Got an email from someone fresh outta college who is about to do some great stuff as a writer. Here’s a basic path toward picking next steps. I walk entertainment companies through this even when their career is established. It’s really powerful to reevaluate the purpose of what we’re doing and get on a simpler trajectory instead of shotgunning creativity out into space.
This is kind of an open letter to the writer, but I hope it’s useful as a worksheet for anyone open to doing some rewarding work for their entertainment company.
You can set out on a total plan in a day. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Whatever you do will help you a ton, as long as you make bold specific choices. I promise.
Pick the mission.
- Why did you first want to be a writer?
- What is a piece of writing you envy or want to match?
What’s at the core of the first experience and what’s at the core of the piece of work of your dreams?
Your mission / reason might sound like “Writing accesses imagination in a way that breaks down barriers and mobilizes real change within people.”
Pick a direction.
This is your initial trajectory. Narrow focus. Super Narrow! Not “I want to be a professional writer.” something more like “I want to write books about how technology can preserve nature in California”
Make your direction sustainable.
As the world changes, you’ll want your assets to become more valuable, not less. Books will probably become less valuable and writers with them. You will want your direction to be proprietary (something someone can’t take from you and make it with the same perceived value for cheaper).
So maybe it changes to “I would like to be a thought leader and influential copy writer who improves adoption of California’s environment saving technologies.”
You might notice that it’s not “writer” as a job title and that might feel like a “hold on a minute!” way of thinking. This direction choosing can be a little surprising once you realize that your mission doesn’t align directly with the job title you originally applied. Nothing is lost. You’ve just improved on all the work you’ve done so far.
Freelance or corporation
You don’t have to decide at this point, but down the road, you’ll have to figure out if you’re going to be by yourself ( you build your brand based on you), or you become anonymous in a group of your own creation. it will be easier to figure out once you’ve experimented a little and adjusted your direction
3 month project : Build assets, serve your audience, improve workflow
Work every day for 90 days. 45% on assets. 45% on audience. 10% on observation and flow. So, if you have 5 hours per day to commit, you’re gonna do 2:15 on assets and audience each and :30 on organizing.
Your assets are the things your business is going to use moving forward.
Hopefully they’ll add value to your company for years. As a thought-leader, your assets are knowledge, ability to share that knowledge, and proof of both.
You might decide you’re going to blog every day a research topic that interests you. Every blog post has to be about California, technology, environment.
Look at you! You’re already doing your dream! You wanted to be a writer. Now you’re writing every day.
You’re a writer!
It’s best if your assets are proveable.
The blog is not the asset. The asset you’re building here is your experience, knowledge, and understanding. The blog is the proof of your assets for the outside world.
If you are a performer, it could be writing/ rewriting your show. If you’re a game designer, it could be making a game. It’s helpful to make your assets something you can show to your audience at some point. Either the physical proof, a case study, or maybe quotes from clients that proves you have great assets.
Serve your audience
Figure out who an audience might be for you. What kind of people will be able to pay you enough down the road for the thing you want to do? Maybe your audience options are civil engineers, environmental technology innovators, politicians.
Pick one of them and start serving them. The way you serve them doesn’t have to be the way you’re building assets. It doesn’t even have to be in your normal skillset.
You could find all the mayors in california. Figure out what they need individually or as a group and give them something great.
Your three month project could be to setup a way to aggregate mayoral news from every city and make a news source that’s for mayors to see what everyone else is doing. Make the feed compelling and make it a celebration of mayors so everyone wants to compete and get news up there about them (not just environmental news). If they get a flattering article, they can share it. That makes them feel and look good and maybe helps them get reelected. You’re serving them where their needs are.
Workflow
To start, these two above projects have to be on mission with building assets and audience. That will make you feel more flowy. It will give your work purpose and it will be easier once you get derailed to re-rail. You’re not doing this stuff because it’s fun or because it’s bringing money in the moment. You’re doing it because it’s part of a higher purpose.
Think about what hours you’re putting in. think about whether you’re benefiting from your trajectory. If you have notes about big picture, or things to do later, jot them as notes to your future self. Don’t jump in to new commitments until you’ve gotten thru this period.
Adjusting
You can adjust and you will adjust. Maybe after this 3 months you’ll decide to throw away all your work completely… but you gotta get through the grind of it. You have to let yourself feel like it’s not working, then find what works better. You’re not just building assets and audience. You’re building a muscle for taking responsibility for the direction of your work. You’re heading toward a place where you are not relying on luck or privilege. You have some control and that feeling of agency toward your mission will be the most empowering thing you do with creative work.
Accountability
I recommend working on this with one or more people. This is very hard stuff to stick to. It’s scary, boring, and off-putting, but it’s going infuse your work with so much more value than waiting for magic to happen.
It’s really good to have someone else sign off before you make a trajectory change. That way you know you won’t be riding whims. You’ll be making strong choices based on your mission and that will give emotional fuel to all your work.
Not what you wanted
Creating a news site is not your dream. I know. Figuring out how to do the layout, the publishing, the promotion, the communication with mayors. This is craziness. Here’s why, though. There are about 500 cities in California. You could become a god-send to 20% of the mayors. 100 powerful people who are grateful that you exist and are waiting to be served the next thing you have to offer.
You’re going to have to do other things than write no matter what. Do you want the other things to be helping people, or do you want them to be mastering the food stamp system, or writing rejected cover letters to publishers, or applying for newspaper jobs, or interning at buzzfeed?
Let’s say in 4 months, you have a great keynote speech put together based on your blog writings that’s about bringing small communities together to affect environmental change. These 100 mayors help you get 100 speaking gigs for $1000/ea (which may be a low fee). You just made $100,000. I’m not trying to make you promises and I’m not focussed on a specific result. I’m trying to show you how the work can be channeled toward your mission.
The Goal is working on the mission
The point of this work is not to make a perfect plan and execute it perfectly and get a paycheck or have a measurable goal at the end. It’s all an experiment. Experiments never fail. They either prove something, or show that more experimentation is needed.
The stipulation, though there isn’t a measurable goal, you have to at least guess at a market that is going to pay off in the future and work toward that.
No matter what, you’re gonna gain…
- Improve your value through asset building
- Clarify your focus by getting in the trenches and seeing what really works
- Improve your value through audience building
- Learn a lot about audience building
- Trying to manage an entire career with all the issues and goals and stuff is really frustrating. Doing something simple like this can help you demonstrate real progress and give you lots of confidence to continue. As a freelancer, this can be one of your most valuable assets.