Remember Jack Mason? Guy wasn't fucking around one bit.
I'm a terrible learner. I mean, I'm an intuitive person who learns things on the moment, but if I would have to explain you what these things were, you would hear me stutter and stammer for about thirty minutes before giving up. Things make sense intuitively for me, but they are never clear. What I learn just becomes something I do, you know? Psychoanalysts and development specialists in general say that naming things is to shape them. That's why a child starts developing at a crazy pace once he starts talking. So in an effort to become a better person, here's a list of things I have learned this year.
ON LITERATURE
-It doesn't matter how many guns, bodies and pints of blood there are on the page, a good crime novel works just like a good novel. You need an interesting person to talk about. Without an interesting protagonist, it doesn't mean your story will be bad, it just won't stand out.
-You know you're doing something for the right reasons when you don't mind being pouted during the award season. My stories got zero mentions during the "year's best" reviews and I find it fantastic that I don't really care. Having them published and working with great editors were more than enough for me.They're not the alpha and omega of what I have to offer. In fact, they are a tiny fraction of what I want to put on paper. These six stories served their purpose of making me better at what I do.
-My way of reading things is not perfectly suited for every type of book. I cannot power through a complicated thousand pages epic and "get it". Some books are meant to take time.
-You know you're doing something for the right reasons when you don't mind being pouted during the award season. My stories got zero mentions during the "year's best" reviews and I find it fantastic that I don't really care. Having them published and working with great editors were more than enough for me.They're not the alpha and omega of what I have to offer. In fact, they are a tiny fraction of what I want to put on paper. These six stories served their purpose of making me better at what I do.
-My way of reading things is not perfectly suited for every type of book. I cannot power through a complicated thousand pages epic and "get it". Some books are meant to take time.
ON LIFE
-People can start sucking really bad when you wave a wad of cash to their face. In fact, you can calculate a person's worth to an almost scientific precision by observing how they react to the possibility of financial gain.
-Change is the scariest and the best thing. It's blowing off the roof of your house. No more warm comfort, but there's a whole new world to explore instead. A lot bigger than the one you used to live in.
-Figuring out the right thing to do and how to do it right is two different things.
-Any notion of waiting or anticipating has been rendered as socially unacceptable by the information age. What took months to happen twenty years ago has to take days to happen today. Twelve years ago, I was on 56K modem and now, I'm freaking out because my browser loads for twenty seconds.
ON WORK
-Stating your opinion out loud is not always the smart thing to do. In fact, sometimes it's pretty stupid and childish.
-The answer to every work problem related is to work more. Colleagues are snobing you? Work more, you'll notice them less and they might just drop by to notice how busy you are. You feel that your projects are stalling? Work more, it will take your mind off this feeling and it will move the projects forward. You blundered? Work more, don't let it take importance and define who you are, against that mountain of work you've already did. The work is all that really matters.
-I love writing, but writing doesn't love me, yet. I wonder if it ever will.
-Be useful, but don't be dependable. The average co-worker will try to sweep his responsibilities in your backyard.
ON MYSELF
-I don't like being the center of attention.
-Whatever I think I know, usually I think otherwise twelve months later.
ON TECHNOLOGY
-I already had the focus capacity of Tweety bird, but social medias demolished what was left of it and it's a problem. Thinking in a hundred and forty character and status updates hasn't lead me anywhere but unable to focus through a simple forty minutes of a television show episode. A purge is to expect in 2012. I have already started to slow down, but it's not enough.
-I love video games, but they are a hobby I can't really afford time-wise if I want to write. I play maybe two to four hours a week now. Too bad, because I love them. The solution would be to write for them, but it's easier said than done. The industry is more hermetic than North Korea.