts?!”

Yes, of course. Her name was Sophie and she had a whole room in the castle named after her. Sophie’s Lounge. I did not ever meet Sophie, probably because I’m a nonbeliever and I wouldn’t waste my time with someone like that if I were a ghost. My roommate, Jess, still maintains that Sophie used to open our door in the middle of the night. Where some see a building settling, others see the handiwork of the dead. We may never know the truth.

The closest any of us ever got to Sophie was our friend Rachel. Rachel was Skyping in Sophie’s Lounge one night when her Skype buddy stopped speaking for a moment to let Rachel answer her friend—a girl who was standing behind her. Funny thing is, Rachel was completely alone in the room and not seen or heard another person the whole time she was Skyping. The friend absolutely insisted that there was a girl standing over Rachel’s shoulder.

Very. Creepy.

“Was there a tower room? Is it drafty?”

Yes, there was a tower room and, no, it wasn’t mine, but I did sometimes sleep in the extra bed in the tower room because I had friends in there. Also, a word about tower rooms: romantic on the pages (of epic novels), impractical in real life. Where’s a princess to keep her rectangular desk? In the center of her round room?

“Was it dangerous? What’s the worst thing that happened to you while you were there?”

The worst thing that happened to me was a far cry from the awful things that happened to other people. I got my camera stolen and that sucked a lot. Pickpockets are amazingly slick. Point for you Venlo, Netherlands. But the worst thing happened to almost everybody except me and my roommate, in a little town called Dubrovnik. Now, don’t mistake my story here. Dubrovnik is a lovely place full of smooth pebbly beaches, as much gelato as you can stand, Game of Thrones sets, and some really, really old walls. I would go back in a heartbeat. That being said, our trip out to Croatia was a field trip involving all 80 students together and we spent a week being thrown a number of the curviest curve balls.

The start of our journey left many among us blessed with either a terrible flu bug, or food poisoning, or a plain old case of the travel voms. So, on our way from the airport, we stopped many a time on that bumpy dirt road so that one of several students could well… you get the picture.

A couple nights in, we’re in downtown Dubrovnik at a small pub, I think all 80 of us are there, and my roommate, a Gatsbian partier, had overdone it. She required an escort home at the tender hour of 8 pm and so up the hill we went. We made an early night of it, but in the morning at breakfast all of our friends who had stayed at the bar were black-eyed and split-lipped. Apparently, as small groups left the bar and slowly made their way back to the hotel, a gang of Croatian teenagers attacked each one. Roundhouse kicks to the face and all. I still to this day thank Jess for being a drunken space-case that night.

Lots of other terrible things that did not happen to me happened to the people I was with. I did not pass out from dehydration and hit my head on the night table, I did not get stung by sea urchins while swimming in the Adriatic Sea, I did not get electrocuted by a ladder in a water garden, I had no moped accidents, and I spent zero hours acquainting myself with the Croatian healthcare services. I did, however, wake up during the earthquake.

“Would you recommend studying abroad?”

Yes times a million. But with a caveat: from my own humble experience, and from what I have gathered from those that have been shared with me, if you are looking for a rigorous course load, choose a more intensive program or one that offers classes from the native universities. Or maybe don’t study abroad.

The highlight of my program was the opportunity to travel every weekend to a completely different country. I took a travel writing course, a literature class, and an ethics and philosophy class, allegedly (I showed up for class, the professor did not). So yeah, I’d advise you go immerse yourself in other cultures and build out your chotchky collection. Don’t over think it.

Photo by Michelle White

Health

What is Happiness?

January 9, 2014 We Don't Know 1 Comment

“Happiness is some cryptic shit. It’s a chimera. A faceshifting freak in a room of mirrors. It’s wonderful and horrible. It helps us and it hurts us. It hamstrings us and elevates us. It’s a pit and it’s a ladder. It — and its many forms, be they satisfaction or pleasure or bliss — is a thing so intensely personal it’s impossible to let anyone else tell us how to get it, keep it, or use it. I think it’s worth asking yourself, how will I be happy? It’s worth trying to find the path to satisfaction. And I don’t think that path is drawn through careful study or through mathematical findings. You don’t get happy through a pro/con list. (Unless you do? See? So personal.) It’s in your gut. It’s a feeling, an instinct, and maybe at the end of the day the shortest path to unhappiness is to ignore yourself and all the inner voices that are screaming for you to go left, go left, for fuck’s sakes go left and all you do is go right. Go with your gut. Follow your bliss. Give to others without taking. Be you. Be the best version of you. And share it with the world. Then again, what the fuck do I know? ” — Chuck Wendig, “25 Things I’m Wondering About Happiness”

Here at UE, we are not trying to give you the answers. We are trying to share the options. These weekly We Don’t Know posts are designed to focus on questions where the only answer is your answer.

Today, we feature a post by author and blogger Chuck Wendig from his website Terrible Minds. When we were sent this post, it immediately struck us how Chuck’s musings on happiness embody so much of what we try to accomplish through our UE community.

At the beginning of his post, Chuck describes his ability to be an “expert” on happiness as follows:

“So, here I am. A clueless, inexpert, inelegant dude. Trying to figure shit out. Like, even now, I don’t know that I agree with half of what I’ve written here. And tomorrow I won’t agree with the other half. But it feels like it’s worth talking about anyway.”

That’s pretty much how we feel about everything we post on UE, just as our mission statement says: You don’t know everything. Neither do we.

To give you a taste of Chuck’s first four “wonderings” on happiness:

1. “Nobody knows what the fuck it is.”

2. “Nobody knows what the fuck it does.”

3. “Happiness is a choice.”

4. “Except when it’s totally not a choice.”

…You get the idea. Go read it for yourself and tell us what you think about happiness in the comments.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Geekery

A Fanfiction Primer: What is This Nonsense, Anyway?

April 8, 2013 Sara Danver 1 Comment

Fanfiction. So maybe you’ve heard of it? You might have read this article. You certainly know that 50 Shades of Gray came from a Twilight fanfic. But for all it’s been talked about in the media lately, you may not be exactly sure what it is. A dark hole in the Internet? A lightly disturbing and invasive hobby? An odd, obsessive escapism for people who watch too much TV?

All of these things are true. And not. Much like the rest of the Internet, fanfiction is an outlet for expression, a tool that can be used in many, many different ways. And much like the rest of the Internet, some of those things can be very creepy. But some of them, if you know what you’re looking for, can be absolutely inspiring.

Fanfiction, or stories written by fans featuring characters and universes that have already been published or produced, has actually been around longer than the Internet. In the ancient days of woolly mammoths and communication via the postal service, fanfiction was limited to newsletters sent to fans of certain content. However, with the invention and popularization of the Internet, fanfiction has become a well-known phenomenon.

There’s an art to communicating the essence of a character, relationship or a story, manipulating an existing canon to create a new outcome, and telling the future of a story in such a way that it is of the source-content but also separate from it. Like all things on the Internet, some of it is terrible, and some of it is mediocre and forgettable. But some of it, like all literature, will make you want to live your life differently and see something in a new light. And, in much the way all good writing does, it can make your heart hurt.

Fanfiction is also a great way to be exposed to ideas and concepts that don’t often make an appearance in mainstream media. Because fanfiction is so popular, free, and accessible, it includes many facets of society that suffer from underrepresentation and erasure in mainstream media. Sexuality, gender, race, disability, prejudice, and so many other things that are part and parcel of the human experience but are poorly represented in mainstream media can be found in abundance in the world of fanfiction.

Many authors, however, particularly older ones, are not okay with fanfiction. They think it’s invasive and an assault against their brand, their creation, and their intellectual property. And there are some hairy ethical lines when you consider the sheer number of novels coming out at the moment that used to be fanfiction of a sort. Some authors are fine with it as long as you don’t make any money off of their work. At the end of the day, it depends on why you’re reading fanfiction. A number of authors, such as John Green, have admitted to writing fanfiction of their own. It’s up to you how you deal with the opinion of the creator of your source content, but whatever you decide it is something to be aware of.

Whatever the authors may think, one thing is certainly true: fanfiction readers and writers love the content from which their stories derive. Some of them are looking for closure on a plot arch they disagree with. Some are looking to see their favorite characters embark on a beautiful, romantic relationship. Some are looking to get some fulfillment and closure on abruptly canceled shows, or cliff hanger novels. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you remember the years and years and years and years (okay, maybe just three, but if felt like forever, alright?) between Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. What else was there to do during that period but think about what might happen?

However, it would be wrong for me to let you go wandering around out there without giving you this warning. Beware the porn. Yes, the purple prose, the wide variety of kinks, the characters that you never, ever, ever thought should ever engage in sexual activity. It’s all out there. If you aren’t into it, beware anything tagged Explicit, Mature, NSFW (Not Suitable for Work), or PWP (Porn Without Plot, or Plot, What Plot?). If you are into it, well…enjoy!

So you’re looking to read (or write!) some fanfiction now? Maybe we’ve got you thinking about a conversation you wish two characters would have on your favorite show. Maybe you’re thinking about that last book you read. An event was mentioned and never shown, but you’ve got an idea how it happened. So what are your next steps?

Head to the Internet, of course! Fanfiction.net is a good place to start. It’s been around forever, so what you’re looking for is likely on it in some capacity. It’s a pretty solid place to get your introduction to fanfiction. Another great place is Archive of Our Own, which is, as they say on their home page, “a fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit, noncommercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fanvids, and podfic.” The site is still in beta testing, but there are hundreds of thousands of works from all kinds of source content. If you’re familiar with Livejournal, there are plenty of fanfiction communities that use that site for hosting as well, and can be found with a simple Google search.

Whatever you’re looking for, you’ll probably find it. From AUs (Alternative Universes, which feature your favorite characters in a new plot, universe, or setting), to novel-length prequels and sequels, to resurrections of your favorite characters, it’s all out there on the Internet, waiting for you to read it. And if it isn’t, well, you can always write your own!

Photo by Anastasia Heuer