Response to a totally unwieldy meme:
The key to staying on top of things is to treat everything like it’s your first project. Like it’s your first day like back when you was an intern. Like that’s how you try to treat things like, just stay hungry.
Notorious B.I.G.
Or: Best Lesson Ever
Or: Why It’s Nice To Have Some Totally Extraneous Skills
Or: Skip The Blah-Blah. Downloads At The End.
The Blah-Blah
I know this isn’t new. I’m not the first person to ask a class to make an x-y graph out of some ripped-from-real-life event.
“Give me a graph of what happens to a bouncing ball over time.”
“Show me what happens to your height as you grow up.”
“Give me a graph of your marriage odds for each year of your life.”
“Et cetera.”
This idea that we can describe things that happen with mathematical graphs isn’t new, nor is the idea that this is an effective introduction to a linear unit. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that it’s never been done this well.
I was rereading my most recent post — the default activity when I’m feeling bored and narcissistic — and I realized I buried the lede beneath a pile of television criticism. Wrong blog, sorry.
And that thesis keeps hankering at me. I doubt it’ll leave me alone until I do it justice so the last paragraph, once again:
The truth, if you’re a speaker addressing an audience, is that the only way to get your audience more engaged is to become, yourself, more engaging. There is no shortcut. The solution is simple but not easy and the difference between those two adjectives lies somewhere on your TiVo.
That last point — that we can and should be imitating our favorite entertainers — is the most important.
I’ve led story development meetings. I’ve sat at a table with four other writers, a character to kill, and no way to kill him.
I’ve sat in front of my computer with a concept to teach and no idea how to make it engaging, new, or fun.
The two experiences are, in their intents and purposes and agony, completely the same.