Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: blank
  • Music: Glee, "Kiss."

Open thread because I have used up all my go.

Thomas says that it's time for an open thread, because I have used up all of my erudite and coherent, and have been staring at my screen, not actually doing anything, for hours. This time would be better spent petting the cat, ergo, it needs to stop. So here is a picture of Thomas cuddling his beloved plush Perry the Platypus to get you started. Nothing starts a conversation like a Maine Coon hugging a secret animal agent.

But anyway. Open thread! Say anything! Woo! Thomas says so.



Comment amnesty is on for this post, but I will be reading, and may reply anyway, because I'm wacky like that.

Peace out, y'all.
Tags: open thread, photo post, silliness, thomas
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  • 168 comments

donaithnen

June 17 2012, 03:24:44 UTC 5 years ago

Okay, there's a question i've been meaning to ask, but i don't want to pressure you into it, so a comment amnesty post is the perfect time :)

A friend and i have been debating about talent vs hard work. One of us thinks hard work is the key to producing something great, the other one thinks it takes both hard work and talent.

So as a very hard working and officially verified great artist, if you were going to be given only one compliment, would you rather someone tell you that they thought you worked very hard, or that they thought you were very talented? And would getting the other compliment bother you or make you feel insulted?

And on a less serious note, have you heard about the Zombies, Run! app? It's an exercise game about running away from zombies! It just came out on Android but has apparently been on iPhone for awhile.

dornbeast

June 17 2012, 05:38:34 UTC 5 years ago Edited:  June 17 2012, 05:39:09 UTC

Well, I'm not Seanan, but here's my opinion:

Say there's a tall tree with the fruit of Greatness. Now, along comes my friend Rick, who's 6'2", and he sees the fruit of Greatness, and decides he wants one. But the fruit of Greatness is at the top of this tree, so he has to build a ladder to reach it. Then he takes the ladder and walks away.

Next, my mother comes along. She stands 4'11", so when she decides to get a fruit of Greatness, she has to build a bigger ladder, because not only is she shorter, but her arms are shorter in proportion. It takes longer, but she does it.

Then I come along. And I don't want to do the work, so I don't get a fruit of Greatness. I could do it - and it would be easier for me than it was for my mom, because I'm taller than she is - but I just don't bother.

So, hard work is important. Talent just means that it's easier to get the fruit.

alicetheowl

June 17 2012, 06:17:24 UTC 5 years ago

Personally, I would rather someone remark that I'm talented or that I'm good at something. It may well have taken a lot of effort, but my goal in most pursuits is to make it look natural and for my mistakes to not show. It takes a lot of work to smooth over mistakes, yes, but I do it so that it looks effortless on my part.

So, "You worked hard at this," certainly acknowledges all the time and energy that goes into it, but it can be insulting, because there's an implication that I had to put that work in to make it look good. Whereas, "You're really good!" ignores all the hard work that went in, but implies I'm doing it right.

And in writing, while it takes a lot of hard work and time, some of that is knowing where to spend one's effort, which is another kind of talent. I can edit and retool a manuscript twenty bazillion times, but, if I'm not fixing what's wrong with it, all that hard work just made it worse.

Which, to go off on a tangent (hope you don't mind), is what bothers me about my writing group's implication that I need to stop editing something I've been working on. As I learn and evolve as a writer, I see what I did wrong in previous drafts, and I fix it. Yes, I will always be evolving, but I feel like my improvement has been coming a lot faster recently. The story will never be as good as it is in my head, but I want it to be the best story I'm able to put in words. That doesn't seem too much to ask.

donaithnen

June 17 2012, 06:26:02 UTC 5 years ago

Hey, it's all good. Well, as long as you don't publish one of the stories, then go back a few years later and edit it so that Greedo shoots first ;)

alicetheowl

June 17 2012, 06:46:17 UTC 5 years ago

Heh. Yeah, once it's out there, it's done. Which is why I want to get it as right as I know how before it goes out.

phantom_wolfboy

June 17 2012, 16:20:41 UTC 5 years ago

I'm not Seanan either. I'd just like to point out that Ed Wood worked very, very hard, and his movies are now only watchable by people who love horrible, horrible movies. In creative work, hard work will take you a long way. But without talent, you can't achieve greatness.

seanan_mcguire

June 17 2012, 18:53:50 UTC 5 years ago

Talent will get you jack-all if you don't work your ass off. No amount of hard work will totally balance a lack of talent, but without that hard work, talent doesn't matter in the slightest.

I am also not Seanan, obviously.

archangelbeth

June 18 2012, 21:22:26 UTC 5 years ago

The other thing to think about is that Talent is not Binary. Talent is Sliding Scale, and sometimes it shows up in weird ways that are not immediately obvious -- take dornbeast's example, and add a Cousin Lee, who is about five feet and a half, but really good at climbing, so Lee makes a ladder that goes halfway up the tree (work-work-work) and climbs the rest of the way. Or Cousin Leslie, who breaks out the pitons or rigs a pulley after throwing weighted rope over the branches.

Does Cousin Leslie have talent? Maybe, though perhaps not for ladders. And Cousin Lee seems to have come at it from the opposite direction, with the work of ladder-building first, and the talent for climbing second. (Laying the groundwork... something clicks... FWOOSH!)

As for my take on the compliment? It depends on the work. I'd rather hear that I'd worked at visual art, because detail-work like I value takes time, and practice, even if the overall composition came easily. For text art, I'd probably rather hear the talent thing, even though I know it's not really true, for the same reason alicetheowl says: I value the "wow, this just went down smooth" appearance, even if there was some serious sausage-making mess backstage.

For a craft item... It probably depends on whether it's something full of lots of fiddly decorative bits, or deceptive simplicity. Fiddly decorative bits, I'd rather someone noticed that I spent the time. Deceptive simplicity, I want to deceive. O:>