The Take-Away Message from Planet Comicon: THEY SAID "YES" (… but no, he did not go to Jared's …)

No, I am not talking about proposals, here.

Or … maybe I am. Just not the marriage type. The business type. More accurately, the OPPORTUNITY type.

Over the weekend of March 13 – 15th, I attended Kansas City’s local comicon, dubbed Planet Comicon, to be official. I was most excited about this year’s first-time guest panelists to Planet, Nerd For a Living. So excited, in fact, I even took off work early on Friday JUST FOR THEM!

Why do they deserve some of my vacation time?

Because they are AWESOME. And probably if they were around 15 years ago, I’d be in a completely different place than I am right now. Namely, I’d already be a Nerd for a Living, instead of just starting in that direction 14 years after I should have been working in that direction. But that’s a story for another day.

I found N4AL on Twitter one day, by lucky accident. And just in the short while I’ve taken advantage of their extremely helpful resources, advice, and how-to blogs, my quest for the ultimate nerd life has advanced at a markedly increased rate. My networking has improved. I’ve found a plethora of nerd life opportunities previously unknown to me. I’ve signed on as a Staff Writer for Doctor Who Watch, my first official step into a much larger nerd world. I’ve grown increasingly confident having my current strategies confirmed by N4AL’s expertise. And I’ve taken Adron Buske’s advice to “be aggressive” in pursuit of my nerd goals to heart.

No, he doesn’t mean “aggressive” as in going up to someone and saying, “Look here, you give me this nerd job right now or I’ll punch you right in your jaw!” Obviously that’s not going to get you anywhere but jail. He means GO AFTER WHAT YOU WANT. Don’t sit mildly on the sidelines and wait for stuff to happen to you. Cuz it won’t happen. GO AFTER IT. Be persistent. Don’t give up.

“PFFFT. Easy!” you say. Okay, sure. Try being an introvert. (That’s me.) Try being a legit-personality-test-confirmed Stabilizer, meaning you want everyone to be happy all the time, most often at the expense of your own happiness. (Yes, me again.) Imagine, for a moment, you have an extreme dislike of hostility and conflict. (Check.) You hate rocking the proverbial boat. (Check.) You really like your comfort zone. (Another check!)

Well, that’s just all stuff you’ve gotta work on getting over … or around more like, in my case.

Yep, that’s all out the window, now. Even before Adron’s specific advice, I was already moving in that direction, as any of you who read this blog can probably tell. I’ve already ventured out of my comfort zone … for me, going anywhere unfamiliar alone is VERY difficult. Starting a conversation with a stranger? Might as well ask me to grab a high-voltage wire. Asking a question of an expert, especially one that is in any way famous (even a little bit famous)? Hell no, count me out! I’ll get heart palpitations!

Yet I’ve done all of those things, and so much more, quite often in the past two years. And as a direct result, things are starting to happen. Does it all still make me sweat and have lovely little internal panic attacks? You bet your ass it does. But I know what I want, and if being uncomfortable sometimes will get me there, then I’m going to do it!

And you know, I still have never once REGRETTED taking a step outside my comfort circle. Not once! Not one single time!

And funny thing, this very concept came up in — not only the two N4AL panels I attended this weekend — but the other two completely non-related panels, as well! FROM EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EVERY PANEL I ATTENDED.

Let me give you a break down of how this happened.

How To Be a Nerd For a Living

The first, aptly entitled “How To Be a Nerd for a Living“, was a great run down of practical and useful advice on how to take something you love and work that into a real, paying, livable career. Panelists included Kevin Mellon (storyboarder for Archer), Ande Parks (comic book writer and artist), Monika Lee (cosplayer and Blizzard Entertainment intern), and Dayton Ward (author of original fiction and Star Trek stories and novels).

This reoccurring pattern of “they said ‘yes'” began here.

Kevin Mellon was drawing his own comics when he saw the creators of Archer were looking for a storyboarder. He loved the show, but didn’t know anything about storyboarding. So … he applied. And got the job! (=He said YES to the opportunity and YES to the job offer.) He used internet resources to fill in the gaps to his storyboard knowledge and just ran with it. He has 100s of people depending on his drawings for the next stage of their jobs and for the production of the show, but he didn’t let that pressure get to him or scare him away from the opportunity. He jumped in with both feet and now he’s doing something he loves for as long as they’ll let him do it.

Kevin said he loves storytelling and he’ll follow that wherever it leads him, whether that’s comics or storyboarding or whatever comes next, and I love that idea. It’s very similar to how I view my own future: I just want to tell stories. The medium itself doesn’t matter as long as I can do that in some way or another.

My favorite Kevin quote was in regards to having a “safety net” or a “back up plan”. Both Kevin and Ande Parks were (any parents of Creatives, quick, cover your ears!) solidly against having any kind of “practical” Plan B to your creative or passionate pursuits. Because, as Kevin put it, “You can’t half-ass two things, you’ve got to whole-ass something.” LOL. And as Ande Parks said, “If you know you have a safety net waiting to catch you, you might not give it [Plan A] your full effort.” In other words, you’re more likely to work harder and longer and better at something you want if you 1) don’t have anything else taking up your time or distracting you from that aim and 2) you know if you fail at this one thing, there’s nothing else there to fall back on!

And then there’s Dayton Ward. He won the Strange New Worlds short story contest three years in a row, thus rendering him ineligible for participation in the contest thereafter. But no worries! One of the anthology’s editors approached him after the third year he won and offered him a novel contract. He’d never written a novel before, only short stories. So … he accepted the contract! (=He said YES to opportunity and YES to contract!) And he’s obviously done just fine since then, having recently moved to writing full time.

Kevin J. Anderson

I popped in to KJA’s panel for about twenty minutes, which was about all I could manage at the time. But lo and behold, the things he said during those twenty measly minutes fit right in with this running theme of the weekend!

Turns out that repeatedly during Kevin J. Anderson’s career, both early on and continuing today, he was/is presented with opportunities he didn’t expect, wasn’t looking for, and wasn’t experienced with. And yet, every single time, guess what he said? “YES. I can do that!” “Sure, I’ve never done anything like that before, but why not?!” “I have five other projects going on right now, but that sounds cool, I’d love to do that!” And so on and so forth.

This one element of KJA’s personality, along with his persistence, of course (which all successful writers must possess by default), stood out as the background glue that held his whole career together. Story after story of how he came to one project or another, the driving point was that he took on each project no matter the circumstances. And then each project led to another, and to another, etc etc. And now look where he’s at!

Writing Existing Worlds

This little panel was chock-full of brilliant writers, all with the common background of having the privilege to play (legally) with licensed worlds.

I eagerly looked forward to this one, and I wasn’t disappointed. In addition to receiving some wonderful tales of the trade, great resources, and fantastic advice for getting into that sweet spot myself, there was something else that kept coming up across the board:

A unanimous willingness to venture outside the comfort zone if an opportunity presented itself.

Perhaps your favorite fandom doesn’t have an opening for a writer right now. Does that mean you should turn your attention elsewhere and give up on it? NO. That means you should find an in through another world, perhaps, until an opening in your favorite does open up (or someone approaches you for the job!). Because guess what? By that point you’ll have experience, and references, and more publications, and a bigger network, and a lot more clout and then … Oh, look, getting that gig writing for Star Trek or Star Wars or Doctor Who or what-have-you really wasn’t so difficult, was it?

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know that world or those characters specifically at the time … you can learn it! You can get to know it, gain valuable experience and skill, and you’ll have lost absolutely nothing in the process!

 

And so there you have it, from the experts themselves. From the people who followed their passions and are living them every day. They worked hard, a lot of them without a safety net, some of them with one, but eventually they all got just where they wanted to go.

Not by waiting around. Not by wishful thinking. Not by hiding away behind their desk and watching the world go by.

They did stuff. They wrote and drew and made stuff. They talked to people. They pitched ideas. They kept submitting. They kept writing and drawing and making stuff. They remained open to opportunity in all its different forms, even if previously foreign to them or outside of their main “goal” areas, and if something happened to come up or become available, they always said YES.

And lo and behold, those opportunities led them right back to where they’d always wanted to be!

 

So remember:

Be BOLD.

Be DARING.

Be OPEN.

Be FLEXIBLE.

Be PERSISTENT.

Be FRIENDLY.

SAY YES.