Author: William Gallagher

Ego versus productivity

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I am a man so, yes, I want to be right. But it’s more important to me that the thing we are doing together works, is the best we can make it. And if I am wrong, bollocks to my ego, you have to tell me and I have to take it immediately because we must fix it now.

The time you spend trying to gently point out a problem to me is kind but it is also exactly as much a waste of our joint effort as the time I spend puffing out my chest and grudgingly accepting that this is not the most right I’ve ever been.

Sometimes it genuinely can hurt to be wrong. I’ve had blood running cold – which I thought was a nonsense phrase but, my lights, it is spot on – and I’ve been shown to be wrong when other people were depending on me. Compared to that, most day to day moments of being wrong are trivial. And in every case, you and I are better off putting things right.

You’re wondering if something has happened to make me think this today.

No.

Not today.

Not that I’ll admit to you anyway.

Instead, it is always a thing with me because it always a thing. Tell me I’m an idiot, rave at me if you must, but do it now and do it quickly so we can fix this and get on to the next crisis. There is always a next crisis. And if upsetting me means we move on, let’s just move on.

 

This week on Self Distract… Right of Centre

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It’s not a political thing. If you’ve read an inch of me on this screen, you’re not rushing to think I’m right of centre. But you’re probably also not rushing to think I cry like a baby under the right artistic situations. And that’s what this week’s edition of my long-running personal blog is exactly about.

If that hasn’t intrigued you into reading Self Distract: Right of Centre, at least please promise you’ll keep the bit about my crying to yourself.

You don’t know what you do

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You know what you're doing, but you don't know what you do. I'm writing to you from a school where I'm just a guest at a Royal Television Society project getting kids into television careers. I am the tiniest part of it, I am merely a live version of one PowerPoint slide that lists various jobs people can do. But of course it's not me who matters, it's what I've done and in this case how I started at a school like this one.

Not as good, to be truthful: I'm very impressed with schools today in comparison to my old one. (I should go to my old school sometime: that would be so strange.)

But you forget that what you do every day is something that you hopefully wanted to do, it's certainly something that you had to work hard at doing. And there are people starting out who maybe want to do the same but certainly need to see that it can be done.

That was the problem in my school: I am a writer but then writing was something I believed other people did, it was something the school discouraged. If a writer, any writer, even me, had come in to the school, I would've started my writing career ten years earlier.

Maybe I would've benefited from that push more than most. The kids in this school are easily the smartest I've met so far and they are asking very sophisticated questions. But the fact that they have the Royal Television Society in here, the fact that actually at this moment all of the kids are working on a genuine practical exercise – not a theory, not an ideal, but a real television project – it is fabulous to witness.

And of course it's a honour to be included. But it's also sobering: I always feel as if I'm just starting out but if I'm made to look back, there is plenty to see that the school-age me would be very proud of.

I don't know what I do. Mind you, I also don't know what I'm doing, so.

Decision paralysis

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When you're faced with two choices and you have to decide right now, the correct answer is… either of them. It is better to do either than neither.

I was at the Library of Birmingham all day today doing writing sessions with schoolkids. But my slot was 45 minutes and with about half an hour to go, I was paralysed over a decision.

It was because I have a writing exercise I love. If I'm working with adults, it spins off into all sorts about radio drama and if I'm with children, it becomes a Doctor Who writing session. I'm not always happy about the jump to Doctor Who, it isn't as obvious and necessary a step as the radio writing one seems. So, faced with a shorter running time, I held my head in my hands trying to decide whether to skip it and go straight to Who or not.

I've been thinking about this for around ten days. But at 10:25 this morning, I was alone in a room with my notes in my iPad, trying to juggle times and even – I'm only completely ashamed – using an online random choice generator to try to decide. Start with the usual exercise or go straight to Doctor Who.

Truly, this is not a hard decision.

But I could not make it.

And then the first group came in half an hour early and I had to decide in the space of time it took to stand up.

I did the intro exercise. I love it. I'd tell you every detail but I hope to try it out on you some time.

The thing is, none of the kids or their teachers would've known if I had gone straight to Doctor Who. Nobody would've known any difference, except I'm adamant that they'd have lost out by not doing this introduction bit.

So I did do it but I could have as easily chosen not to. And neither would've been wrong, so either would be correct.

The only thing that would have been wrong is standing there for another half hour throwing a coin in the air.

Unread RSS app review – bright and appealing but not there yet

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If you already use RSS and have any Apple news sites in your set, you will today be reading raves about Unread, an RSS reader for iPhone. This is not one of them. But it's close. And the more I use Unread, the more I like it – but the more it bothers me, too.

There are two elements that make Unread notable and very attractive: gestures and text. The text reportedly uses a font called Whitney and it is visibly small yet particularly clear. Reading is a true pleasure on this app. I wish there were an iPad version: Unread feels like the thing to kick back with and relax while you read rather than when you're darting about.

Then you don't have buttons anywhere, you have gestures: you just pull at the screen. Tug left to go into an article, tug right to go back. Unread uses iOS 7's swipe-to-go-back feature that is so natural you keep trying to do it in apps that haven't got it yet. In Unread, it feels natural but also very quick: it's as if thinking what you want to do is enough to make it happen. See an article, start reading an article, and don't notice that you gave a short tug on the screen to go into it.

Then a tug inside an article will get you a menu with options for sharing and for marking articles as read.

That was my first irritation. I had a website's feed that I scrolled through, reading the headlines and the short stand-first introductions to each article but I didn't especially want to read further on any of them. To clear the list of unread, I had to tug to get a menu, choose Mark All as Read, then confirm that before continuing. You can switch off the need to confirm but I confess it took me a surprisingly long time to find the Settings page that allows this. (You just keep swiping left, across from the article, across from the feed, across from the list of feeds, just keep swiping. Once you know it's there, it's far faster than it sounds.)

Getting rid of the confirmation was a boon but I still had to do that Mark All for every feed. Read every article or Mark All as Unread. Those are your choices and it's the same for every RSS reader yet in Unread it is a pain. Reeder has a little button at the foot of a list of articles: tap that and you mark all as read – and you also go immediately back to list of feeds. With Unread, you swipe to get the Mark All option, tap on that, and it does go to the list of feeds but with a beat pause at the list of articles you've just marked as read.

Maybe that's all part of the unhurried feel to the app, which is appealing and is a stated intention of its design. But where in Reeder tapping that Mark All button is natural and quick, somehow having to elect to bring up a menu first makes Unread feel like a chore. I like the lack of buttons and I very much like the swiping around gestures, but this one is a niggle.

An annoyance is that Unread shows you the list of all your newsfeeds – whether they have any unread articles in them or not. You always get the list and there's either a number next to them or there isn't. The designer of Unread says the app isn't meant for people with hundreds of feeds as I have, but that's what I have, so the fact that I have to scroll past many that don't have anything in them is another chore for me.

But I was persuaded enough by reviews to buy Unread – for a brief time it's on sale at £1.99 UK, $2.99 US – and I'm trying it as my only newsreader. Part of the appeal of it, though, is just having a new view after a long time with a familiar one.

If there were an iPad version, I can well imagine my using that for a relaxed read in the evenings and sticking to Reeder in the day. For now, it's iPhone-only and for me it's a mix of great elements and chores: I really don't know whether I'm going to become a fan or drop it as I have so many RSS readers before.

Cloudy but clearing up – your files in the cloud

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I love that I can turn to whatever screen is nearest me and continue writing. Pick something up mid-sentence if necessary. What I don't love is how you're supposed to find the things you're writing.

This morning I have used iCloud, Evernote and Dropbox for various tasks and I've reached for each of them without really thinking. That is terrific. It's only when you stop to think or, much worse, are stopped and have to think about it, that things fall apart.

If I'm writing a script and come back to it after a few days away, I have to think. Is it in Dropbox? Could well be. Did I really just write notes about it in Evernote? Quite possibly. Or, I think the worst, is it in iCloud? That's the worst because while it's my favourite online storage for a lot of reasons, one of them isn't this: you have to find the right application first. If you wrote it in Pages, you can only see that it even exists by opening Pages first.

So you'vd got these pots of online storage and finding you way around them is a pain. It's a galling pain because the whole point of iCloud, Dropbox and the like is that you are supposed to be able to forget where things are and just get on with it.

There's no answer to this yet. But there is now Collections, a free Mac app that at least tries to help:

Browse your online content
File management for the cloud era. Efficiently browse and edit your Google Docs. View all of your and your friends' photos from Instagram and Facebook. Keep a running archive of your Instagram liked photos and view your entire YouTube watch history, as well the videos you've uploaded, favorited, or liked. With Twitter, view your tweets, your favorites, and the people you follow.

I don't use Google Docs or Instagram, I'm not very interested in photos on Facebook. And if I were to adopt a third-party system like this (as opposed to it being part of the fabric of what Apple or Microsoft provide on their computers) then I'd really want it to be on iOS.

But Collections is trying to address a genuine (if first-world) problem so take a moment to watch the video on the official site.

That was January 2014

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You don't need to read this but I need to write it. For about the last year, I've been on a Writing West Midlands programmed called Room 204 and through a misunderstanding, I got into the habit of sending them a monthly report of what I'd been up to. They were very patient with me. But I found that writing it all down and actually remembering to make the odd note during the month, meant I didn't forget things. And where I would naturally dismiss most things I do, forcing myself to put it in black and white truly helped me.

January, for instance. I'd walk away from January thinking I'd had a good time but hadn't really achieved anything. It's true. But I had a right good bash at things. While I need a practical benefit to writing it down – so I use these lists to check I'm not repeating a pitch or to see how long it's been when I want to chase one – the real benefit isn't practical at all. It's just that I feel better for doing it.

I'm about to leave Room 204, my year is up, and I need to continue this report for the sake of my very soul. I have to write it but, seriously, you don't need to read a word. If it's a choice between me and a biscuit, even I am already munching.

One thing. I have to summarise and edit this list because a lot of things are confidential. It would be nice if that were as dramatic as it sounds, but you know you can't name names when you're still negotiating and you definitely won't name names when they've said no.

With all that in mind, this was my January 2014:

Phone calls: set a target of 30, did 56

Writing: approximately 30,000 words
Radio proposals: 3
Television proposal: 1
Self Distract personal blog: 5 entries
The Blank Screen news blog: 63 entries
Guest blog on two sites
Assorted promotional material

Pitches: 25
Success: 7
Rejection: 4
Ongoing: 14

Workshops/schools/talks: 9

Attended:
Big Finish Day 4
Room 204 funding workshop
Rep Foundry Showcase day

Other:
Officially launched the new williamgallagher.com site
Wrote and shot “Ye Olde 3G” 30-second video promo: won an iPad Air
Edited gorgeous 40-second video
Begun issue three of Write On! magazine
Room 204 buddying with Sarah Leavesley
PR discussions with Gigi Blum Peterkin in US
Clipped my and friends' radio appearances
Liaising between RTS, Writers' Guild and Screenwriters' Forum continued
Planning poetry app for Jeff Phelps' River Passage and funding application
Read and edited more chapters from Catherine Schell
Quoted by online newspaper WriteSoFluid
Interviewed for Doctor Who Magazine
Novel discussion with my agent Paul Moreton
Devised a pattern week: a regular timetable for office days; made me more productive

ENDS

Give yourself a Paddington stare

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The New York Times has a piece about a restaurant owner who turned his business around chiefly by giving himself a hard look in the mirror. It's a nice story and they use it to illustrate what they believe is a key business point which can apply to all of us:

In interviews we did with high achievers for a book, we expected to hear that talent, persistence, dedication and luck played crucial roles in their success. Surprisingly, however, self-awareness played an equally strong role.

I've read as many pieces about aiming high as you have so it's nice to have one that says there's value in stopping to look at yourself as you really are right now.

Read the whole piece including what happened with that restaurant and while you're at it, do please give Lifehacker a nod for spotting it.

What to do when you’ve cocked something up

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Tell everybody right now.

Last Monday I had an email confirming a thing I'd agreed to do and I had the stomach lurch when I realised I had entirely misunderstood the gig. I'm glad to say that this is rare but it happens and it always happens for the very silliest of reasons – and it is invariably entirely my fault.

For this one, I could and later I did work out the whole chain of reasons why I went wrong. There is a certain logic to it, I can sort of see how it happened, I can see what I did. Not why, but what.

I did spend a few reeling moments on this at the instant I found out but then I parked trying to rationalise it all, I made some tea, and I emailed the person back putting my hand up.

That's got to be a scary email to get so I did spend as much time reassuring her that I was on the case now as I did apologising for my cockup.

And then I had to go through it all again with an entire group of people I happened to be representing. I'd told them what I had believed but now I had to tell them the truth and get their help to fix it.

I told them the truth.

They fixed it.

We fixed it.

And I got a lovely note from the woman I was working with. I had cocked up my part of her event but because I told her right away, because I then fixed it all, the note said I was one of the few people who just did what he agreed. No grumbling, no messing, no need for a thousand reminders, I just did it.

She's kind of right. She's definitely kind.

But I'm telling you this from the heart and the stomach. When you see a problem you've created, you can't hide it. No good comes of trying. Just own up and sort it out. It's easier said than done, naturally, but I started the week with actual pain in my stomach and I've ended it feeling a lot lighter in my heart.

Stop churning and just do it

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Look, you're reading this but you know you should be doing that thing. Five minutes, you're giving yourself five minutes. And a mug of tea. Obviously you have to phone your accountant, that's not prevaricating. And if you don't plan the week's food shopping, nobody will.

Stop.

And start.

That's possibly a mixed signal there but you know what I mean and you also know it already. In your heart of hearts and your head of heads, you know you should be doing that thing right now.

All I'm adding to that is this single point: you didn't really enjoy that mug of tea, you didn't fully concentrate on that accountant phone call. If you could genuinely put something out of your mind then maybe you could really prevaricate, maybe it would even be a good thing to be able to clear your head like that. But you can't so you can't and it isn't. Add up all the time you spend churning over this thing and it is invariably far longer and more insiduously painful than just doing the bleedin' thing right now.

It won't be easier for doing it now. It won't magically be all okay and sunshine.

But it will be done.