#daemon do his one job challenge failed yet again

[ride-thedragon]

As funny as it is, the idea of Old Granny Vhagar just flying away fast enough for Daemon and Nettles not to catch her and then hide throughout the riverlands with magic, it makes it seem as though there was an active effort on Dameon and Nettles part and that's just not true.

They were coming back every day without any inclination of them camping out to try to trail him. They would bathe, eat, sleep, and do it all over again but come back just in time to repeat the process.

(Live footage from Maidenpool)

I'm not sure how big the Riverlands is or how long it would take to fly back and forth, but I feel like more than 12 hours as Aemond is just on the move consistently isn't an unnecessary request.

When Lord mooton is suggesting they split up, I think he's doing it out of a genuine place of them being there for a long time with no results and Daemon tells him that they'd die without each other (correctly) but he probably thinks they're prolonging the relationship they developed because we have no indication that he strategized something else in the wake of that conversation.

(Daemon and Nettles, while lives are being lost every day from a mission they've had for months.)

Rather than any inclination of a strategic change to their plan that hasn't worked for months, it takes a call on her life for Daemon to be like "Aemond would never fight me with her at my side, I should go and challenge him alone."

I know Lord Mooton was singing joyfully when he found out Daemon died because he wasted months of time and resources just to do the exact opposite of what the queen said after he sends Nettles away. His ass changed sides because he was tired, and I blame Daemon.

[lordeasriel]

Let’s talk about The Book of Dust, The Secret Commonwealth and the challenges of The Book of Dust 3. Under the cut because it’s long and a bit ranty.

I’d like to state that I have the utmost respect for Philman’s work and his writing; I think he’s a great author and a great storyteller. That being said, I don’t think he’s beyond making mistakes, no one is and I think he made a big mistake by splitting the Book of Dust the way he did.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE La Belle Sauvage, it’s my second favourite book, surpassed only by Northern Lights. It has great lore and depth and incredible characters, that sadly, get lost after the 20-year gap we have between LBS and The Secret Commonwealth. That was expected, though, all things considered; Philman is used to creating characters that he end up leaving aside for the sake of the story. He actually abandons lots of things for the sake of the story; logistics, consistency, character development... I mean, there’s lots of debatable things he has done throughout the whole His Dark Materials for the sake of a good story. Whether that’s bad or not, I cannot really say, but he definitely still managed to sell lots of books, so on its own, that’s a good payout.

LBS is a great opener to what could have been an incredible prequel story. If he had decided to write a whole trilogy focused on that, he definitely would have done a good job with that book, except he chose to have it as the first book of a trilogy that actually surpasses the original story too. I’m not even touching the touchy subject of “He has absolutely no timeline” because, I mean, that’s practically an issue on its own. But the biggest problem is time, as in, the amount of time each book covers.

LBS serves to introduce us to lots of different concepts, characters and to go in-depth into the separation of daemons. It introduces Oakley Street, it establishes the Magisterium role in the world, it expands on what it means to have a bond with your daemon, plus the introduction of mythical things. It does all that very well, and on its own, it’s a great book. When we get to TSC, we already know about Oakley Street, about Lyra, about Malcolm, so we know these key concepts from our previous reading; yet TSC fails to do the same.

It has a poor ending, very anti-climatic, and while I get it’s supposed to be a cliffhanger to the next book, it’s not the feeling it leaves us with. Instead, it feels like the story was actually cut right in the middle, after 700 pages of a long and somewhat tedious journey, that expands on almost nothing but pointless trivia. There are a few moments that make the reading worth it, but as a second installment, this book did not deliver nowhere near enough to make up for the lack of a first one. I know this seems crazy, but when you lay down all the plots, and you analyse them all, you notice that there is a huge gap going on in some of them. And I say “a lack of a first book” because technically, Lyra’s story does not have a first book; TSC acts as both first and second volume and it is why it ends like that.

Some of the issues that I have come mostly from characters that shouldn’t need to be lacking all that much. As much as I love Marcel, I find him to be extremely predictable; while he retains some degree of fun, even though you can tell what he is going to do, it’s upsetting when you consider other villains such as Bonneville, Mrs. Coulter, MacPhail, Metatron. He is built to be as terrifying as any of those, and I don’t think being predictable it’s a bad thing on its own, but Marcel doesn’t have the time to live up to his potential, and that’s because, again, he’s written into a second book when all of his scenes from TSC are clearly from a starting POV. And he’s not the only one, this happens with pretty much every new character, from Glenys Godwin to Bonneville Jr.

Malcolm gets away with this because we’re familiar with his character from LBS; that whole book essentially covers his character, his personal Aurora, his daemon separation, how he relates to Lyra and all that. He has a whole book to develop himself, even though we don’t see him getting into adulthood, but from what our perspective of him as a child is, it’s easy to translate into the man he has become in TSC. He essentially stays the same; he’s more mature, but from a behaviour perspective, Malcolm is pretty much the same person he was in LBS. This isn’t bad, but it’s also a little disappointing to me, because I expect adults in this universe to be a little more complex.

With all that being said, I worry for TBOD 3, because Philman now has - technically, as he clearly sometimes doesn’t care about consistency lol - to write a lot to cover all the plots he has started. I’m not even considering smaller plots, but essentially he has 3 main plots going on (this is me saying this from a reader’s POV, so he could totally change this in the future or maybe he is aiming for something else and as a reader I might have overlooked it): Marcel and the Magisterium, Lyra and the Secret Commonwealth, Malcolm and the Rose Oil. These three plots have and will merge or collide, given that Malcolm has already been through Geneva and is currently after Lyra, while Marcel is also after Lyra, and now Malcolm too, and given the three of them are all drawn to the rose oil and the red building, for different reasons and probably with different outcomes.

Philman mentioned Book 3 is meant to continue right after TSC, not unlike TAS I suppose, so in my opinion it’s either gonna be very big or very direct book. I don’t think filler chapters are bad, but when you’re trying to set up new characters like Marcel, Godwin, and even Malcolm, he simply just didn’t give us enough, instead narrating Lyra’s journey even when nothing remotely interesting happened. I like some of these, like Lyra helping the refugees, I think it’s an interesting chapter for worldbuilding, but in essence, nothing there really affected the plot. She later finds out about the rose farmers anyway, so that chapter was really there for the social aspect, which I think it’s important, but it didn’t need a whole ass chapter for it, especially because nothing else happened (iirc, I’m still rereading it).

Another useless chapter is the train assult scene, that was fucking ridiculous and for such an educated man, Philman really did something stupid there. That chapter - and I’m not going into the female character aspect because I’ll get angry again - adds absolutely nothing to the plot. He could’ve used it to expand on Malcolm, to explain how Olivier catched up with Lyra, he could’ve added another scene to establish Marcel closer to the conflict, he could’ve explained what Oakley Street was doing, or give us an insight on Pan, I mean, I could go on forever here, that chapter is a waste of space that could’ve been used for something better and more useful.

My concern, besides Philman’s old age and his frail health, is that he ends up not writing a complete book again (as apparently happened with TAS, when he was rushed by his editors), and that we end up with no answers again. His big promise was to explore Dust in this trilogy, yet so far we’ve only have more questions, or at least I do, and I appreciate  the rose oil because I’m really interested in it, but all this fantasy talk it’s been putting aside what I like the most about this series and it’s the metaphysical stuff, the science and philosophy of it all. I think that, above all things, what I want the most is at the very least a good conclusion, not necessarily tight in all aspects, but something that at least helps us define what Dust is better, and that Lyra gets a proper ending, that isn’t bound to female character tropes.

[raeofalbion]

Rules: List 5 quotes from various fics you love and link to the fics! Quotes can be short or long. Tag as many people as you want! (tagged by @leafenclaw - thanks so much! :D)

--

tagging: Idk who I follow and who follows me who hasn’t done this yet, so, if you want to do it, go for it and please tag me so I can see!

Okay, so I’ve decided to twist the rules a little and use this as a rec list for my current top five Sherlock fics and my top three Fable fics, in no particular order, so people who follow me for either fandom have something to go through. Under the cut because...long.

--

BBC Sherlock

Inevitable Destruction by @jimswestwood (formerly Dionysisch)

(Ao3; Sheriarty) Bored, Jim invites Sherlock into his home, Sherlock decides to stay. — It’s a beautiful 4 part oneshot series that deals heavily with existentialism and wanting, framed in an almost elegant, bordering on philosophical light. Oh and it makes me cry. It makes me cry a lot.

Sometimes it would hit him so hard it became painful even to breathe. The meaninglessness of it all. It all dissolved into the same ephemeral prettiness of clouds, of smoke, of things that could fascinate but hold no substance at all, vanish at the touch. The air in his lungs, the wall he kept staring at. Himself. The words flowing through his brain. Nothing. Just a casual connection, weak strings giving intolerable heaviness to sounds and letters. In the end, the more he repeated something, the more he realized emptiness. Sounds rolling in his mouth numbing his palate, as he took another mask, another voice, another self - an evocation of something he forgot along the way, and in which he forgot part of himself.

Bored, bored, bored. Bored.

His thin lips part slightly, tongue darting gently over scabs of a tormented nature, sign of a certain carelessness betraying a polished image in all its destructiveness. “Bored,” Jim repeats, again. Just a murmur. Gentle, quiet, making sure not to disturb the non-existent life in a bubble of static silence. It makes him think of grey, grey dullness, something like quicksand but gripping at his brain and his heart and paralyzing him until he cannot breathe and exploding into a million pieces sounds like the most tolerable image. Scattering himself like cosmic dust. He wonders if, in that case, he would give life to other stars or just decay. Once more. 

-

Not Until Then by @jamlocked​

(Ao3; Sheriarty, Sherlock/James Moriarty) After Sherrinford, Sherlock goes to see Jim’s brother. What follows is in no way straightforward. — There was a three-way tie for me between this fic, Daemon, and Between Shadows and Sunlight, but this fic. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it and I still can’t say for certain what I think is really happening. It’s gorgeous, elusive, and I love how much it makes me think. Jam’s a master at well-crafted, incredibly twisty plots and I’m just...endlessly fascinated by this one.

Sherlock watches his chest stop moving. David’s head tilts a fraction, like he’s listening to a far-off sound. And then…

…and then, his left hand moves to his left knee. It’s an instantly familiar gesture, one burned into Sherlock’s hard drive. Every other thought falls away. Sherlock feels his eyes widen and his mouth drop open, a gasp stuck behind his teeth. The cold, the silence of the country, the light of the windows, all melt to nothing as he watches David ripple his fingers (beats like digits) over his bent leg, pushing a slight emphasis on the roll of his thumb.

For a few seconds, he can’t breathe. His eyes snap up to David’s face - and it is David’s face, it is, but all he can see is Jim. Jim sitting there with his eyes closed and his hair a mess, slumped in exhaustion but still, always, drumming his own beat. Except that wasn't his beat, that was theirs. He knows of no one else who ever saw Jim make that move, and there’s no reason anyone ever should. That was part of their game.

He whirls to the side, back into darkness. His shoe makes a noise as it shifts on the gravel, but it barely registers. He blinks rapidly, playing the movement back, checking he saw what he thought he saw, not just what he wanted. Why would he want that? (Except wasn’t that his secret hope, wasn’t he sad when he realised he was wrong?) He doesn’t want that. It was just…

Logic. Logic. They’re brothers. He doesn’t know what characteristics they shared, and he doesn’t know when they last talked. There are any number of explanations; indeed, they’re lining up in his brain, each one ready to squash down the live-wire burst of shock. Coincidence (rarely so lazy), or wishful thinking, or his brain overlaying a strong moment from his past onto something innocuous.

Sherlock breathes out, and looks back through the window. David is rinsing the plates at the sink, ready for the dishwasher. Just a too-thin, tired man. Sherlock calms himself, and walks back around the house to let himself back in. He has to see this through. He has to know what he’s doing here, and then there’ll be no need to come back.

-

To What End? by collaborativesheriartyparty

(Ao3; Sheriarty) Texting, drinks, and...something more. Unique. Possibly dangerous. Definitely addicting. — I don’t know what to say about this series that someone else hasn’t already said but gods, they (the writers) are so good. There’s a depth and a complexity and a lovely, wonderful vulnerability to how both of them write their respective characters and watching Jim and Sherlock’s relationship unfold feels incredibly intimate and, at times, like I should have given them a bit of time alone. It’s fantastic. <3

Sherlock had a funny way of getting revenge, of paralyzing his enemy.  Jim appreciated it.  Why do with effort what could be done with a whisper?  The nights he’d dreamt of the detective had transformed his mornings, either giving him a renewed sense of patience or a real urge to get creative in his ventures.  Jim had wanted to give Sherlock every chance to notice him, and chase him down.  If Sherlock slipped cuffs on his wrists right now with a ‘gotcha’, would it be worth it? Yes. “I think…” Jim murmured, his tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips and, oops, brushing Sherlock’s lobe in the process, “that you should be texting John.” How he managed sing-song just now was a bloody feckin’ wonder.  Maybe because he only took John so seriously.  “Telling him you’ll be home…soon,” Jim continued, tone back to a distracted drawl, and took another deep inhale of Sherlock, his leg almost brushing the other’s now.  To Jim, they were the only people in the bar right now, in the world.  His eyes had closed, and it took every effort to keep his hands off Sherlock. “Instead of starting something you don’t want to finish.”  He’d intended warning, but somehow it had turned out sounding like a challenge.

-

Circadian Disruption by @like-the-direction

(Ao3; Sheriarty) They are many things--brilliant, determined, enemies, lovers, human only in looks--and, if Molly has any say in it, soon they’ll also be free. — It was a tie for me between this series and Corpus Callosum--both invoke similar levels of internal joyful screaming, but I seem to recall CC being recced recently, so I thought it might be a good idea to rec this one. And oh, gods, what to say about these fics. They’re so incredibly well written--the prose is beautiful and feels impeccably well-thought out. There’s so many layers to everything that it’s impossible for me to read without finding myself just sitting there, wondering. And crying. This one makes me cry, too.

“Do you dream of waterfalls?”

Sherlock pauses mid-step.

“Waterfalls,” Moriarty says, hushed, “and a precipice.  You, and me.”  There is something in his voice, a quiet heartbreak, and it cracks ever so slightly when he asks, “Do you dream of falling?”

Slowly, Sherlock turns.  Moriarty is deadly serious when he meets his eyes.

“Victorian clothing,” he goes on, while the image - the recurring dream Sherlock has had since the day he met James Moriarty face to face - begins to form in his mind’s eye.  “Me, all in black.  You, wearing that fucking--”

“Deerstalker,” Sherlock says in unison with him, unsure what is happening, but feeling in his bones that it is significant, important somehow.  Moriarty nods a bit, and Sherlock slowly continues, “I...refer to you as--”

“‘Professor,’” Moriarty finishes with him, and Sherlock is dimly aware of his pulse rising as he makes his way back toward Moriarty at the ledge.  His adversary’s eyes briefly appear wet, but it’s difficult to tell in the light.  Moriarty says, “We stand at the cliff’s edge, and I ask you something.  I ask, ‘Shall we--’”

“‘Shall we go over together?’” Sherlock whispers with him.  They are standing so close.  Sherlock can see his reflection in Moriarty’s eyes.  “Why do you know that?” he asks faintly, looking between his twin reflections.  “How could you know that?”

“You tell me, Detective.”

It’s a test - Moriarty knows, certainly he knows - but Sherlock thinks he may, as well.  “It...wasn’t a dream.”

-

dinner by @very-trivial​

(Ao3; Jimcroft) Mycroft Holmes is a dangerous man--mysterious, isolated. Sherlock and Jim are convinced he’s secretly a top government official, but they can’t begin to comprehend the scale of his power. To clarify: Mycroft Holmes is a food critic. — This fic never fails to cheer me up. It’s lovely and the descriptions of food, as well as the character interactions, are so amazingly spot-on. Jim and Sherlock’s insistence that Mycroft is a scary government-man is surprisingly funny, particularly alongside Mycroft’s worry that they’ll figure out what his job really is. Also, the end is oddly heartwarming? The whole thing is just really good.

“You’re a crit-”

A hand slapped over Jim’s mouth.

Despite everything Jim now knew about Mycroft Holmes, in this very moment, he looked scarier than ever.

“I’ll tell you everything, but not a single word passes through your mouth - not now, not ever,” the man hisses, sotto voce. The silencing hand did not relent one millimeter as he pressed on. Jim was starting to regret seating them in a corner booth away from prying eyes.

“If my identity so much as appears as a  rumor  on the D-list food  vlogs  , I will make sure you never eat in this town again. You’ll never be able to order  curry  without wondering if the dish has been tampered with. Maybe poison, maybe they just spit in it. I have clout in this world, Jim Moriarty, and you don’t. You put my name out there and  I will use it  . I have friends in high places,  sir , and they owe me favors. I’ve made careers, I’ve launched veritable nobodies into international stardom. Don’t think for one moment you’ll ever be able to set foot into any decent restaurant again if you cross me. You'll live off cheap instant noodles for the rest of your life. Not even the good Korean kind.”

--

Fable

The Sergeant by deadpan riot

(FFN; m!Sparrow & Reaver) Reaver returns home from Samarkand to find Sparrow has usurped his home. Oh, and Sparrow has a new pet. — First things first: I adore deadpan riot’s Sparrow; our Sparrows are somewhat similar, so it makes this fic (well, actually series but the series isn’t up in full) a really easy read for me. This fic balances out the ridiculousness and hilarity of poorly-paired roommates (with a pet balverine) and the solemnity and almost depression that comes from everything that happens in Fable II and all the choices one makes but still manages to keep the story lighthearted and well-paced.

"Did you know, my dear boy, that that beast of yours has, in fact, retained a marginally functional knowledge of the human language? Illiteracy aside, of course…" Reaver toyed with one of the bottles nearest him, watching the hero through his bangs. Smiles had again gone to try his luck at bottle roulette.

"Well, yea, I guessed as much since he does tend to listen to me…But what the hell are you two doing?" Sparrow was now coming down the stairs, prompting Reaver to stretch languidly across them.

"Whiling away my time banished to the foyer, what else?"

Sparrow stopped on the step above Reaver, eyeing the pirate, the bottles, and the general disarray of the room at large. "So 'whiling away the time' includes turning all the pictures upside down as well?"

Reaver cast a glance at the reversed paintings. "As a matter of fact it does, oddly enough."

-

Snow and Stones by Lilith Encodead

(FFN; f!Sparrow/Reaver) Reaver hears rumours that someone new has taken control of Bloodstone only to find Sparrow and a cursed snowglobe waiting for him. — Considering I prefer platonic Sparrow and Reaver fics, you might be surprised to learn this is my favourite Fable fic of all time. And it kills me that it’s not complete. Lilith creates such an amazing atmosphere in here and there’s such a gravity to the fic that everything, even the lighter moments, just seem to carry a lovely weight to them. The way she writes Sparrow and Reaver is gorgeous too, and I just...Lilith, wherever you are, please??? finish??? fic??? D: Please???

"I'm not going to play your stupid little game." she sneered slowly. "If you want answers - look around."

Reaver did not move. He did not speak. Then, ungraciously he eased his grip, before giving his pistol one last shove into her head. Her fontanelle was knocked back into the stone Cullis Gate, as the force reverberated through her skull. With an aching head and blurred vision, Sparrow watched him rise up and survey his surroundings.

Reaver examined the hauntingly empty area briefly, before looking straight back at Sparrow, as if averting his eyes from something disgustingly gory. Around the two of them were the smashed remains of once mighty stone ruins covered in ivy and surrounded by dandelion weeds. Jagged lumps of stone nested the Cullis Gate, depicting faded carvings of the Old Religion bleached by sun and faded with time. A standalone rock archway stood crumbling in front of them; beyond which was a chalky white path leading down to the town.

Every water, every cell, of Reaver's body could sense a foreboding danger through the archway, down the dusty path, and back to his past.

"This is a trick." he insisted. "An elaborate deception fabricated by a vindictive Will-user."

Sparrow remained sat on the Cullis Gate, knowing that Reaver would knock her down again if she gave another dissatisfactory answer.

"Its not." she said simply, as if talking to a child that should know better. "You know it's not."

-

That Which Moves the Stars by ingresviolin

(Ao3; f!HoBW/Reaver, f!HoBW/Ben Finn) Beatrice, empath and princess, embarks on a quest to find her missing father shortly after her mother’s death. — It’s still in early days, but there’s something very charming and curious about this fic. I love that the quest is mainly research-based so far and that all the characters have a wonderfully defined depth and clarity. I’m so curious and excited to see how it all comes together in the end.

"You look very young for being very old," Beatrice whispered at a nearly inaudible level. Her mother and Logan did not catch the comment, but both men at the table did. Reaver glared at her with the same menacing expression as earlier that day, but his eyes were darker than before. Beatrice felt an internal prickle of excitement: her favorite feeling.

She didn't need to touch Reaver to know he was upset, but as his glare darkened her excitement turned to fear. She could see her own image in the darkness of his pupils, as well as the glowing flames of the fireplace behind her. And she could have sworn to Avo that the two were not separate, but that the Beatrice-shaped homunculus at the center of the tiny conflagration in his eyes was being burned alive.

[philosworkbench]

Solopreneurs: What’s your fastest Shower,  Ship, Succeed story?

Maybe this term already exists. I have no idea. But here’s what I want to talk about: I had an idea for a new class while in the shower yesterday. I announced I was doing it today. It starts in two weeks. In six weeks, I’ll have a pretty clear picture of how successful it was. That seems like a turnaround that solopreneurs are uniquely positioned to create.

Backstory: My COVID vs. Career Crisis

Disclaimer: My family and I have been extremely lucky during COVID. No one has been sick and no one in my immediate family works in healthcare or has a job that requires going in-person work. So, I’m using the term “crisis” with a tremendous amount of privilege. Still, it decimated my industry and how I used to earn a living.

That all being said, when COVID hit, I lost four months of work in one week. It created a huge void in my life. My entire career was built on live: live training and facilitation using IMPROV. I curled up into a ball and started questioning everything I had done in my life. What did it mean? What was at the center of it. About 6 months and 100,000 words (written only to myself) later, and I had the conceptual model for the PLAY Polarities. It was exhilarating. I had an idea of value that I could share with the world. Something of mine that I could sell myself. Only one problem. I didn’t devise the product. Okay, cool. Here’s a model. Everybody has a model. No one pays for an idea. They pay for an application of an idea.

So, simultaneously as I began telling people at PLAYdates (then TDCocoa) about the idea, I began thinking about ways to productize the insights I had assembled. What’s the coaching package? What’s the training program? Etc. 

I think about monetization a lot. Between my cozy white male Gen X upbringing and my life in improv, I didn’t get a lot of good ideas about how to make money happen. As a kid I was told by parents and guidance counselors: “just get a general liberal arts degree and you can do anything.” I even once suggested to my stepdad that I might get a degree in public speaking (which turns out would have been hugely valuable as I spent a lot of time as a presentation skills coach). His reaction?

“Why would you get a degree in how to say something instead of getting a degree in what to say.”

Somehow he thought that was a bad idea but didn’t bat an eye as I selected my major in philosophy. PHILOSOPHY.

From there I went into improv where the general approach to everything is, “let’s just help each other out and everything will be fine.” That’s why the only financially successful improvisers are the ones you recognize on TV or the ones with good day jobs. “It’s a mug’s game.”

Don’t get me wrong: improvisation can help you immeasurably as an entrepreneur. I just didn’t know it and never applied it that way. So, consider it a “mod.” Improv doesn’t necessarily help “out of the box.”

So, I did what I always do and why I’ve devoted myself to facilitating transformational self-improvement -- I started reading books about it. How does one become an “entrepreneur?” How does one “monetize” their intellectual property into a service? How does one “productize” their services into clearly defined products?

That brings me to a nice hot shower.

SHOWER: Surprising Yourself with the Big Idea

I’ve been racking my brain about lightweight products to monetize the PLAY Polarities. I turns out that it’s not enough to say, “I do coaching, training, and consulting.” People don’t just start throwing money at you. You have to clearly identify problems and try solving them.

So you discovered a model that seems to organize individual, team, and organizational improvement priorities. Big deal! Who needs that? Do they know they need that? What are they going to do with that knowledge? How can it make or save them money? I.e. WHY SHOULD THEY PAY YOU?

I’ve been beating my head against the wall about this for weeks. And, without exception, each monetization strategy I come up with occurs to me in the shower. It just pops into my head.

“Eureka! I should do this!”

Disclaimer: My spouse and I are watching the TV show, Eureka, right now. That may be a factor.

So the idea for this new class hit me. I would lead a live, virtual class, reduce the rate in exchange for participants letting me record it and turn it into assets for an asynchronous eLearning. 

Okay, but if I’m going to do that, before everyone gets too busy returning to the “real world,” I should do it QUICKLY.

“Like April?” says my Shower Daemon.

“Yes! April!” I reply. And then immediately face anxiety. How do I do that?

SHIP: Lessons from Volunteer Carpentry and Seth Godin

Something else I had to learn on my journey to unexpected entrepreneurship? Execution. Yes, my new company is as an assassin.... ON THE DANCE FLOOR! (Jumps up and down, shakes hips, trips, falls, farts.)

I had to learn what Charan and Bossidy talk about in their book, unsurprisingly called Execution. So you have great ideas? Great. What will you do about them? You plan to sell? How will you sell? How many dials? How many LinkedIn messages? When? 

Execution is the lifeblood of business. It’s almost too simple to recognize it’s profundity. Yes, duh, to do something, you must, you know, do something. When I tell you that that simple truism has sabotaged most of my professional life, believe me. 

As the Apostle Paul says, “The good that I would do, I do not. The evil that I would not do, I do.”  

Or, in the Revised Matt Elwell version, “The work that I wish I would do, I procrastinate about. The desk that doesn’t need to be reorganized for the 80th time, I reorganize again. This is, in fact, the perfect day for it.”

As I said in a PLAYdate this afternoon:

Most people get to the starting line and GO! I get to the starting line and keep trying to redraw the perfect starting line. Job one for me is cultivating the habit of running imperfectly.

So, against every instinct, I announced my class on today’s PLAYdate using a slide I created while the participants were in their breakouts. 

There are two places. The first was Habitat For Humanity. I was no carpenter, but my home church had a long history with HFH and I loved the few mission days I spent with them. I learned a lot about handling wood and framing out a house. I learned how to “talk to the nail,” making small adjustments to how you struck the nail to encourage it not bend as you encountered resistance. As someone who was pretty much written off in gym class as an irredeemable fat nerd, this was something physical that I felt competent about.

However, because I felt competent, I started wanting everything I did to be perfect. To garner the compliments and validation that meant so much to me as I started. But no. that positive reinforcement started waning, and people instead started looking at me with their heads cocked to one side. I was taking too long.

That’s when I learned a saying I’ve tried to remind myself of my whole life:

“You ain’t building a piano!”

(This was said to me in deep southern New Jersey, so it was more like, “Yuh-aint-buildin’-uh-pian-urr!” And then someone threw a piece of scrapple at me. True story.)

That simple sentence reminds me that I have made a habit, perhaps a compulsion, of fretting over details most people won’t notice. I’ve often excused this by telling myself that I’m an artist and therefore, I’m not just filling orders.

If you’re prone to excusing your own poor time management in favor of artistry, consider this. Are you making a statement about your art with what you are doing, or making a statement about your fear with what you’re not yet doing? Are you really saying something with the detail you’re burning hours on to get “just right” or are you allowing yourself to avoid something that really does present the greater artistic challenge. 

As Stephen Covey observed, “avoid being ‘right in the thick’ of thin things.”

That’s my Habitat for Humanity story. My other influence, which is a much shorter story, is Seth Godin. You can still get his ShipIt Journal for free on his blog. And if you have something worth doing, I would suggest using his guide to help you do it. In Godin’s characteristic manner, he helped me realize how much of my failure to execute was motivated by fear. 

If you’re terrified of failing at something, your brain will make sure you don’t, by making sure you never really try. Basically, you brain exists to keep you alive. We’ve evolved to not do things that can endanger our aliveness by experiencing and avoiding pain. So, if you’re afraid of failing, you are experiencing a kind of pain. Brains hate that noise. QED: you never quite get around to it.

So when I’m not channeling the kindly old South Jersey carpenter who said, “you ain’t building a piano,” I channel Seth Godin who calmly informs me through his immaculate demeanor and trademark spectacles, “just get it shipped.”

Telling people about my class today was me “throwing my cap over the wall” to make sure I did what I said. I’m already scared thinking about it. But now it’s a fear of not getting it shipped, not of not getting it perfect. That’s the fear I want.

SUCCEED: Coming Soon? 

In improv we have a “rule of threes.” It’s integral to comedy:

Offer something

Add something else which, by its very following of 1, begins to create a possible connection/story

Add a third thing which, by association with the other two things, clarifies the connection and resolves it or launches us on a trajectory

Depending on that third offering, you either have a joke or a scene, but either way, you have a good chance a comedy.

Either way, the third thing is where we start seeing “the product.” The thing thing is the embodiment of “oh, I get it....” For example:

If Player A nods to Player B and says, “Cat” and Player B nods back and says “Dog.” Then a lot can happen.

Player A can say, in a business like manner. “Are any other animals joining us at this business meeting?” Immediately, a lot becomes clear. These people are playing animals. They’re doing some kind of animal business. Hilarious.

Player A can say, “Oh, I love dogs! Isn’t the vet here, great?” The two make small talk while their pets are getting treatment. Eventually, they fall in love. (Player A and Player B. Not the pets. Or Do ThEy!?)

Or, Player C can enter and offer a warm, “Hey, Dog!” to Player B and sit down next to them. Then, they can turn and nod in the direction of Player A with a curt, even cold, “Cat.”. Player B can respond happily, so grateful to be acknowledged. Player A can respond to the frosty greeting in a way that makes Player C visibly shiver: “Helloooooo, Mouse.”

No matter which of those scenes interests you, they would all interest someone. In an audience of 150, at least a few would walk out the door of the theater that night and say, “that one was my favorite. That group was so good. Let’s come back here soon!” 

Three beats makes a product. Three beats is something people will buy, buy again, and tell their friends to buy. Three beats is success.

As I embark on this journey of Shower-Ship-Succeed, I think about what I need to get to my third beat. And what occurs to me is a clear picture of what success looks like and a practical understanding of what I need to do in myself, in my actions, in my systems, and in my relationships to make that success happen. 

Some people might argue (and they might be right) that you shouldn’t get to ship without having a clear picture of success. And maybe they’re right. But don’t let that stop you from starting the creation or “shipping” process. In fact, I’m finding that all three of these states are iterative. You don’t so much go linearly from one to the other.

You have your “shower moment.” Hopefully, you listen to it and start to work on it. You start getting ready to “ship.” I call that whole process “shipping,” not just the putting-it-on-the-shelf-with-a-price-tag part. As you do that, I believe you get a vision for what this will be and who will like it and then you can start asking why they would pay for it, and that can start you on this cycle. 

That might be a question that sends you back to the shower for more.

What about YOUR Shower, Ship, Succeed story?

I started this post with a question and then all this stuff just flowed out. (Hooray, my gift of making first drafts five times longer than they have to be!)

Here’s what I want to know: Have you ever, as a solopreneur, or just a creator of anything, noticed a rapid procession from initial idea (Shower) to making something (Ship) to having a desired result (Succeed)? 

What was your fastest time?

What helped you get it done so fast?

What slowed it down?

What did you have to overcome -- in the project and in yourself -- to get it done?

Now that I’ve said all I could possibly say, I’d love to hear your stories!