The Lani Dialogues

Prepare for some inspiration, bitches

Dear Writer,

There comes a time when you’ve given the same advice so much that after a while, you feel almost like a caricature of yourself when you give it. I have had a few consultations recently with people doing different creative work in different spheres and experiencing different challenges, and yet, so much of what I told them was exactly the same, and I thought, You know what? I should write this all down.

So, today, if you are out there and you’re struggling with your creativity or trying to figure out how to actually do the work you want to do, I am available for consultations if you want to hire me, but right now, for free, I’m gonna give you the basics of what I’m going to tell you if you do hire me.

(BTW, anyone who supports Dear Writer at the Founding Member level gets a free one-hour consult, so if you’ve done that, give me a shout and we’ll chat!)

In the tradition of the Socratic Dialogues, where philosophers would write dialogues between themselves and students to illustrate points, I’m gonna give you the Lani Dialogues, a chat between you and me.

YOU: Hey.

ME: Hey.

<insert awkward silence>

<stuff>

If you think reading Dear Writer is great, imagine getting this letter and a podcast of Lani reading it to you for what is essentially the cost of one cup of coffee a month!

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ME: So, what did you want to talk about?

YOU: I have this creative work that I want to do, but I can’t seem to get it off the ground.

ME: How do you mean?

YOU: I start doing the thing, and then I stop before it’s done, and I can’t finish it. Or, sometimes, I struggle to start it. Other times, I’m just too tired but I feel like <insert famous creative person here> does this, why can’t I? And then, when I do make the thing, then other people see it and I’m afraid that they might criticize me or tell me I suck.

ME: Oh, someone will definitely criticize you and tell you you suck. If no one is telling you that you suck, then you haven’t reached enough people. Did no one ever tell you that people are assholes?

YOU: Um… I hadn’t really thought about that. I thought it was just because I suck.

ME: It doesn’t matter if you suck.

YOU: <dead stone cold silence> I’m sorry, what?

ME: Everyone sucks when they start doing any creative work. That’s how it works. You see something really good, it inspires you, and then you try to do your own version of that thing but it sucks because you just started. The more you do the thing, the better you get. But also, the more similar work you consume and become inspired by that is better than the work you’re doing now, the better your taste gets, and the more your taste exceeds your skill level. Your taste is always going to exceed your grasp. Ira Glass did a whole thing on it. Look up The Gap and Ira Glass. It’ll change your life.

YOU: Okay, so I’m supposed to suck?

ME: Yes. Absolutely. The only path to good work is through bad work, but if doing bad work is a deal breaker for you, then you’ve got a real problem.

YOU: But if I do bad work doesn’t that make me, like, a loser?

ME: No. It makes you a creative person.

YOU: But someday, if I do enough bad work, my work will get good, right?

ME: From an outside perspective, yes. From an outside perspective, your work right now is good. But since your taste will always exceed your current skill level, you will always be, on the average, disappointed with your own work. Refusing, or being too afraid, to do work that doesn’t live up to your taste means that you will just not do work.

YOU: So if I want to do the work, I have to be willing to do bad work.

ME: Well… you have to give up caring if it doesn’t meet your exacting standards… yeah. Can you do that?

YOU: Is that the cost of admission to doing this work?

ME: Yes, it is.

YOU: Okay. I can do that.

ME: Awesome. You’ve passed the first gauntlet.

YOU: First gauntlet? There are multiple gauntlets to this thing?

ME: Oh, we’re just getting started. Get comfortable. Would you like a pillow or a cold drink?

YOU: Um… I’m okay, thanks.

ME: All right. So, the first thing is that you have to do bad work in order to do better work that you will never think is good anyway, so stop thinking about quality at all. Now, you have to get past the wall.

YOU: The wall?

ME: Yeah, it’s that place you go where you know you want to do the work, but you can’t, because it feels really overwhelming and you’re afraid that it won’t be good enough—

YOU: But I just said that I don’t care if it’s good.

ME: Yeah, but you still do care. You’re always going to care. You have to actively stop yourself from caring. It’s a whole thing.

YOU: Okay. So, the wall.

ME: The m_____ f_____g wall. It’s made up of fear and uncertainty and it’s really hard to face, so that’s when you look at the wall and say, “Not this day!” and start playing video games.

YOU: Oh. Yeah. I do that all the time, because I’m lazy and I suck.

ME: Okay, just a warning, but I’m going to start charging you a dollar every time you say something shitty about yourself.

YOU: This is going to get expensive fast.

ME: It doesn’t have to. You’re not lazy, and you don’t suck, but what you’ve set out to do is big, and you need to start by deliberately doing shitty work.

YOU: Hey. I just said I could accept that my work won’t be excellent all the time, and that was hard enough. Now you want me to do deliberately shitty work? That sounds a little extreme.

ME: It does sound extreme, but it’s the only way over the wall. You sit down and you set a goal of doing shitty work. Just terrible. Like crappy crap crap. But you’re going to do it fast, and you’re going to get it done. Done is the goal.

YOU: Done is the goal?

ME: Yes. You’re going to make something terrible, but you will have finished the terrible thing.

YOU: I’m not sure I understand the value of that.

ME: The value is Done. Up until now, you have been working toward a value of Excellent, and that has been draining your energy. Finishing something charges your battery. The more things you finish, the more your battery charges, giving you more energy to finish more things.

YOU: But I’ll be doing shitty work?

ME: At first, yes. But eventually, after making so many things, you will do better work in the same quick turnaround that you did the shitty work. But you will always think it’s shitty, even when it’s good. That’s why you have to not care.

YOU: I can’t believe I’m saying this but… this is starting to make sense.

ME: I know, right? So counter-intuitive and yet, absolutely the only path forward.

YOU: Okay, so I go into this doing shitty work, but doing it a lot. And then the work will get better because I’ve done so much of it.

ME: Yes.

YOU: But… what about the people?

ME: What people?

YOU: The people who see me doing shitty work in public and then tell me I’m terrible at what I do.

ME: Oh. Them. Fuck them.

YOU: But… they’re my audience.

ME: No, they’re the 10% Bag of Dicks.

YOU: The 10% bag of what now?

ME: Dicks. Roughly 10% of the human population are just assholes. We don’t listen to them.

YOU: That seems a little dismissive. I mean, if I’m going to be creative in public, I need to be able to take criticism and feedback.

ME: Yes, and you can. Take a one-inch square of paper and write down the names of the people whose opinions matter. But if someone rips you up and down and says you are terrible at what you do? That’s 10% Bag of Dicks behavior, and you don’t need to listen to them.

YOU: But if I can’t take criticism—

ME: Would you ever go on someone’s YouTube channel and say, ‘This is shit, you’re clearly an idiot who is terrible at what you do?’ Would you ever go up to an author you’ve read on Twitter and say, ‘Your book is terrible and you suck?’

YOU: Oh my god, never.

ME: Congratulations, you’re not in the 10% Bag of Dicks. It’s a very unpleasant place to be; this is good news.

YOU: Still, it feels like people should be able to disagree with me, or not like me or my work…

ME: You’re not stopping them from disagreeing with you or not liking you. They can disagree with and not like you all day long, that’s not really your business. You’re just placing a boundary on how they are allowed to speak to you in your space. If they go to the trouble and effort of hunting you down so they can say you suck and that your work is terrible to your face, then it’s DBI time.

YOU: DBI?

ME: Delete, Block, Ignore.

YOU: I don’t know…

ME: You’re not being precious and fragile. You’re setting a boundary. Feedback should only come from people who actually have skin in the game, people who are also out there making things, and even then only when you specifically ask for it. Being a creative person in a public space doesn’t mean everyone gets to punch you in the face.

YOU: Okay. I guess that’s fair.

ME: So, what have we learned so far?

YOU: Um… do deliberately terrible work, and lots of it. Accept that my work will never be as good as my taste. DBI the bag of dicks.

ME: Good, how does that feel?

YOU: If I’m honest? I kind of feel like I want to throw up.

ME: Yeah, that’s about right. So now we’re at the good part. You wanna hear the good part?

YOU: Desperately.

ME: You don’t have to earn your right to do the work you want to do. You have already earned the right to do that work by having the desire to do the work. You can do everything you want to do, right now, and you don’t need anyone’s permission and you don’t need to pass any quality tests and anyone who tries to tell you any different has an agenda that has nothing to do with you. All you need in order to do the work you want to do is that you want to do it. Do you want to do this work?

YOU: Yes.

ME: Then do it.

Everything,

L