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.

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:>