Learning is dope. It is the BUSINESS.
It’s such a truism that we take that for granted when we’re younger. It must be because of compulsory education, or something like that…especially in how it frames what “learning” is, which is equated with school, because learning is so obviously much more than that. Kids are learning and loving it far, far more than they don’t like it. It’s just those things aren’t called “education.” They’re not school.
Odd tangent there…but I suppose I mean that it strikes me as odd that we perceive learning as something that we appreciate more as we get older. That may very well be true for academic-type things, but it’s certainly not true of the world at large. Video games, for example, or how to kiss, or how to make money. That’s all education, too.
But I *am* actually talking about academic stuff tonight.
I just got invited to pay a lot of money to take a seminar with a very, very good storyteller…of sorts. He’s an editor, but an editor is aaabbbssooolllutely a storyteller. They may not WRITE the words, but they damn well help to shape them, and that’s almost–if not equally–important. At least the kind of editor that he is.
I edit my own stories. I’m not talking about editing my book, which I’m distinguishing to mean here that would be a near-finished product in need of continuity checks, style, tone, grammar, spelling and punctuation. I mean I edit my own stories. I’m a self-published author. I don’t have the benefit of a true “editor” who will help me craft a better story unless I pay them a lot of money. Money I’m not making from my books. Yet. So…I edit myself.
My journey towards a process that will produce me excellent stories in an efficient, deadline-meeting manner is reaching a turning point. I’m going through it for the second time, now, and I’m learning so much more this time through than I did the first time (hence the opening thoughts on “learning”). This seminar would offer me another big step forward in developing and refining that process.
I’m very excited.
It’s expensive in it’s own right…but I think it’s going to be worth it. Not only for my own writing, too. For possibly offering my services as a story editor to people other than myself, other authors and writers in general. I’d get a fancy certificate with this seminar.
It’s happening at a rather inopportune time of the year, and it is expensive…but I think I’m going to do it. It pushes me down the road I want to go, so…that’s the right direction, right?
Anywho…this week was pretty dope work-wise, which is a HUGE win for me given how off-kilter I felt after a very rowdy weekend last weekend. I crushed it this week. I did miss Monday (though I did do other writing-related stuff that day), but Tuesday through today was crushed. Two 1-hour sessions each day, with a ton of work finished. I’ll be through character notes by the time we leave for Portland, and I have *such* a better understanding of my story now than I ever have during the entire past year and a half I’ve been writing on it. Still some things to figure out…but it is sooooo much clearer now. Thank lawdy. Praise be.
Working full time definitely makes me more tired. It definitely takes away writing hours from my day. I can’t put in a 6-hour work session. BUT…
…it does help me with my discipline, my consistency. And that, ladies and gents, is the true magic sauce. It is the one thing that I’d like to have above all else, the one thing that makes me feel like I’m moving in the right direction. I get into work mode the second I step into that Netflix building, and I have that focus until I leave. It don’t have as many hours to dedicate, true, but the hours I do have, I use fully.
It’s a happy medium.
Great week.
My eyes are barbells. Time for sleep.
Tonight’s artwork was uncredited, but it makes me think of Star Wars. For reals, Lucas’ and McQuarrie’s lived-in universe changed sci-fi forever. It might be Wars’ most enduring impact on the genre. I love it so much.