Alec

McNayr

Put your hot tea down and go read Hugh MacLeod’s blog post fat dumb happy.

Speaking about a friend’s relative who had to drop out of college, Hugh says…

But even though the situa­tion clip­ped his wings con­si­de­rably, he still ended up having a nice life in the end, with a home, a big yard, two cars, a steady paycheck, wee­kends fishing or hun­ting deer, and vaca­tions in Hawaii every year or so. “The days where a blue collar guy like my uncle could have a nice life without doing much,” my friend said, “those days are gone. Gone forever.”

I’ve spent 10 years cobbling together a hodge-podge of skills that are now paying off in a way I never had expected.  Web design. Acting.  Comedy.  Photography.  Writing.  Late nights.  Little pretense.   It doesn’t feel like the kind of career/life/path my University degree led me to believe I’d get, and I bet it makes my parents worried.

But it’s the kind of life that can give me a shot at living the kind of life Hugh describes: a normal, middle-class life.  And then the thought hits me: The lifestyle my parents thought was normal will be thought of as exceptional to my generation.

My generation may have to work harder to get less.

That’s scary.  And incentivizing.  Get back to work.

A few years ago, I found myself with all kinds of angst about my career trajectory.  I was fully employed at a good job, doing creative projects on the side, but always stressed out about “what I was doing with my life.”  Maybe you have that problem, too.  I call it “your 20s.”

What helps me now?  A saying.

Do the work.  Do the work.

It’s a mantra I picked up while doing an interview for Script Magazine (“Big Names Change the Online Game”).  I was talking to Justine Bateman, Jill Kushner, and Wizards of Waverly Place EP Peter Murrieta, and during the interview, Peter took a call from what must have been a stressed-out, unsure understudy of his.  Like an AA sponsor to an addict about to take a sip, he said, “I don’t care if you’re tired, do the work.  If you’re frustrated, do the work.  If you’re sick, do the work.  No matter what, just do the work.”

It was probably the most poignant thing I personally received from the interview, and it happened in the background while trying to listen and take notes from Justine and Jill.

There’s some calming wisdom in those words.  That inborn talent matters little in the face of time.

When it comes to “honing your craft” or “getting good-er” or “putting in your “10,000 hours,” it’s all about getting better, step by step, at something that is really hard (like screenwriting, photography, lawyering, painting, negotiating, or anything that takes artistry).

Unfortunately, the AA analogy holds up.  We’re all a little addicted to ‘Not Doing the Work.’

It’s just too easy to get distracted.  To go to bed early.  To have “weekends.”

However, the people that succeed in anything worthwhile find a way to overcome that addiction and do a little bit of work every day.  Find that nanometer of improvement.  Over time, it adds up.

As for me, I’m not too worried any longer.  I’m on a journey to improvement, and I don’t expect the fast results I did a few years back.  I can’t stress about it.  I’m too busy doing the work.

Further reading on this subject: Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin, Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (“10,000 hours”), and Stephen King’s On Writing (“Get a closet and write there everyday.”).

[This is will be part of a series of posts under the Pursuing Creativity banner.]

I just quoted blogger/artist/marketer Hugh MacLeod in a proposal to a potential marketing client:

Marketer and artist Hugh MacLeod writes in his book Ignore Everybody,

“Put some of your ideas on a blog and ‘get it out there.’  Eventually the fish will start biting. Just remember that it doesn’t happen overnight.  It usually takes a couple of years of continual posting to build up enough trust to where people are willing to [buy from you consistently].  But you never know; it could be a couple of months.”

So, I should take this opportunity to write a starting blog post.  I started this blog at alecmcnayr.com to be a repository of all my online media, but maybe it can be more.

I’m a partner at a production company, a social media company, a co-writer at a humor blog that nabbed 2.5 million visitors in July,  and through all that, I have a book coming out in April 2010, I’m actively pitching TV and Web series, and I have a handful of active marketing clients, including Nokia, UCLA, and Generosity Water.  A multi-national corporation, a university, and a non-profit.

You’d think I would have learned to specialize.

Every time someone asks me what I do, I squint my eyes and try to formulate an answer.  I’m not prideful.  I’m probably more humble than I should be… I am just trying to contextualize why I do the creative things I do, and I never have a suitable answer.  Perhaps it’s just not that simple, or perhaps my personal confusion about my work complicates it.

Maybe I should just settle on “I create things, some written, some visual.”

All that to say, I hope to use this blog as a forum to explore an answer to that question: “What do you do?”

I hope you find my thoughts interesting and perhaps use me as a sounding board for your creative endeavors.

Like I said, I’m reading Hugh MacLeod’s book.  He’s an older creative guy with a lot of wisdom and experience.  I’m less experienced, but just as creative.

So, if I’m asking the question… how would you answer?  What do YOU do?