For My Own Good: Exploring Sabbath

The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” 
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
- Mark 2:24-28

I believe that when Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man - i.e., given for man's benefit - He meant it. And that we would do well to pay attention.

Last week, I began an experiment to explore the idea of sabbath.

Because the sabbath is for our benefit, I didn't want to enter the experiment with the idea of striving to fulfill an obligation. I wanted to enter it with the idea of receiving a gift.

The gift? A period of time - one "day" out of seven - during which I don't try to make anything happen. I don't try to change the world. I don't try to increase my wealth. I don't try to achieve goals. I dedicate the time to rest, recreation, and the celebration of God and His plentiful gifts. 

I put the word "day" in quotes earlier because I decided to take my sabbath from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. Besides being Biblical, that makes it easy to begin my workweek on Sunday evening with the work of preparation so that I can hit the ground running Monday morning.

The sabbath intention has given me a new pleasure: the sabbath anticipation. The sun is sinking as I write; I look forward to this night more than I think I have ever looked forward to a Sunday morning.

To spend an entire evening and day luxuriating in the presence of the Lord - not just worshipping, but enjoying Him in everything during that time, and crafting the time toward the end of enjoying Him...YUM!

I've been thinking about what activities are sabbath-appropriate. The first answer that came to mind was the phrase, "rest, recreation and celebration." Reading, listening to music, watching movies, and physical play all come to mind.

The most surprising answer that has emerged is, "playing with Linux." I have long wanted to install Gentoo on a machine, just to see how it works. Or to follow the instructions in "Linux from Scratch" to build my own version of Linux. Or to create virtual machines under Ubuntu on one of my netbooks, to run Windows 95 (or 3.1!) software.

All of those possibilities now seem sabbath-appropriate to me under this rubric, which popped into my head as I thought about playing with Linux: "useless learning."

I spend a lot of time trying to learn things toward the end of accomplishing goals. I think I need a time when I give myself permission to learn stuff just for the fun of learning it.

And for me, that seems sabbath-appropriate, totally in keeping with the original mandate to cultivate the potential of creation (Genesis 2:15), a mandate which necessitates a great deal of play.

I also think that the sabbath intention will make it easier to fulfil what might be considered a corollary: to work my butt off for six days a week.

I would like very much to make all the money I need in a four-hour workweek, but - as the head of Luminaria Productions LLC, as the head of Homewood Capital Partners LLC, as a Legal Shield representative, as chair of the Save Race Street Committee and of Block Watch Plus - doing all that I see may require a 60-hour workweek.

And here's the thing - I think that I can do a 60-hour workweek, and enjoy it, with the right set of practices. And I think that one of those practices is sabbath. I think that over time, having sabbath to look forward to (or to look back upon) will help to keep me energized and motivated. We'll see!

Do you observe sabbath? If so, what sabbath practices have helped you to enjoy God, or have energized and motivated you for a week of work?

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 13 - Tweaking the prototype

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."     - Samuel Johnson

Today I am performing corrective surgery on Quick Flicks.

I'm raising the prices on the scripts, effective Feb. 1.

I am doing this for two compelling reasons.

1. In any sane world, the scripts are worth more than their current prices of $4.99 and $9.99. I have always tended to undervalue my work as a writer, as evidenced by the fact that most of the writing I done, I have done for free (Like, um, this blog. Hmmmmm....).

But I have also been involved with the production of three short films, not only practically, but financially. Between the three of them, I have spent thousands of dollars to secure other people's expertise. For any of them, it would have made sense to allocate some money for myself as screenwriter. And not just $9.99.

The current Writers Guild of America contract sets the minimum payment for a feature-length screenplay at $42, 930.

Let's run some numbers.

The length of screenplays is generally about one page per minute of film, so the script for a 2-hour movie would be about 120 pages. Dividing the minimum payment of $42,930 by 120 suggests that any screenplay worth buying is worth $357.75 per page. Minimum.

But I"m not in the WGA, the people using the scripts wouldn't be WGA signatories, etc.

Very true, and that is why I am not charging $400/page. Or $300. Or even $200. But I'm also not valuing my work at less than the price of a fast-food meal anymore.

(That last paragraph was an update. The original version read: "Blah blah. Oz, the Great and Wonderful, has spoken. The discounted fares to ride this train end today." Which now sounds a bit testy.)

2. I am also raising the prices as an exercise in following instructions.

When Tim Ferriss expands on the idea of the Muse in his book, "The 4-Hour Workweek," the second criterion he lists is: "It should cost the customer $50 - $200." He summarizes his reasoning thusly:

"I have found that a price range of $50 - 200 per sale provides the most profit for the least customer service hassle. Price high and then justify."

The fact that I priced my scripts so far below Ferriss' suggested price range now looks like an example of a pattern.

I haven't followed wealthbuilding recipes well.

I tell myself that I want a recipe, a system. I tell myself that I want a list of steps I can follow to achieve a certain result. I have bought books and tapes by the dozens that lay out steps to follow to achieve certain results.

And I have not followed the steps.

Most of the time, I have started to follow the steps. Then I have stopped. I have no idea why.

Maybe it's because I have lacked the confidence to follow instructions, and don't really believe that the steps will work in my case. Maybe it's because I have lacked the humility to follow instructions, and I assume that I can improve the recipe before I've even tried it. Because, you know, I am so much smarter than the person who has done it.

Either way, it no longer matters. What matters is how I change, now.

I think it's time for a new BBDE Mantra: If you want the cake, you've got to follow the recipe.

**************

The justification for the new pricing, if a customer ever brings it to that, will run something like, "If you want to make quality films, you need to start getting used to paying for quality scripts."

This goes to the reason that I underpriced the scripts in the first place: my definition of my audience included the assumption that they are broke. 

Maybe that was because I have spent so much time being broke, myself (this may surprise people who got to know me during my flush period as a reporter for the Post-Gazette. Let's give a cheer for union contracts that help workers to not be broke.).

In any case, the assumption that aspiring filmmakers are broke is hereby broken: tuition for Master's programs at the top five film schools in the U.S. (according to a ranking by the Hollywood Reporter) averages about $40,000. People who manage that are probably not broke.

What assumptions are you operating with that might be leading you away from, rather than toward, the results you want? How can you break those assumptions, today, and change course? How have you done so in the past? Let's talk!

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 12 - Prototype QF2013Q1A

I felt like giving it a research lab-sounding name. But to put it more simply, "Quick Flicks" - at least in its initial iteration - is done.

Yesterday, I decided to just buckle down and get it done. I had gotten myself bogged down in questions about whether or not to publish through Kindle, of how to sell downloadable PDFs...I seriously confused myself. Yesterday, I decided to forget Kindle for now, to sell PDFs with PayPal as the transaction mechanism, and to just go ahead and get it done.

Last night, at six minutes past midnight, I quietly celebrated the completion of the mini-website containing PDFs of five short scripts, together with licenses granting people the right to produce them, which they can download upon purchase.

The scripts are:

    "Message, Not in a Bottle" – A young man leaves a very unusual phone message for his twin sister.
    "I Will Love You Always" – A priest abandons his ministry to marry one of his congregants.
    "coda" – A black man. A white woman. A carefully-planned sexual assault. A twist.
    "No Dessert" – A restaurant patron observers two lovers at dinner before carrying out his assignment as a hit man.
    "End Run" – A political candidate's campaign ends with his assassination - which he himself helped to plan.

Today I did a bunch of revisions. Perhaps best of all, I created a front end that is easily accessible and more attractive than a plain old webpage: I uploaded "I Will Love You Always," my first short film, to YouTube, and put a paragraph in the description offering the script to other filmmakers, with a link to QuickFlicks. (actually, just a link to the page for the IWLYA script, but now that I think of it, I think I'll replace it with a link to the Quick Flicks intro page, which I will tweak).

The rationale for Quick Flicks goes something like this: a lot of people want to make short films, but they don't want to write them - their hearts are set on directing, not writing. Some of them would gladly pay for a short script if they knew how to find a writer. Some might pay to use an existing script, especially if the price is in line for a No/Lo-budget project (the Quick Flick scripts are priced at $4.99/$9.99). (UPDATE: This pricing will expire at midnight, Jan. 31, 2013. See this blog post about recipes, teachability and wealth.)

The uploading of "I Will Love You Always" is in itself a breakthrough. When I shot IWLYA in April 2005, YouTube was in its infancy. I knew that I wanted to make short films, and I knew that I wanted to distribute them via the Internet. I envisioned a website where people would pay .99 to view a movie (maybe .47 for a short). I didn't have the resources to build such a site, so it became my dream to have my films appear on iFilm, which was the go-to site for short films online. But while I was laboring over IWLYA with my editor, Andy Fenlock - a process that took wayyy too long - iFilm was bought by Viacom and ultimately vanished into SpikeTV (a story which still saddens me - to my knowledge, it has never truly been replaced as an online showcase for short films). Meanwhile, YouTube grew to become the Godzilla of online video.

And in all of this time, I never learned how to get my short film from DVD to YouTube. Until today, when I Googled "upload DVDs to YouTube" (duh!), and found VidCorder, a dandy little program for ripping DVDs. Some five minutes after installing the program, my video was ready for upload. So I am pleased to present, "I Will Love You Always," an AC Earing/Elwin Green production, written and directed by Elwin Green.


So today, for the first time, I have products in the marketplace, I have the transaction machinery in place for selling those products automatically, with no work on my part, and I have a marketing piece in place to lead people toward the transaction machinery - a marketing piece that doesn't look like a marketing piece, because it's not - it's a short film :)

The very idea of Quick Flicks - making screenplays that I wrote for my own use available for other filmmakers who may not want to be writers - was inspired by Timothy Ferriss' "muse" concept, as described in his book "The 4-Hour Workweek:"

"Our goal is simple: to create an automated vehicle for generating cash without consuming time. That's it. I will call this vehicle a 'muse' whenever possible to separate it from the ambiguous term 'business,' which can refer to a lemonade stand or a Fortune 10 oil conglomerate - our objective is more limited and thus requires a more precise label."

Thanks, Tim!

Finally having such machinery in place is exciting. What's even more exciting is that scaling those elements - products, transaction machinery and marketing - can go a long way in growing Luminaria into a billion-dollar enterprise.

I am re-reading "The 4-Hour Workweek," by Timothy Ferriss (I keep giving him the middle initial "J.", don't know why). I told myself that this time I would do all of the exercises, but have only gotten a start on dreamlining, and have not even visited the companion website.

I skate too much, skimming the surface of life, not fully experiencing my own experiences. Gotta stop that.

The format of the book is contrary to its nature. It is not a book for reading, it's a workbook. It should be published in something like a 10"x12" format, with perforated pages for the exercises that you can pull out, photocopy, use, reuse, and file to track your progress.

Or it could just offer a companion website.

Sigh. Off I go, then.