I’m going to share an anecdote from my summer days. Bear with me, because while I admit that I wanted to share it, there’s something to be learned from it!
Our story begins with a starting point (a train station), a clear destination in mind (a pretty palace) and a mistake (getting down from the train two stops too early). The plot goes as follows:
We got down in the village of Postdam, near Berlin, because that’s where the map said the palace was. In a stroke of brilliancy, none of us though to check the rest of the stops and discover that, amusingly enough, there was another stop specifically for the palace. This landed us a couple of miles from our destination… but that was okay, because the day was sunny and warm for Germany and we didn’t mind walking. It was quite easy to get to the park and the palace, too: straight until we reached so-and-so street, and then take a turn left.We forgot to turn left.
The day began to cloud dangerously, too. We couldn’t remember when we had crossed so-and-so street—indeed, we couldn’t even be sure about the name (hence, the so-and-so). In that dark moment of despair (yes, it was very dramatic) we faced a choice: figure out the map on our own or…
Or stalk the group of Japanese tourists who happened to be in town, not even two blocks ahead of us.
Since everybody knows that the ability to find touristic enclaves is ingrained in Japanese DNA, we began to pursue them, humming old spy flick soundtracks at all appropriate moments, and sure enough, they led us to the park surrounding the palace in time. We could visit it. By the time we got out, it began pouring rain and we had to run to the closest train station (which would have been the correct train stop to make, too) but that’s another story, if a rather humorous one.
The moral of this story is that it’s okay to follow the path marked by someone who actually knows what they are doing.
This is contradictory, though, because people are always talking about finding one’s own path, about being original, about abandoning the trodden roads. As an author, that’s what I live for—to step away from whatever’s been done before, to reach the same goals through new approaches. So what advice should stand?
My answer is: both.
I write books, tell stories, period. That’s what I enjoy, what I’m (reasonably) good at, and what I want people to know me for. I take risks with my plots, my characters; I challenge readers with my craft. But marketing is NOT my craft. I’m a toddler in that field. Social media? I’m still feeling proud for figuring out Facebook broadest functions. Design? Sometimes I get ideas and most of the time they involve what I do NOT want it to look like. Would it be wise for me to try and get anywhere improvising and being adventurous in all those fields? Nope.
You know, the whole learning to walk before learning to run? This is it: there are fields I’m not an expert on, fields I’ll most likely never master, and it’s okay to find someone who knows what they are doing and learn the correct way from them. It’s okay to follow Japanese tourists when you’re trying to reach a monument and get lost along the way. It doesn’t diminish the value of what I do, just as the travel pictures look just as pretty, no matter how we reached the palace.
How do you feel about applying other people’s methods to your work? Do you prefer to learn by trial and error instead of following the lead? What fields do you need guidance on the most?
(PS. For the record, I love Japanese people. I admire them greatly, have studied their culture and society, and am friends with a number of them. So, that Japanese DNA thing? No harm meant. More than anything, it’s a statement of jealousy from a girl who gets lost even while using her gps)