#who is nick and who is amy changes on a daily basis. they take turns like its a game.

[sweetmilkbread]

Gone Girl (2014) / Succession (2018-2023)

#who is nick and who is amy changes on a daily basis. they take turns like its a game. #the whole murder-marriage makes them fall wildly in love again #this one's been in my drafts forever but its been 1 year since the world ended (s4 aired) so here it is #succession #gone girl #tomshiv #tom wambsgans #shiv roy #web weaving #my stuff

[adelaster]

8 Months, 21 Potential Blog Posts

Happy November! Rachel here. Somehow it is Thanksgiving already. Somehow a summer in Maine has come and gone. Theo and I thought we’d be blogging all the way through it, but instead we ended up just living it - and now we’ve already said farewell for the season.

In June, I did start a post that already had become irrelevant by July. In August, I rewrote the post and almost put it up, but then it suddenly became September and so much more had happened. Throughout the summer, I would find notes in Theo’s handwriting toward posts that he intended to write, but they all seemed to turn into grocery and hardware shop lists instead.

Given the sweet chaotic sprawl of our lives, it’s possibly impossible that we will ever keep up this blog as regularly as we originally envisioned. At least, for now. But we’re not abandoning ship – we’ll just post as we’re able, sporadically, here and there.

In the meantime, here is a list of blog posts that I would have loved to write over the past eight months:

1) A post about all the big changes in our lives this past winter and spring. In a nutshell, Theo dove into a new job at Spring Lake Ranch, an amazing therapeutic work community in Vermont, and finished the first draft of a new play commission. I held down our homestead in Minneapolis and worked on transitioning to fully freelance life, a shift that (as of July) now is being supported by a Playwrights’ Center McKnight Fellowship! Bit by bit, along the way, we got pieces in place toward our goal of spending a large portion of the summer in Maine.

2) A post about the Alliance of Artists Communities’ Emerging Program Institute, which I had the honor of attending in Washington D.C. this past April. It was so good. I learned so many things. I got so many ideas. I met so many incredible humans. I want to tell you about all of them.

3) A post about my road trip out to Maine in June, picking up Theo from Vermont along the way, and all of our experiences getting settled in - like installing a mailbox (it’s more complicated than one might think) and learning the delightful fact that the New Portland post office is only open for two hours in the early morning and two hours in the afternoon daily.

4) A post about the trip to Asheville that I took in June, for a cousin’s wedding, where I got inspired all over again by my family and that city and Black Mountain College.

5) A post about Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island at Nibezun in July. Theo and I still haven’t found adequate words to talk about that incredible experience. Perhaps you should save the date for July 13-16, 2018 and plan to join the next one (all are welcome). This ceremony will happen annually for 21 years! h/t Jennie Hahn for the initial invitation.

6) A post about the two dozen brilliant souls, family and friends and colleagues, who visited us in New Portland throughout the summer, many of whom came for informal artist residencies lasting a few days to a few weeks (for some remarkable examples of work made during this time, click here, here, and here). Everyone was so kind and patient with our very raw work spaces, a couple momentary power outages, and even the failure of the water pump (which meant fetching water from a well with a bucket for more than a week until it was replaced)! Everyone contributed to the space and its future in some beautiful way, from collaborative brainstorming, researching, and problem-solving to taking on house projects, chores, groceries, and cooking. THANK YOU Rae Simpson, Bob Whitten, Sarah Myers, Steven Wright, Leigh Hendrix, Karen Cellini, Erica Hassink Logan, Theo Langason, Amy DeLap, Andrew Jendrzejewski, Emily Mendelsohn, Kate Dakota Kremer, Jonathan Crimmins, Jennie Hahn, Cory Tamler, Henry Peck, Meara Sharma, Casey Llewellyn, Terry Hempfling, Meghan Frederick, Jon Grayboyes, Josie the Dog, Jeffrey Wells, A Wonderful Person Who Shall Remain Anonymous, and Hannah Geil-Neufeld!

7) A post about house projects galore. We did a few this summer and have a long list of more we’d like to do. The actual completion of a task as simple as installing makeshift shelves in the bathroom somehow ends up adding five more tasks to the list; and the research required toward any given larger task, like renovating the barn, easily could take years. (As my mom once noted, paraphrasing a neighbor, caring for a house is like caring for a person’s health – a constant process, ongoing, over a lifetime.) We had a delightful time getting to know numerous local contractors this summer, and we’re so hugely humbly grateful for the many ways in which our visitors contributed labor and consultation.

8) Related: A post about the valuable Skype consultation that we had with Cameran Bailey to discuss future heat and alternative energy possibilities. We were reminded that what we’re doing is no small undertaking and that it’s very important to take a holistic view, in assessing what to tackle first. Cameran is an incredibly generous, patient, brilliant human (highly recommended if you need a consultant in this arena)!! We’ve got a whole lot of good homework to do... 

9) A post about the remarkable lectures by Torkwase Dyson and Wu Tsang that some of us attended at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, just 30 minutes away from New Portland - a pretty excellent neighbor.

10) A post about meeting the intrepid founders of the Barn Arts Collective (located in Bass Harbor, Maine) and seeing their latest delightful children’s theater production. h/t Mallery Avidon and Meghan Frederick for the introduction!

11) A post about visiting my collaborator Terry Hempfling at the dreamy Lighthouse Works residency on Fishers Island, New York, and learning about how they operate. So much thoughtful goodness there.

12) A post about the labor of making a space for making. Related: Mierle Laderman Ukeles and “Maintenance Art” (h/t Emily Gastineau). This project’s combination of “development” and “maintenance.” Related: how to interact with the summer’s expenses on our books and taxes next year? The assessment of whether any given financial transaction is “business” or “personal” can feel so absurd when these realities are, in fact, inextricably woven together.

13) A post about the natural environment all around us in New Portland. The trees and bugs and deer and foxes and sky. How different it feels to be so much closer to and aware of nature on a daily basis, compared to being in the city. How clear it becomes that nature ultimately is in charge.

14) A post addressing this question we keep getting of “What’s your vision for this space?” On the practice of staying open as we research and gather and listen and brainstorm and simmer on what is needed (in the field, in this state, in this country and beyond) in tandem with what makes sense for us and our lives. When people ask us this question, “What’s your vision?” we keep saying things like, “We don’t have a singular vision right now” - which feels both vulnerable (it is super tempting to wish we had a more specific, concrete, satisfying elevator speech ready to go) and exciting (we’re swimming through so many wondrous possibilities). Of course, we also keep being reminded that staying open and undefined is, in fact, also a vision. I’m reminded how much active work it is, to stay in a space of not knowing, to trust a process over time.

15) Related: Casey Llewellyn gifted a copy of Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown to us. I am reading it now, and it is so crucial and good. A post, probably multiple posts, about reading that book.

16) A post about what it was like to be in such a quiet rural place all summer as Charlottesville and other atrocities unfolded throughout the country and world. We are continually considering how the work of cultivating this space intersects with social justice and equity work already happening in Maine and nationwide. How it might meaningfully support existing efforts, how it might offer crucial rest and rejuvenation, how it might become a hub for imagining new ways forward, how it might serve different functions at different moments, how it might surprise us with new functions along the way, how we need to keep listening hard. 

17) A post about how we’re recognizing that we’re fluidly moving into a new phase of this process: one that involves a rapidly growing network of people. From the start, Theo and I have known that the project of building this space has to be bigger than the two of us; and now that we’re here, taking the next step, that truth rings loud and clear in our bodies. We really can’t do it all by ourselves, and that is so entirely appropriate. Ultimately we know this project will only make sense for us if it’s useful beyond us, if a community* forms around it to help inform it and conceive it and shape it. And that’s already happening - has been happening - slowly, steadily, bit by bit. It’s kind of blowing our minds.

18) *A post about Against the Romance of Community by Miranda Joseph, another relevant book I finally started reading at long last (h/t Lara Nielsen, five years later). I’m not very far in yet, but I can tell it’s gonna be good. 

19) A post about my monthlong residency at MASS MoCA in September - the wonder of thinking about residencies while doing one. The structure of that program and how it compares to others. The place of North Adams. The place of the Berkshires. The people I met.

20) A post about a phone call I had with Carlos Uriona of Double Edge Theatre, over a year ago already, about how the company was founded and how their farm base operates now – and then an amazing site visit that Theo and I had with Carlos and Cariel and others in September! Also another call, quite awhile back, with Nick Slie of Mondo Bizarro talking about the collaborative development of Catapult in New Orleans - the challenges of building a space while also making art, and that perhaps sometimes building a space should be the art for awhile, the sole project of focus, rather than trying to juggle it all at once.

21) A post to ask: Where/how do you think we should capture everything we’re processing and learning!? We have been gathering literally hundreds of resources and ideas and contacts that generous people have been sharing with us along the way, in our email and in a Google Drive and on our phones and in notebooks and on scratch pieces of paper everywhere. Once upon a time, we thought this blog would be The Place to gather all this wisdom, but clearly there’s more wisdom than we have capacity to organize and post. So we wonder: Do you have any suggestions? Any preferred platforms, organizing systems, archival impulses, hot tips?

To sign up for periodic email updates about this endeavor (very periodic – confession, we haven’t even sent out the first one yet! – but it’s coming), click here.

To learn about some ways you can get involved from afar or in Maine next summer, click here. (It’s an old post, but all the stuff we wrote leading up to this summer still is relevant, more or less.)

To see more photos from this past summer, click here.

All images taken by Rachel in New Portland, Maine, 2017.

Previous Post: How to Get Involved

[omgskate360]

How to get success in your business: complete Guide

1. Concentrate your audience to learn what they're interested in.

"The most important phase is your pre-work: surveying your audience to understand what they're most interested in, and then running a pilot to test demand and guarantee you're providing information that's relevant and important to them. That will put you on track to create a thing people actually want." – Dorie Clark

2. Don't just concentrate on getting the sale. Concentrate on helping your customers succeed.

"We're not in this business to just get individuals to purchase our stuff. We want them to see the change and the impact and become successful in business." – Nick Unsworth

3. As you're successful in business, make sure to pay it forward by helping others.

"There are only two ways for an individual to learn about something that they never at any point realize they didn't have an inkling. Number one, they find out the hard way. We in the entrepreneurial world call that the school of hard pounds. The main another way to finish it is to have someone guide them, train them, or share their insight with them. So instead of individuals having to re-invent the wheel, or find out things the longest, hardest, most expensive way through mistakes, those of us who have a range of abilities or have learning – it's not just that we should, I feel that we have an obligation to share that." – Cole Hatter

4. Find out what your market wants and manufacture it for them.

"I don't purchase into the theory of manufacture it and they will come. I want to realize what they want, and that's what I'm going to manufacture." – JJ Virgin

5. Use feedback from your customers to change and improve.

"Nobody is ever really flawless. You have to eventually close this is what I'm going to move with, and then tweak based on feedback. You would incline toward not to wait until you're flawless because different individuals are launching. You want to launch, and you get that initial feedback, and you change and you tweak." – James Altucher

6. Use Facebook Groups to build a system around your business.

"Our Facebook Group isn't just a gathering, it's a system and we have organically created it to in excess of 20,000 individuals in barely a year. I help advance different individuals, we celebrate different ladies as often as possible, and genuinely practice collaboration over the challenge. I think that I have turned out to be such a strong following because I create great, logical, content, anyway I have created a trusted in a brand that is uplifting, yet in addition fun." – Dana Malstaff

7. Until you get a sale, your idea isn't validated at this point.

"Individuals will cast a ballot with their charge card. If they don't actually put cash down, the idea isn't validated at this point." – Michael O'Neal

8. Branding is the acknowledgment you create in the marketplace to appeal to your target audience.

"A great brand starts with understanding what your character is and what you stand for, understanding your marketplace, and understanding your positioning. What is the acknowledgment that you have to create in the solicitation to appeal to your target audience? The intersection of believability, differentiation and uniqueness, and relevance is the place you want to best position your brand." – Re Perez

9. Demonstrate your audience that you care by creating accommodating substance for them.

"Care a great deal about your locale and be reliable and create content on a regular basis that's going to support individuals, and you will fabricate a clan of individuals that are so ready and willing to push toward becoming customers of yours eternity." – Sunny Lenarduzzi

10. Develop your personal platform yet don't attempt to appeal to everyone.

"You don't have to appeal to everybody, aside from if there is somebody or a small gathering of individuals that really have trust in the substance you're sharing and they find value in it, in case you're actually serving the aspirations that they have, at that point they will share that with others, they will make that a part of their life. And eventually, having that personal platform allows you to accomplish not simply the things that you want for yourself and your family at the day's end the legacy you want to leave in this world." – Adam Braun

11. Sharing your personal story can help create more grounded associations with others.

"We regularly think that we will be judged or condemned for being vulnerable and open, yet what happens is dramatically one of a kind. When we open up and we share parts of ourselves we become increasingly human, and that humanity is what interfaces us to each other. So if you want to create associations with a clan, engagement with a clan, individuals who really understand you and your message, you have to open up and share your story." – Alexi Panos

12. The best way to market your business is to demonstrate your target audience that you understand them.

"Shouldn't market and get individuals to understand the value of what you have. You market so individuals understand that you know how they feel. The best way to market is for individuals to feel you understand them, not trying to get them to understand your thing and its value." – Mark Lack

13. Reinvest your income back into your business to reach more individuals and scale faster.

"I built up my summary during my launch by running Facebook ads legitimately to a webinar landing page. I ran the webinars almost daily. I reinvested the sales from the webinar I ran on Day 1 appropriate back into even more ad spend on Day 2. I was able to rapidly ramp up my marketing and build up my summary during my first launch. That small rundown I started with of 150 has created to a system of in excess of 50,000 coaches, consultants, authors and specialists in an incredibly short timeframe." – Jeanine Blackwell

14. The rivalry is something to be thankful for. It demonstrates that there is demand for what you offer.

"Make an effort not to be afraid of rivalry. Their very nearness validates that there is demand for the issue you're trying to unravel or for an answer for it. So search for that challenge." – Greg Smith

15. Use media introduction to fabricate your once-over and increase your sales.

"It's incredibly important that you have some kind of a mechanism to turn the attention that you're getting through your media interviews into leads and sales." – Esther Kiss

16. Do whatever it takes not to attempt to use each marketing channel immediately. Concentrate on what works for you.

"Start with 1 or 2 main channels of communication and publishing where you can be sending individuals. Examination with other touch points that you realize individuals are using. Those may do Facebook Lives, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and layering on various ways of reaching new audiences, for example, Facebook ads, guest interviews, and strategic partnerships. Keep it straightforward and always be sending individuals back to the main channels." – Anne Samoilov

17. Make an effort not to attempt to create an ideal thing right way. Essentially begin and get sales.

"Cash seeks after power, not flawlessness. That means that you don't really require your site flawless and that your course also shouldn't be impeccable. I've re-recorded our middle thing on numerous occasions since its start in May 2015. Essentially begin and get sales, that's the most important part at the beginning." – Scott Oldford

18. Because it works for another individual doesn't mean it will work for you. Ask more questions, always.

"Ask more questions, always. Assess whether "the one strategy" individuals are telling you is the most ideal way to go, even makes sense for you and your subject or audience. I've found increasingly engaged audience individuals and more sales waiting on the contrary side of ignoring traditional advice and focusing on key inquiries regarding what my audience needs than through re-creating frameworks that others have used. Ask more questions, always. Does it apply to you? By what means may you use it without the segments of it that you couldn't care less for? What may totally stun your audience at this point? In case no uncertainty about it "Should I do webinars or a 10-day challenge to advance my course?", ask instead, "In our present reality where webinars/challenges don't exist, by what means may I ideally support individuals and share my thing with them?" – Regina Anaejionu

19. Invest your time creating frameworks and hiring individuals until you are Successful in business that can continue running without you.

"The way you increase time is by spending time on things today that give you additional time tomorrow." – Rory Vaden

20. Search for ways to all the more readily serve your existing audience and customers.

"Take a gander at the audience you've attracted. Shockingly better, take a gander at the individuals who have already purchased from you. If you already have a once-over of at least 5,000, instead of focusing on adding to your email rundown or growing your social media audience, revolve around creating new substance for the individuals you've already attracted. What new thing or program do they need straightaway? Create for them and you will assemble a thing suite. I have a thing suite of 3 focus programs and each program incorporates the following. It allows me to continue to help the audience I've already attracted while also growing my income." – Amy Porterfield