I started off 2012 with my non-resolutions list, so it only seems fitting that I end by looking back on my year (with respect to work). 2012 was a very interesting year for me, with many developments that I expect will continue paying off in 2013. Financially, 2012 was better than 2011, although it was not my highest grossing year by any means. But the amount of money you make is only one measure of success.
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In this edition…
- About This Newsletter
- >On the Road => True North PHP Conference
- On the Web => How to Write a Book
- On the Web => 5 Rules to Sell Thousands of Copies of Your eBook
- On the Web => Scrivener
- On the Blog => What It Means To Be A Writer
- On the Blog => How Much Should I Charge for the Yii Book?
- What is Larry Thinking => Self-Publishing, Part 1
- Book Giveaway => “PHP Advanced and Object-Oriented Programming: Visual QuickPro Guide”
- Larry Ullman’s Book News => “PHP Advanced and OOP” and “The Yii Book”
It’s three in the morning, and I’ve just arrived at my hotel in Instanbul, Turkey. It took 49 hours of travel to get here. I haven’t really slept in 37 hours. My one piece of luggage is nowhere to be found, which means that I don’t have my suit, laptop cords, laptop remote, or business cards. The presentation is in 8 hours. I have 8 hours to make up for two days without a good night’s sleep and to go shopping for presentable clothes. Oh, and did I mention that I’m deathly uncomfortable with public speaking?
Surprisingly, the presentation is going to go okay, in part because I had the good fortune to have read Scott Berkun’s “Confessions of a Public Speaker.” That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s true.
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This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series What It Means To Be A Writer
So you’ve finally done it: you’ve written and published a book. Congratulations! That’s excellent news. Of the many things I’ve figured out when it comes to being a writer, none is more true than this: It’s much, much better to have written a book than it is to be writing a book. Writing a book is hard, but having written a book is great.
But your life, and your job, as a writer isn’t over now (whether or not you ever do another book), it’s just beginning a new phase. If you’re unfamiliar with the mechanics of actually writing a book, then what happens next is going to be even more of a surprise.
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I forget who, exactly, on Twitter shared this, but I recently watched a YouTube video titled “John Cleese on Creativity.” In the 36 minute video, the British comedian talks about what creativity is and how one encourages it. Although you might be inclined to think about creativity as an artistic endeavor, much of what we do as programmers, designers, and developers requires creativity, and so I found the video to be well worth the time.
Early on, Cleese clarifies that “Creativity is not a talent, it’s a way of operating.” He then discusses, based upon cited research, the two modes of how people can operate: open vs. closed. There’s a nice suggestion that Alexander Fleming would have been unable to discover penicillin had he not been operating in an open mode.
The bulk of the video is Cleese explaining how one sets up an environment that encourages creativity. Those suggestions could also apply to productivity in general. I’ll leave you to watch that, but I want to highlight this quote:
“It’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent then it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than it is to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.”
A lot of wisdom in that! And that quote puts a new perspective on procrastination.
Another interesting point made near the end of the video is the recommendation of not always accepting the first solution to a problem. Cleese suggests most people do this because they have a low tolerance for the anxiousness created by not having a solution to a problem. He argues that a better solution can often be found by deferring a decision until you absolutely have to, giving yourself the most possible time to consider the problem fully.
All in all, it’s a interesting video and quite worth the half an hour it’ll take to watch.
And then, go watch everything Monty Python ever did.
