Listen for the Music and Fill Your Head

Consider the following problem:

My full-time job is at a federal laboratory where waste left over from nuclear weapons production is repackaged for storage. This waste presents many hazards, one of the least being sometimes, when left in the “right” conditions, some of this waste can spontaneously burst into flame. As you can imagine, burning nuclear waste isn’t the best thing do to do keep other hazards – notably, radiation – in check. Part of my job is to assist in writing and revising procedures that must be followed carefully in order to keep this waste from burning.

While I can’t go into the practicalities here, rest assured writing these procedures is an iterative process, in which methods have to be tried and tried again, based on the best evidence presented from operators, chemists, radiation protection technicians, and others to ensure the process recorded in the written documentation is the best way to prevent accidents.

This means the procedures are in a constant state of being written and re-written. Not because accidents are frequent, but because each type of waste demands its own special treatment. Writing and re-writing and writing it all over again is just part of the process.

That goes for a lot of aspects of life.

Iteration. Revision. If at first you fail, try, try again.

“Suppose a company wants to make a product that will perhaps make a real difference,” writes Donald A. Norman, director of the Design Lab at the University of California San Diego, in his book “The Design of Everyday Things.” “The problem,” he continues, “is that if the product is truly revolutionary, it is unlikely that anyone will quite know how to design it right the first time; it will take several tries. But if a product is introduced into the marketplace and fails, well that is it. Perhaps it could be introduced a second time, or maybe even a third time, but after that it is dead: everyone believes it to be a failure.

In a conversation with a product designer, Norman asked “You mean that it takes five or six tries to get an idea right?”

“Yes,” he said. “At least that.”

“But,” I replied, you also said that if a newly introduced product doesn’t’ catch on in the first two or three times, then it is dead?”

“Yup,” he said.

“Then new products are almost guaranteed to fail, no matter how good the idea.”

“Now you understand,” said the designer. “Consider the use of voice messages on complex devices such as a camera, soft-drink machines, and copiers. A failure. No longer even tried. Too bad. It really is a good idea, for it can be very useful when the hands or eyes are busy elsewhere. But those first few attempts were very badly done and the public scoffed – properly Now, nobody dares try it again, even in those places where it is badly needed.”

This book was published in 1988. That’s thirty-three years ago.

Think about our world filled with voice-activated devices. Devices that hear us and understand us and can deliver what we want. We can make phone calls using only our voice. Ask for music. Request a movie or television show. Or the news or the weather. Or even drive a car. Using only our voices.

Those designers’ work, back in the late Eighties, wasn’t in vain. It just took a lot more trying.

What I’m getting at is this: Maybe you’re not satisfied with your skill as a writer now. Maybe you look at what you have written and think it’s awful. I know I do.

The only way I know how to improve writing is to keep writing. And to read, watch TV, or whatever it takes to get ideas in your head. The more you write and the more you think, the better you’ll do. And you won’t see improvement all at once.

Let me put it another way:

Let me liken what this video says to writing. The narrator says the following: “The dance steps require discipline but the joy of the dance will only be experienced when we come to hear the music. Sometimes in our homes we successfully teach the dance steps, but are not as successful at helping our family members to hear the music.”

I hope you’ve learned some things about writing in this class. Maybe some of the steps. But I know for most of you, this is just part of your journey into hearing the music of writing. I hope you have heard it, or that someday you may hear it. It is beautiful to hear.

Keep practicing the dance. And when you hear the music, let it fill your spriit.

And while you’re waiting to hear the music, or if it’s only coming faintly, fill your head.

Listen again: "When you talk to Chuck, he is always encouraging you to go to the source, to study real life, to study art, and apply that to your animation. It's not just drawing funny faces."

And to Mr. Jones himself: "Reading. Read everything. It doesn't do you much good to draw unless you have something to draw. And the only place you're going to get anything to draw is out of that head."

Listen for the music. Let it touch your spirit. And always, always, fill your head.