Article: Save Versus Fear

[Matt James]

You can view the page at http://www.loremaster.org/content.ph...ve-Versus-Fear

---------- Post added at 02:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:33 PM ----------

I hate when I have to put disclaimers.

• If you are not 21, don't drink. It's illegal.
• Don't put the onerous on your developers and editors to fix your work. Turn over quality work. I've had to focus on this one myself.
• Above of all else, have fun.

[Alphastream]

Nice. I like seeing how different people work. In college and grad school I would often wait until the last moment. Somehow the pressure of a xx-page paper due the next day would really create better work (or so I felt) if I started at 11PM. Starting earlier seldom helped, outside of framing the work and outlining. Actual writing seemed to only really truly flow when my life was on the line.

With my career I had to change that quickly. I could not ask my coworkers or customers to wait until midnight. I found ways to slip that sense of urgency into a more immediate time-frame: "I need to do this now... because I have other things to do or because now works best... even if it is actually due in a few days." I still often need that sense of pressure and thus give myself many timelines in any project to keep the pressure going. With authoring, having that editor/admin with timelines helps me immensely.

When it comes to quality, I always approach projects wondering how anything of quality will be produced. It is amazing how one day I have nothing but an empty slate and a month later I have a draft of an adventure. I'm not really sure how it happens. I know the steps I take, but it still feels like magic. I don't really have much apprehension, but it is more a sense of disbelief that I will reach the end and that perhaps this time I will be stumped. I put one foot in front of the other and feel grateful when good stuff happens.

[D'karr]

What the f.. was this article?

I've found that I get more inspired when working under incredible pressure, like impossible to meet deadlines. My brain just seems to go into overdrive at those times and at least it seems to work more efficiently.

Maybe it's the training. Never let the immediate be the master of the important, unless the immediate is the important. At work I always have to ask, what is the real priority of this because if everything is a priority then nothing is.