Perspective from a John Scalzi lecture

Tuesday a friend of mine and I went to a lecture by one of my favorite authors, John Scalzi. He’s easily one of the biggest science fiction authors alive today and I have zero idea why he decided to come hang out for a couple of hours in South Carolina and talk about how he became an author and sign some books but I will 100% take it. I ended up with a signed paperback of my favorite book of his (Fuzzy Nation) and then I got a signed new copy of that book and Starter Villain personalized for Squirt for Christmas. That’s all well and good but not really worth my writing anything. However, I did get some other stuff too.

This was my third time meeting a published author and I thought I did a better job not being as star struck. I think it’s fascinating to me that I get a little tongue-tied meeting them even though I don’t really go in for the whole “heroes” thing or parasocial relationships. But my favorite authors are people that have reached me on an emotional level, which is a pretty rare thing for me. I’m not the most emotionally available person other than being pretty quick to get grumpy. So I find myself intellectually understanding I am a faceless fan but still nervous. Anyways, no particular point there either.

One of the things he talked about when learning to write is that you should read widely. He actually said that someone who sticks within one genre, or one set of authors, tends to stunt their growth. So he recommended reading mysteries, nonfiction, literature, and so on even if you wanted to just write science fiction. Interestingly enough he’s also the only other nerd I’ve ever met that spent hours reading books of quotations like I did growing up. Turns out he flipped a coin to decide to write a science fiction instead of a mystery before his ten year high school reunion and had only ever intended writing to be a sideline. Which was a good plan, because there’s no money in being an author unless you stumble into being one of the 1% that are getting million-dollar contracts like Scalzi. I also appreciated that he was very clear that he wasn’t special and dumb luck was at least as important as his work ethic. It was all interesting and engaging if all just a Scalzi-fied version of things I’d already mostly heard before.

But the other major takeaway I got was something that I don’t remember his term for but was, essentially, keeping everything in perspective. If you finish writing a book there are very few people who have ever done that. Even if it never gets published it’s something to be proud of. And then if it is published you should take a moment to realize that, if it’s not successful, you are still in an extremely rare set of people to have done that. And this holds true all the way up the ladder. Even if you find yourself peaking...realize that the journey itself had milestone after milestone that many people, most people, don’t accomplish. And that this is a mindset that can apply to just about everything. Realize where you are and that not everyone gets there.

I thought that was an incredibly insightful approach to life. I have a Saturday afternoon, in between spray-painting a piece of Squirt’s Halloween costume, to sit down and write about going to see an author. I got to meet the author. I’ll have time for movie-night tonight with my family. I can afford to have a weekend without working when many do not. It quickly devolves into bragging when you throw things out in public but the idea behind it, I think, can be applied to anyone’s life. It’s much like the intentionality that we’ve tried to teach Squirt, something I think Spouse and I both were taught to some extent ourselves as children.

Nothing invalidates the bad and negative in your life, or how you feel, but you are filled with rare successes as well, you have hit levels others never have. Sometimes it just takes finding the perspective.