My First Day as a Professional Nerd
So today was my first official day of full time writing. I was supposed to take a bit of a vacay over the weekend but I can’t not-write, so I did some writing anyway: Just some really simple stuff — worked a few things out on paper.
But today was the first big day. I’m hammering out a template of how each day should go from now on — a way of retaining discipline and structure. So I had myself a nice long morning run and got a haircut afterwards to start out this new chapter fresh. Then I spent most of the day in the library doing research. Sending emails, looking over my project list. I’ve come to realize that my job title is now “professional nerd”.
I had a late lunch/early dinner with friends: Doughboys is open again! You can’t keep a good doughboy down. All your favorites are back, although they ran out of my favorite (BEEFY MAC) today. But the red velvet cake is still in full effect.
Speaking of which, they’re opening a Barney’s Beanery in Westwood. Believe it!
Then I came back home and consolidated some stuff on my computer, then went out to have a drink with one of my agents. She said, “It was your first day!” and gave me a hi-five. At this mixer I ran into a good old friend who is now helping me put the word out on the street: I’m single, ladies!
Yes, I could get used to this lifestyle.
If You Work Really Hard and You’re Kind, Amazing Things Will Happen
Coco had it right bigtime when he said this during his last speech. Kindness is important; watching out for other people is important. Doing what you can, lending a hand, and building relationships is vital in any endeavor.
The thing is, kindness is tough. It takes time and energy to write thank-you notes. Sometimes it’s hard to remember to smile, and to keep it from becoming a phony reflex action — it takes energy to keep your mind open so that every smile comes from a genuine, truthful place. It takes effort to remember peoples’ names (something which I am horrible at), and to maintain that enormous rolodex of information about them. And the toughest part about kindness is showing it in the face of hostility — sometimes even kindness can be a hard sell.
Yeah — kindness is hard, but at least it doesn’t cost money. It costs time and it costs energy, but at least it’s inexpensive. If you’re poor, kindness might be all that you can give; and man, is it ever appreciated. And if you’re rich: You’d better be kind, motherfucker. Because being kind will open up opportunities for you that have nothing at all to do with money.
But yeah — marry kindness to hard work and talent, and you’ve got the keys to the goddam kingdom.
Okay, the blowback from the Internet on the iPad has been going on since last week. I’ve been glued to all the coverage and I’ve really been enjoying the circus.
The iPad is too different, and the day is too early, to make any sort of call on the success or failure of this thing. At worst, Apple will be faulted for atypical conservatism. At best, the iPad will be likened to the first Mac, which combined hardware and UI elements that were familiar on their surface, but which had finally been combined in the right way to produce a satisfying stew that everybody else will leap to copy.
You should read the rest of this report. Not only does Andy Ihnatko seem to have it right, he’s also a very entertaining writer.
I Am Now a Fully Armed and Operational Battle Station
Today’s the day, my little Droogs. The last day of the day job. After today I have one weekend where I’m FunEmployed — aka between careers — and then on Monday I’m officially on the clock as Joe Hollywood.
I cleaned out my office and found the following:
- Many, many old photographs of myself and my friends doing stupid, fun things
- My original 16 year old Drivers’ License
- Lots of old LCC stuff: Fliers, old programs, etc..
- CodeWarrior discs
- “Programming for the Newton”: Nostalgic considering Wednesday’s announcement
- Plastic aquarium plants
- A quarter-full bottle of Smirnoff
It was a pretty sweet and sad series of moments going through all my drawers. Everything was layered by eon in an archaeological fashion. I recycled a lot of old scripts and papers. TONS of old timesheets. I saved everything that needed to be saved, although it’s moments like these when you get a little paranoid about some special remembrance getting lost.
Everything’s wrapped up, documented, and ready to roll. I’m going to cruise back into the office a couple of times next week to pick up a few remainders and make sure the place is in good order before I leave for good. And maybe you’ll find me there every now and then, just checking in.
One of my agents asked me how I felt about the whole transition.
I told her I felt a little scared, but really excited. I almost feel like it’s not really happening. I still can’t believe people get paid to do this, but there it all is. I’ve said it before and I will say it when I wake up every morning from now on: I am so very lucky.
To all my friends that have already left their day jobs: I’m now a member of your club. My clubhouse is your clubhouse. I can come to WeHo or Hollywood or Studio City for lunch on a weekday, but don’t expect me to be out late — I’m still observing school days and their required hours.
My lawyer said, “Hey, so now you’re a full time writer. Feels good, right?”
I told him that I’ve essentially been a full time writer for years now; I just also had a full-time job. But now that the job’s gone I can go to 200%. Explore ideas that I didn’t have time to explore before, ramp up my productivity. Read even more than I do now. Holy shit, I can read more books!!
I think the best thing is that I have the time to try out some really crazy things. Take acting classes, cooking classes. If I need to be in New York for three weeks for rehearsal, I can just go. I could get into professional clowning.
Improv???
One thing I really don’t want to do is to give up programming. I sometimes wonder what things would have been like if my life had gone the other way; if it had, I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to give up writing. I would have always written little things in my spare time to amuse myself.
So now I’m going to write little programs in my spare time. Hell, I’m an iPhone developer. I didn’t have time to really get my hands dirty before, but now…
It’s time to go get that iPad dev kit.
Form Factor
The iPad. There have been a lot of cheers from the Apple faithful, a lot of mehs from the Apple unfaithful; the battle lines are being drawn pretty quickly. All day yesterday people were emailing me, IMing me, and asking me in person for my thoughts on the thing.
My thoughts: This is definitely a first generation product.
It’s basically 2007 all over again: The first generation iPad is essentially another first generation iPhone — a device that’s missing key features that people will be pissed over until they arrive. The original iPhone lacked cut and paste; the iPad lacks multitasking, and it probably won’t get it until Apple can find a way to make it work perfectly interface-wise.
But here’s my prediction: I think that this is a win. Looking at the thing, I think that Jobs had two primary goals: 1) Get the form factor right, and 2) Get the thing into as many peoples’ hands as possible.
Regarding form factor, note that the basic shape and size of the iPhone hasn’t changed through three generations of the device. That’s because Jonathan Ive and company wanted to get it right on the first shot. They also wanted to make sure the software and the basic usability was rock solid from the beginning; every future addition (web cam, MULTITASKING, etc..) would be built upon that foundation. The iPad is the same: Get the basics right, the form factor right, and build upon it. And I trust Stephen Fry when he says they nailed it.
Next, the “getting the thing into peoples’ hands part”: Price. The Wall Street Journal postulated that this thing was going to cost a grand. This was probably an intentional leak on Apple’s part to set the bar; before yesterday, no one thought this thing would come in at $499. Nobody. No one mentioned price at all except by saying in passing that it was probably going to be expensive. In fact, an Apple product intro’ing at this price is kind of shocking.
But it seems that Jobs’ goal is to get as many of these things sold as possible. Sell them cheap and in volume. He learned his lesson from the iPhone debacle where Macheads bought first gen iPhones at inflated prices and then had to be given $100 gift cards later on to keep them from revolt.
And I think that he’s betting that once you own one of these things, you’ll upgrade to the next one and the next. Essentially he’s positioning the iPad as a product that asks to be constantly upgraded, with users buying a new one every 1-2 years.
So this product is betting the farm on form factor. Did Apple get it right? Did they create a product that lacks in features but is so rock-solid that it will eventually earn a place in a new, must-have product category?
The only way to find out is to hold one.
It’s iTablet Eve
Here it is my friends: The night before Apple changes the world again. Fake Steve Jobs reports that “He’s tingling all over”. The Financial Times tells us that the tablet will be to the Kindle as color TV is to black and white. Walt Mosspuppet says that the tablet allows you to order free pizzas delivered by a unicorn.
You’ve read my own predictions on this thing. Now that we’re less than 24 hours away from its unveiling, even I’m getting kind of tingly.
Today I was thinking about the print industry and what tabletization means for it. Here’s a pretty good article on Gizmodo about the tablet’s relationship with print.
So I have a few thoughts on this: One, I’ve been reading Newsweek and Time on the Kindle DX. This is fine and good for newsmagazines, but what people really need are layouts. Photos, graphics, spreads. National Geographic, which is all about incredible photography, doesn’t work on a grayscale Kindle. Neither do fashion mags. The Kindle is great for text, but it sucks for graphics.
This is where the tablet comes in. Magazines could be a great central hub for everything — video, audio, web links. Publishers could become the center of the media universe again, as they were when print and newspapers ruled in the early half of the 20th century. It’s just a matter of finding the right business model and for all the major players to come together on the right technological standards.
Should magazine layout be based on HTML 5? That might be a good way to go because of its usability and because it’s already based on an existing standard. The business model might literally be akin to putting a paywall in front of a website, something that the New York Times is definitely going to do in 2011.
Man, I’m excited. I’m all set to buy whatever is unveiled tomorrow. Until then I’ve got Mass Effect 2 and a writers’ workshop to occupy my time. But by March or so, I will be tableting all over this MF’er.
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
