Category: writing

business, stress, work, writer, writing

Beautiful: My “Stop Freaking Out” List Helps Me Manage Freelance Work Anxiety

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

Balance has been the hardest part of being a freelancer, and particularly a freelance writer. I regularly have to research, pitch, and complete work all in one day, every day, for different projects. I use an application called Remember the Milk to store all my to-do lists and one of those lists is entitled “Stop Freaking Out”. I created it to help me manage through the inevitable ups and downs of work.

On that list, I jot down all of the projects I’m currently working on and the ones that are possibilities in the pipeline. Whenever I feel panic begin to enter the fringes of my mind – “Will I have enough work to do? Am I on the right track? Is the risk worth the reward?” – I consult this list and it gives me enough comfort to put worry aside and keep working. It’s my source of calm in the storm.

It’s been a useful tool for me, especially since I decided to give my dream of being a full-time writer a shot at being a reality. I consult it, oh, about 3 times a day. Luckily it’s always close by as the app is on my phone and iPad, and the list is also accessible on my laptop through the Remember the Milk website. We all need support as we pursue a dream; we all need reassurance that somehow in the end everything is going to be okay. This list is one of the ways I provide that assurance to myself.

How do you reassure yourself when the going gets a little nerve-wracking?

creativity, decision-making, future, writer, writing

Beautiful: How I Found My Path To Write

Christa Avampato
Walk your path

In yoga, the concept of a life path is known as dharma. It’s our direction, our anchor, our reason for being and doing.

Here are a few things I know about dharma:
1.) You are the only person who knows what it is
2.) More often than not, it chooses you. Either you follow it or fight it, but that choice is up to you.
3.) It never fails you in the long-run, but in the short-run it can be bumpy, difficult, and uncomfortable. The good news is that you learn to love the discomfort because you know that finding your dharma is worth the ride.
4.) If you don’t follow your path, you feel a lack of fulfillment and purpose that is tough to find any other way.
5.) The way is always open, though the path is not always immediately apparent.

Here’s how these 5 principles came alive for me:

Theater, culture, and writing
I left professional theater a number of years ago because the path that I was on in the industry wasn’t my path. I was working on the business side even though my path is to be a writer. I have known this for a long time, for many years. It took a long time for me to get the courage to follow the writer’s path. It also took me a long time to learn the craft well enough to trust myself to earn a living from it. And now I’ve written my first play about specific societal issues that are near and dear to my heart and am beginning to submit it to different theater companies for their consideration. My love for theater and culture finally merged with my path of being a writer. I’m also writing a book and writing for a number of publications and organizations rooted in good causes. I spend my day crafting words about things that matter to me, my very favorite activity.

Business and writing
Some people thought I was crazy to leave my job in the business side of theater without knowing what I wanted to do next. Some thought I was crazy when I left my comfy corporate job many years later to pursue a creative path that was not yet clear to me. I knew I wasn’t crazy; I knew I wanted to be happy and I had to take a new road to find out what makes me happy.

Technology and writing
My business experience in several different industries, including technology, has been an enormous asset to so many areas of my life, and I know it will continue to be. I love business and technology, and I especially love to explore the way in which they push cultural change. To be happy, I had to bring the pieces of my life together in a creative way – that was the path. It took a long time to learn that, and when I finally understood that I found that the way was open. I had to choose it, but it was there waiting for me.

business, creativity, culture, future, technology, writer, writing

Beautiful: We Are on the Brink of Something Amazing. It’s Called The Future.

Christa Avampato
A pic I snapped during one of the tech session at Advertising Week

Day 3 at Advertising Week blew my mind. Literally. Technology is taking us right to the brink, in a good way. The brink is where you want to be. The brink is where we push the boundaries of possible, where our wildest dreams become the realities that we seamlessly integrate into our daily lives. The brink is where it’s at. It’s where I want to spend all of my time.

In one particular session, I began to see my future come together, how all the pieces of experience I’ve collected throughout my life gel. I may have even heard a “schumpf” as the picture of my future as a writer in the fields of technology, culture, and business became so much clearer. The steps to the end game aren’t all laid out in a perfect sequence. There are holes that I don’t quite know how to navigate, but I do know where I’m going and why. And I do know the very next step I need to take. That’s enough to keep going.

I also know this: I needed every job I’ve had, every person I’ve ever met, and every place I’ve traveled to make sense of it all. Some were delightful and some were awful. They were all necessary. It is a satisfying thing to look back on our days and see the logic in the madness, the order in the chaos. It makes the day-to-day so much more manageable.

creativity, New York City, theatre, writing

Beautiful: How You Set the Stage Can Make or Break the Play

Christa Avampato
A pic I snapped before heading into B.B. King Blues Club in NYC

Yesterday was the first time I set foot inside 3 top tourist destinations in Times Square – Hard Rock Cafe, BB King Blues Club, and Dave & Busters. Why? On day 2 of my journalism gig for Allvoices.com covering Advertising Week, I trekked through these spaces to gather the inspiring bits and pieces from a variety of panels that ranged from women media makers to white-hot advertising idea generation to the 21st century talent wars. These spaces were much more intimate, with a creative vibe, than The New York Times building where I spent my entire day yesterday. That intimate look and feel fed my creativity to the point that my mind is now whirring with ideas and possibilities in the media space to grow my work as a writer.

There’s a lot to be said for the spaces where we spend our lives, whether at work or at play. Many people say to me, “it’s so great that you are a writer because you can write from anywhere.” While technically that’s true, in reality it’s not. I need to be in an inspiring space. I need to be surrounded by other creatives who jive on the same types of ideas that get me up out of bed in the morning and make me want to toil away into the wee hours of the morning. My work makes me feel alive. I need to be with other people who feel the same way about their work. Without that energy, I feel dull, almost lifeless.

New York City is full of hidden spaces in plain sight. I would have never guessed that Hard Rock Cafe, B.B. King, and D&B had such wonderful conference spaces. I used to manage Broadway shows and now I am an enormous fan of the theatre so I’ve spent a good portion of my life tunneling through Times Square. Most people hate it. I love it because I did so much growing up in those streets. They still have much more to teach me. Spaces, and the lessons they provide, the experiences they foster, become characters in the acts of our lives. Today I am grateful for these stages that provided so much food for thought.

business, marketing, writer, writing

Beautiful: The Writer’s Filter at Advertising Week

Christa Avampato
Pic from Advertising Week – digital storytelling presentation

The lines to get into the sessions at Advertising Week are long. People begin to queue in The Times Center 30 minutes before the start of each one. This makes for an opportunity to chat with people I might not otherwise meet. I ask them about their businesses, their marketing challenges, and what they hope to learn in these sessions. They’re quick to tell me the good stuff – the popularity of their brands and the ideas that went right. What’s more interesting to the writer in me lies in the grey messy mass of TBD initiatives.

One Director of Advertising at a large consumer packaged goods company told me that they’ve made a fortune on the back of an animated character who represents the illness their OTC medicine is meant to eliminate. Now in the age of social media, consumers want to interact with that character but since he is the animated representation of the illness, he’s not going to sell product for them via Facebook.

“So what are going to do?” I asked.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “We have no idea. We fight a lot over it.”

If I was at Advertising Week representing a company, I don’t know that I would be so bold as to ask pointed questions without easy answers. It’s liberating to be there to dig, write, and illuminate the stories that are not so readily seen. It’s freeing to be there as someone just trying to learn rather than someone who’s trying to teach. It’s fun to be marketed to instead of being the one doing the marketing.

action, books, business, marketing, writing

Beautiful: To Read Seth Godin is to Love Him

Christa Avampato

seth-godinSeth Godin is the Yoda of modern times. He is well-meaning and honest in his crankiness, and I love him for that. I also love him because despite what the world tells you about personal and professional image, he is unabashedly, unapologetically himself.

His email is sethgodin@gmail.com. His blog, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/, doesn’t even have a vanity URL. His company isn’t some clever title; it’s just his name at http://sethgodin.com. I’ve never seen him give himself any kind of title except “author”. His tagline is “Go Make Something Happen”. (If everyone took that advice, imagine how evolved our world would be!) He thinks all marketers, colleagues in his own chosen profession, are liars and he tells them so; it’s the title of one of his most successful books and he’s not apologizing for that either. His popularity is based upon his inability to tolerate BS in its many forms.

He doesn’t let anyone off the hook for being less than they can be. He doesn’t stand for people who refuse to rise to their potential, nor for people who pump themselves up through image rather than substance. He believes that just because something is hard, doesn’t mean we should avoid doing it.

How do I know these things? I’ve never spoken to him. I’ve never asked him any pointed questions about life, work, and the world. I do read his writing, and this is what I hear in his words: stop waiting; stop making excuses; be authentic; stop pretending to be someone you’re not and be who you are. Those are messages to live and work by.

books, fiction, writer, writing

Beautiful: The Value of Fiction for Every Writer

Christa Avampato

0c8877b1a77b993d9857c2b5915213edEvery writer, regardless of genre, benefits from writing and reading fiction. Fiction is the place we go to find light when everything around us seems so dark. It’s our playground where anything and everything is possible. Fiction helps us to connect with our mind’s deepest secrets and desires. It’s a gateway to higher consciousness.

This weekend I started reading The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. I can hardly put it down and when I do, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s one of those books that lives with you for a long time. Its bizarre tale unfolds through the eyes of Julia, a grown woman who reflects back on her youth just before and just after a fantastical event that turns the entire world on its head. It reminded me of the value of purely fictional stories and the role they play in our real lives. 

Our lives are largely works of fiction – stories we make up, stories we tell to others, and stories that others tell us. The events of our lives run through a filter that colors them, changes them, gives them meaning. That filter is responsible for our individual human experience. In this way, fiction doesn’t mean “false”; it means “with perspective”. The words of fictions are some of the truest words we can ever read or write because they come so directly and purely from the heart. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult to write; maybe that’s why it sticks with us for so long. 

art, grateful, gratitude, writer, writing, yoga

Beautiful: A Writer’s Life is Never Boring – File This Fact Under “Grateful”

Christa Avampato

f9bdc961f153ce2076950743a7595f1aFile this one under things that make me immensely grateful. I looked at my slate of writing for this week and it includes:

1.) Making 9/11 a national holiday
2.) How to ask for help when in the midst of personal crisis
3.) Yoga
4.) Apartment Hunting in NYC
5.) How to maintain top website load times
6.) Health-supportive cooking
7.) Yoga
8.) Doggie daycare and boarding
9.) The value of digital marketing for start-ups
10.) Drones for journalism
11.) Pest control
12.) Voice-controlled image editing
13.) Book reviews – how to get press for your start-up, how computer programmers maintain a healthy lifestyle, and learn to program by building video games
14.) A fundraising appeal letter for an animal shelter

And then I’m going to wrap up the next edits for my first full-length play and work on Your Second Step. This is the life and career I’ve always dreamed of. Gratitude doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel. I wish for everyone, everywhere to have a heart this full.

Have something you want me to write about? I’d love to hear from you!

creativity, dreams, writer, writing

Beautiful: Inspired by Julia Child, I’m Following My Dream of Being a Full-time Writer

Christa Avampato

3c52d8c67468e7c4da66be625f3b9becWhen Julia Child was 37 (the age I am now), she began to cook because she loved to eat. She had no prior experience in the kitchen, and yet she gave herself over fully to the craft that captured her imagination. It took her a long time to reach the success she ultimately had as a cook, but she kept at it even in the most trying times and circumstances.

Julia Child was lucky financially in that her husband had a very good job and she wasn’t on the hook for her own rent. I have to keep a roof over my own head (and Phin’s) and food on the table (and in Phin’s bowl.) So I will have to continue to work in the vocation of business (which I love) in order to do that – for now. But here’s the difference going forward – it’s all in service to my craft as a writer.

I’ve been writing every day, on the side, for 6 years and I’ve loved every second of it. This summer, I wrote my first full-length play and worked on full outlines for several other writing projects. The goal is to eventually write full-time. I don’t know long it will take to make that happen but that’s what I’m working for and towards. I don’t know how long it will take – it could be a dream many years in the making – but that’s the mountain I’m climbing, small step by small step. And I’m fine with however long this journey takes. That clarity is liberating and empowering.

Here’s to shooting for the moon!

business, creativity, entrepreneurship, writer, writing

Beautiful: Restarting My Examiner Column on Entrepreneurship

Christa Avampato

Examiner-LogoIn early 2009, I started writing a business column for Examiner.com. Over the course of 15 months, I published 130 articles, many of them interviews with entrepreneurs. Invigorated and inspired by President Obama’s election, I wanted to lend a hand to entrepreneurs who courageously moved forward during the darkest days of the economic recession. I knew I could do that through my writing. I also wanted to find the courage to start my own business so I thought interviewing brave entrepreneurs would help me, too. A number of them became friends of mine; all of them provided me with the inspiration and confidence I needed to strike out on my own. Quite a few of them – OXO, Airbnb, Behance, Squarespace, and Divvyshot among them – have gone on to experience phenomenal success. I wrote first e-book based on 27 of these stories. You can download that book for free here.

I stopped publishing on Examiner in mid-2010. Since then, I’ve been involved with a lot of different ventures and Examiner.com has grown substantially. Now I’m returning to it to honor and serve entrepreneurs again. Even though I stopped publishing, Examiner never removed my column. You can still see all of the pieces I wrote from 2009 – 2010 and starting today you will be able to read all my new features going forward. Today’s piece is my SXSW V2V wrap-up. I’ll publish the links to all my future stories on this blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter feed. You can also subscribe to my column by clicking here.