The creator of the Mothership RPG, Sean McCoy, posted this blog entry last October. It references another blog by Ted Gioia, also called My Favorite Problems, which talks about the scientist Richard Feynman and how he had a dozen or so questions that guided his life’s work.
Gioia created a list of his own questions, related to the music industry and education, as did McCoy, related to the tabletop roleplaying game industry.
I’m not in the middle of anything at the moment, I’m still looking for the start line. These are the questions that I have as someone eager to begin:
1. How do you know what you’re supposed to make?
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
– W. Somerset Maugham
It seems that you are not allowed to know this until you’ve already done it. The only way to figure out what you were supposed to make, is to have already made it so that you can look back on it.
You can’t see what you haven’t yet done.
2. What do you do with all the stuff that’s sitting in the drawer?
“I get ideas in fragments…it’s as if in the other room, there’s a puzzle; all the pieces are together. But in my room, they just flip one piece at a time into me. The first piece that I get is a fragment of the whole puzzle, but I fall in love with this fragment…and it holds a promise for more. I keep it, I write it down. And then I say that having the fragment is more bait on the hook…it pulls in more, and the more that come in, the faster the rest come in.”
– David Lynch
Don’t forget it, because it’ll probably come in handy some day.
I think big projects are really collages of smaller projects. Fragments that don’t make sense by themselves and must be paired with other fragments to make a whole.
This article by Austin Kleon really goes into detail about filing your ideas for later. It’s important to be able to grab them at a moment’s notice.
Right now I’m trying to use this method for a larger project. I might write about this more at a later date.
3. How do you get things done?
“Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.”
– Isak Dinesen
Somehow you have to work a little everyday. Somehow.
This is where habits come in to play. A page day, a drawing a day, a workout a day. Small and manageable tasks, things that don’t have the potential to explode in a fiery mess.
I’ve been doing a single sheet of loose-leaf paper, front-and-back, a day. If I feel like doing another, I grab another sheet, but I only have to do the one.
4. How do you meet new people?
“… At some point you’ve just got to make the decision, ‘well, no one’s gonna keep up with me. I’m going to a 12:00 show, then I’m gonna go to a 3:00 show, and a 5:00 show…’ You know, and so you just get used to buying that ticket alone, getting your seat wherever, you know, and it’s fun cause you tend to meet those other loners… I got friends with a guy who always sat over there… about six-months later you finally go, “hey man, who are you? I’ve seen you at about seventy-five movies by now.”
– Richard Linklater (on going to the movies alone)
It seems that you’ve got to go where the people are. You’ve got to go up to them and say hello. You have to make the first step.
This of course doesn’t answer WHERE you’re supposed to go. I don’t think I’ve figured that out, but I guess movie theaters would be a good place to start.
5. When do you go for the big project? When do you go for the small?
“The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before. Don’t wait for her. Start alone.”
– Roger Ebert
The project chooses itself. When it’s “done” it is whatever length it is.
The only thing that likely matters is that you pair your projects to your resources.
What do you have?
What can you do?
I think about these problems everyday, and perhaps I shouldn’t. The answer to all of these is either patience or beginning.
Make a line on the ground and call it your own starting line. Right where you stand.