3 ms·

I think it probably happens because they are average people with a lot of interests. If you're a person splitting your time between ten distinct pursuits, you

I think it probably happens because they are average people with a lot of interests. If you're a person splitting your time between ten distinct pursuits, you probably won't be much good at them compared to a person of similar ability splitting their time between two pursuits. To be good at most of them takes an unusually smart or hard-working person, like da Vinci or (I guess) Steve Jobs. Who doesn't "ship", anyway? I'm a lousy writer, probably a "dabbler", although I care deeply about writing. I don't publish my writing yet. But I still sit around producing pages; I wouldn't even be a dabbler if I didn't! In my opinion, the difference between me and a "generalist" is that my writing sucks.

lionhearted 16y ago
> I don't publish my writing yet. But I still sit around producing pages; I wouldn't even be a dabbler if I didn't! In my opinion, the difference between me and a "generalist" is that my writing sucks. But how do you know your writing sucks? You're obviously a learned guy who has a good command of language. If you published and shared your work with people, are you sure it wouldn't be received better than you think? Or maybe you'd improve in skill and ability from feedback and observation of your work out in the wild? I find any discipline where I have deadlines and have to either ship, or a competition is coming up, or a talk must be given, or something where I have to deliver/perform on some level... I find I tend to get at least modest successes in those areas. The areas I haven't released work, I'm much less skilled/accomplished. Maybe I'm getting the cause and effect backwards, but I don't think it's entirely the case. I know my writing changed (and I think, improved) a lot when I started writing publicly than when I wrote privately. It's... it's incredibly different, y'know? It sucks and it's hard and sometimes people say mean things about you, but in the end the real downside is quite low, and the upside seems quite high. And maybe your work is better than you give it credit for? Derek Sivers just wrote a really brilliant piece called "Obvious to You. Amazing to Others" [1] about how people systematically undervalue their own knowledge/skills/ability. Something like that at work, maybe? [1] http://sivers.org/obvious http://sivers.org/obvious
- mquander 16y ago
  Well, I agree with all your points -- people definitely improve at things quickly by being under pressure to deliver, and by exposing themselves to critical feedback. So perhaps the set of good people and the set of people who ship converge until they are identical, anyway.
shashashasha 16y ago
I would argue that by the author's definition (and maybe The Steve's) you haven't "shipped" either. I dabble in writing but I don't "ship" anything — nothing gets published, etc. It only comes out in the other forms I do "ship" — talks, guest lectures, etc.
DougBTX 16y ago
Stephen King has a good article, "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes," which answers the question: are you a talented writer or not? http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/ http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/ And I think it's the same thing which distinguishes dabblers from generalists - generalists have talent. They might not be the best, but they have talent. tl;dr King defines talented writers as those who ship
kgo 16y ago
I think 'shipping' in that context would be finishing a novel, short story, screenplay or whatever. To the point where you've proofread it for typos. Even if you decide it's not good enough to show anyone. It's the act of completing one project and starting another project that you will also complete. "Not shipping" would be writing down ideas in your story journal or outlining forever, writing the first page or first chapter or the first act, deciding the idea is going nowhere, and going back to the drawing board, and starting over again and again and again.

lionhearted 16y ago

> I don't publish my writing yet. But I still sit around producing pages; I wouldn't even be a dabbler if I didn't! In my opinion, the difference between me and a "generalist" is that my writing sucks. But how do you know your writing sucks? You're obviously a learned guy who has a good command of language. If you published and shared your work with people, are you sure it wouldn't be received better than you think? Or maybe you'd improve in skill and ability from feedback and observation of your work out in the wild? I find any discipline where I have deadlines and have to either ship, or a competition is coming up, or a talk must be given, or something where I have to deliver/perform on some level... I find I tend to get at least modest successes in those areas. The areas I haven't released work, I'm much less skilled/accomplished. Maybe I'm getting the cause and effect backwards, but I don't think it's entirely the case. I know my writing changed (and I think, improved) a lot when I started writing publicly than when I wrote privately. It's... it's incredibly different, y'know? It sucks and it's hard and sometimes people say mean things about you, but in the end the real downside is quite low, and the upside seems quite high. And maybe your work is better than you give it credit for? Derek Sivers just wrote a really brilliant piece called "Obvious to You. Amazing to Others" [1] about how people systematically undervalue their own knowledge/skills/ability. Something like that at work, maybe? [1] http://sivers.org/obvious http://sivers.org/obvious

mquander 16y ago
Well, I agree with all your points -- people definitely improve at things quickly by being under pressure to deliver, and by exposing themselves to critical feedback. So perhaps the set of good people and the set of people who ship converge until they are identical, anyway.

shashashasha 16y ago

I would argue that by the author's definition (and maybe The Steve's) you haven't "shipped" either. I dabble in writing but I don't "ship" anything — nothing gets published, etc. It only comes out in the other forms I do "ship" — talks, guest lectures, etc.

DougBTX 16y ago

Stephen King has a good article, "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes," which answers the question: are you a talented writer or not? http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/ http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/ And I think it's the same thing which distinguishes dabblers from generalists - generalists have talent. They might not be the best, but they have talent. tl;dr King defines talented writers as those who ship

kgo 16y ago

I think 'shipping' in that context would be finishing a novel, short story, screenplay or whatever. To the point where you've proofread it for typos. Even if you decide it's not good enough to show anyone. It's the act of completing one project and starting another project that you will also complete. "Not shipping" would be writing down ideas in your story journal or outlining forever, writing the first page or first chapter or the first act, deciding the idea is going nowhere, and going back to the drawing board, and starting over again and again and again.