Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Mediocrity

It's a pattern as old as civilization: an amateur, unsure of themselves, will obsess over what their heroes might think or say or do in a given situation, rather than simply hunkering down and doing the work for themselves. It's a perfectly human behavior, and something I've certainly been guilty of in the past.

Some even take it a step further, attempting to re-create whatever it was that made their heroes successful.

“I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eyes.”
– Ray Bradbury

Over the years though, I've reached the same conclusion that so many others surely have throughout history: there is no shortcut, no secret sauce, no magic bullet, that will make your work great. Emulating your heroes can undoubtedly be a useful learning method in the short term, but in the long term it's no more effective than being that kid in middle school who cheats on tests and never learns anything.

Eventually, you must find your own voice. Nobody's going to do it for you, especially not your idols. I guarantee you they had to go through the same process themselves when they first started pursuing their passions, and they'd tell you the same exact thing I am now.

Here are a few tenets I encourage you to keep in mind:

1. If you do great work, it will speak for itself.
2. If you are passionate about what you do, then you are sure to do great work.
3. Don't be too concerned with your skill level in the beginning. You might not be very good at first (and truthfully, almost nobody is), but with time your skills will grow. Just put something, anything out into the world, and the rest will come.
4. Don't be desperate for attention. Aspire to reach a level where your heroes will want to work with you as peers, not just notice you from afar.
5. Lastly, don't fawn over your heroes. I'm 100% serious because I know how easy it is to fall into this trap. You'll either creep them out or they'll ignore you the same way they ignore all the other gushers out there. It's okay to point out something awesome they've done, but keep it professional.

I'll leave you with a quote by Josh Long that gets right to the heart of what I'm talking about:

“The people that we look up to are no different than we are. They still wake every morning with their own routine and their own ambitions for the day. They have the same fears, challenges, set backs, and epiphanies.

The difference is that they ship.”

This is What My "Workspace" Looks Like Right Now

Yep, there it is. Take it all in, folks. This is where I've been doing the majority of my writing (i.e. "where the magic happens") since I got released into the wild nearly one month ago.

I made literally no effort to clean up the space before taking this photo. It's the real deal.

• The iPad + keyboard is pretty self-explanatory.
• I have no idea why my son's shoes are on the table.
• A few minutes ago, that bowl was full of cereal. After this post goes up I'll rinse it out and put it in the dishwasher.
• The candle is always there, for those cases when the house smells weird for whatever reason and we've got company coming over. Before you go all, "Ew!" on me, just remember that we've got a toddler running around the place.
• The little remote controls the stereo sitting on the lower shelf of our entertainment center. Brendon likes to walk up to the stereo and push random buttons on the thing, meaning he usually ends up accidentally cranking the classical station to 11 (figuratively speaking, since it technically goes up to 30). The remote is just an emergency precaution for those situations.
• Yes, the chair is dumpy. Yes, there's a hole in the back cover. Yes, the seat cover is coming off because the zipper broke. And yes, that is a lone safety pin ghetto-rigged in an attempt to hold the seat cover together better. But you know what, it's really a comfy place to sit cross-legged and drink coffee and write, so there.
• The barnyard toys are Brendon's, not mine.

Super glamorous, right?

Maybe someday I'll have a real desk inside a real home office. Until then, I'm making do with my humble little setup.

Day One's New Promo Video

The people at Sandwich Video have done it again with their outstanding new promo video for journaling app Day One. Go watch it and fall in love with Day One all over again.

'Overcast: Coming Soon'

Marco Arment on his upcoming podcast app, Overcast

“Rather than try poorly, I’ve decided to dramatically simplify.

[...]

If you need tons of features or anything I’m choosing not to do, you’ll probably be happier with one of the others.”

My favorite thing about Marco is that he’ll “sacrifice” features to make a better app. Personally, I hope he leaves out all the extra cruft I never use, such as various playback speeds and a sleep timer.

I'm super excited for Overcast, although he says it'll likely be three or four months before it's released. It's going to be a long few months.

Membership Drive Giveaway 2013

Welcome to the first annual Unretrofied membership drive and giveaway! I'm beyond excited to get the chance to make this site a full-time gig, but a bit nervous at the same time. The only way I can make this happen is with your help, and I figured I'd sweeten the deal a little for you by putting on a membership giveaway.

The Giveaway

From now until 11:59pm CDT on Sunday, October 20th 2013, anyone who signs up to become a subscribing member of this site will be automatically entered into a drawing. All previously-subscribed members are also eligible.

Thanks to the generosity of several of my friends and favorite companies, I've been able to put together a very nice lineup of cool stuff you could potentially win.

Why Subscribe?

I'm not thinking of the membership as a monthly donation (although you're free to look at it that way, if you wish). I want to provide some extra content and benefits to membership subscribers:

• Unretrofied Connect - A quarterly email publication that features exclusive/bonus content not found here on the blog. I'm still experimenting with the content and format, but I've got some really exciting ideas in the pipeline.
• Automatic discounts on any stuff I may sell in the future, like t-shirts, ebooks, etc.
• Automatic access to drawings and giveaways.
• I've got ideas for other perks down the line. Maybe a daily podcast, à la Shawn Blanc?

The Prizes

Note: the prices in parentheses are merely the dollar values for each individual item, not something you have to pay as a winner.

In no particular order:

• Studio Neat: One Glif+ kit ($30) and one Cosmonaut ($25)

• Delight is in the Details: 5 copies of Shawn Blanc's audiobook bundle ($29)

• Drafts for iPhone ($3) and iPad ($4): 2 copies each

• Learning to Love Evernote ($5) and Learning to Love Photo Management ($3) by Bradley Chambers: 3 copies each

• The Sketchnote Handbook: One signed copy of Mike Rohde's excellent guide to sketchnotes ($26)

• Two 20×30 prints from photographer Jorge Quinteros (each winner picks the single print they want — $25)

• Hueless and Huemore for iOS: 10 copies each ($3) — I wrote about Hueless last summer, and it's still my favorite monochrome photograpy app.

• Evernote Essentials: 3 copies of Brett Kelly's definitive guide to Evernote ($29)

• Day One for iOS ($5) and Mac ($10) — 10 copies each

• Ugmonk: one t-shirt of any size ($26)

• Marked: 5 copies of Brett Terpstra's Markdown preview app for Mac ($4)

• Quotebook: 5 copies of the quote repository app for iOS that I reviewed not long ago and still use daily ($3)

• Reeder 2: 10 copies of the best RSS reader for iOS ($5)

• Flexibits: one copy of Fantastical for Mac ($20) and one copy of Chatology for Mac ($20)

• United Pixelworkers: 3 t-shirts (winner picks any single shirt in stock — $28)

• David Sparks' Field Guides: one PDF copy of Paperless ($10) and one PDF copy of Markdown ($10)

• Byword for iOS ($5) and Mac ($10): 3 copies each

• PDFPen for iPhone ($5) and for iPad ($15): 2 copies each

• One Aeropress coffee maker

• Check the Weather: 10 copies of "underscore" David Smith's weather app for iOS ($1)

• Twitterrific 5: 3 copies of the beautiful iOS Twitter client ($3)

Combined, this comes out to be 112 items with a total value of about $950.

How to Win & Other Rules

Anyone who signs up for a membership before 11:59 pm CST on Sunday, October 20 will automatically be entered into the drawing.

If you are already a member with an active membership, you are eligible to win.

You do not have to live in the United States to win — international members are most welcome and most eligible.

The drive ends at 11:59 pm CST on October 20th 2013, and the drawing will be held sometime the following week. It will be random and I will contact the winners via email.

This probably goes without saying, but not everyone who signs up will necessarily be a winner. Please don't send me an angry email if your name isn't drawn. It's a completely random process and I have no control over it.

UPDATE: Several non-US readers have inquired about the zip-code field on the membership payment form. I've tried to contact Helium about this and haven't heard back yet, BUT a couple readers have had success using '00000' for the zip, or even adding a zero at the end for an Australian postal code. If you have any issues, please let me know.

Prize Requests

If there is a certain prize in particular that you’d like to win over another, please make a note of it when you fill out the mailing-list entry form at the end of the subscription process — if you have no preference, then ignore this step and I will pick an item at random for you.

(Also: if you're one of the few existing members who signed up before today and didn't know what was going to be in the drawing, get in touch and I will add your request to the list.)

I can't guarantee that each winner will get the exact thing they want, but I will do my best. If I may say so though, every item on this list is pretty awesome so hopefully you won't be disappointed no matter what happens :)

Thank You

A big thanks goes out to all the people who were generous enough to donate these prizes. Whether or not you win a prize, these are all people whose businesses you should be supporting. Check out their stuff and buy it if you can.

And of course, a huge thanks goes out to any and all of the readers who have stuck with me so far, especially those who have found it in their hearts to help me make my dream come true. It's not hyperbole to say that I couldn't do any of this without you guys, so thank you. I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends.

* * *

So what are you waiting for? If you haven’t yet signed up to become a member, now would be a good time.

'Fresh iOS 7 Apps'

Shawn, Stephen, and I are putting together a running list of what we think are the best iOS 7-compatible apps and updates. The list will be updated continually over the next few days, so keep checking back for more awesome stuff.

Reeder 2 is Now Available for iPhone and iPad

The wait is ~*finally*~ over. You can now pick up Reeder 2 from the iOS App Store for only $5, and it works on both iPhone and iPad. The previous iPhone version of Reeder already supported Feed Wrangler – my RSS service of choice – but this update also brings Feed Wrangler support to the iPad.

I've sorely missed being able to use Reeder on my iPad, and it feels good to have it back. My initial impression (after only 10 minutes of playing with it) is very positive, other than that it took a long time to sync my Feed Wrangler Smart Streams.

And as always, Federico Viticci published his review of Reeder 2 immediately after the app was available for purchase. Go check it out.

The Scary Part

Today, I lost my job. I can't say it was totally unexpected — I'd been feeling it coming on for quite a while, but usually just pushed the thought to the back of my mind. After five years at this soulless job¹, I'd become complacent. Comfortable. Bored. And so I continued coasting, just as I'd been doing for months, maybe years.

I guess it finally caught up with me.

Now I'm sitting here at my dining room table, typing these words and wondering what happens next for me. I have absolutely no clue, even about tomorrow. And if I'm being perfectly honest here, it fucking terrifies me.

This is the scary part. I've thought countless times about what it might be like if I were ever put into this situation, but I just never could make a decision. I didn't plan well enough. I didn't use my time effectively. I feel so stupid and angry at myself at the same time.

But maybe it doesn't have to be all doom-and-gloom. This could be an opportunity to try something crazy, something I never would have thought to do while I was “comfortably” employed. I've got a whole list of ideas for creative passions I've always wanted to pursue, and this could be the time to finally do those things. Maybe my firing was a blessing in disguise.

I'm standing at the precipice, waiting to leap. Into what, I don't yet know — but there's no reason it couldn't be something incredible.

---

1. For those wondering, I've been working as an over-the-phone support technician for florists at a fair-sized corporation known as Teleflora. You probably know them from their shitty Super Bowl ads. ↩

Hayao Miyazaki is Retiring

Miyazaki's (and by extension, Studio Ghibli's) films have always been some of my favorites, with their often-breathtaking visuals, interesting characters, and a certain passion for flight. I'll be sad to see Miyazaki go.

Writing on the iPad

Federico Viticci's epic review of Editorial is now available as an awesome book on the iBookstore, and is packed with a ton of new content for your enjoyment. For a limited time, it's available for only $3, so be sure to pick it up today.

If you're like me and you do a lot of writing on your iPad, this is an invaluable resource.

Congrats to Federico on publishing his very first book!

UPDATE: Looks like the book is already a success.

A Guided Tour of Brett Terpstra's Blog

I honestly had no idea that so much work has been put into all the little nuts-and-bolts that run Brett's site. It's basically a mix between a blog and a webapp, which tickles the geeky side of my brain.

Currently, I'm just enjoying what happens when I hover my mouse cursor over the 'Donate' button at the bottom. Sometimes it's the little touches.

Steven Pressfield's Trying Something New

Steven Pressfield, best known for writing The Legend of Bagger Vance and a few excellent books on doing professional knowledge work, is easily one of the best resources of creative inspiration around in my book (see what I did there?). Can't say enough great things about the guy.

Which is why I'm excited about his upcoming newsletter experiment.

“What makes something ready for the Big Leagues? How long do we have to languish in the minors before we break through? What does it take to get over the hump?

I suspect that no few of the readers of this blog find themselves in that exact same spot.

What’s missing?

What’s the final piece to the puzzle?”

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? If you click through to the newsletter signup page, he goes into more detail on what this project is about (emphasis mine):

“I have a new, long form project that’s about the writing of a first novel; what takes a project from being unpublishable to being publishable. It’s too long to be on the blog, so I’m going to give it with a bunch of other goodies.”

Such advice from Steven is sure to be invaluable, so it was an instant sign-up for me. How about you?

Speaking of Tools & Toys...

Be sure to revisit Shawn's guide to backyard cooking to prepare for the upcoming holiday weekend. Loads of great tips and recommended gear throughout.

The Great Discontent Interviews Frank Chimero

Frank Chimero is a designer and the author of The Shape of Design, an excellent book I talked about on Tools & Toys recently.

Frank always has fantastic things to say about design and freelancing:

“It’s more important to do good and interesting things than it is to make money. If you do good and interesting things, then you have to trust that the money will follow.”

He also delved a little into the age-old "fake it until you make it" method:

“I learned to make websites because I agreed to do something that I didn’t know how to do and then I had to figure out how to do it. That seems to be a pattern that comes up all over the place because nobody knows how to do what was invented last week. You have to say you know how, then figure it out under the gun.”

and

“As soon as you start writing like you know what you’re talking about, then you have to back it up. But, I’ve always been very clear that I am making it up as I go along. I’m learning on the job.”

There are a hundred other things I'd love to quote, but instead I'll just tell you to go read the whole thing. Great interview.

The New Instapaper is Live

The beta is over, and the new design has been rolled out to instapaper.com proper. I still love the way this looks, and according to their blog post about the new design, reading progress now syncs on the web. This has been one of my longest-running wishes for Instapaper's web client (the iOS versions have had this capability for a long time).