I’ve long been interested in how to create a successful career and meaning filled life … for me and for my clients.
I’ve read hundreds of books, scoured countless blogs, and read lord know how many articles about career development and the lives of artists, writers, and other creatives.
Do you fit firmly on the Artistic corner of John Holland’s career model? Artistic types are also called Creators, because we take IDEAS and INFORMATION and create something new and orginal from them. We are described as, “Non-conforming, original, independent, chaotic, creative“, people who occupy careers as writers, painters, sculptors, and the like. The total opposite of the folks like Bankers, Accountants, and Police officers who live on the total opposite side of the Holland Code Hexagon.
People like YOU and me.
People who don’t fit in a round hole cause we is star shaped! We have multiple talents and draw inspiration from eclectic sources.
Way back in 2006 my favorite career coach, Barbra Sher, wrote her groundbreaking book for eclectic creatives, called “Refuse to Choose”. She coined the term “Scanners” to describe people, like herself, who didn’t do sequential, one off, careers.
While I loved the book and it’s advice, I didn’t like the term SCANNER.
Then inspiration struck.
I’ve long been a fan of Diana Gabaldon, author of the outstanding Outlander series. Diana writes looooong, descriptive novels that are really stories. Delicious stories!
Anyone who has read Gabaldon will know that books stores and some people struggled to categorize her first book, Outlander, and many of the followup novels. What Genre were they? Were they Romance novels. Well, yes, but more than that: after all Claire Beauchamp, the novel’s chief protagonist was a Time Traveller, so maybe they were SciFi? Or, were they historical, because after all, Claire traveled back in time and wed a young Scot, James Fraser. Oh, and naughty lady that she is (as seen by some), she was married to Frank Randall, scholar and descendant of Jonathan Randall, Jamie’s nemesis.
What’s even funnier, at least to me, is that in England her novel was retitled and given the punny name, Cross Stitch, to play on the idea of a stitch in time. And, there in jolly old England some of the bookstores placed the book in the Sewing section!
As I thought about Diana’s books the phrase Genre Buster popped into my head. Yep, Diana is a Genre Buster(TM), no question. And, a very wonderful writer too.
So, I began using the term Genre Busters(TM) to describe the eclectic creatives I coached and trained.
So, are you a Genre Buster?
If you are, then join me every 2nd Friday for Genre Busters(TM) interviews on BlogTalk Radio … soon to be every Friday at 11:00 a.m. Mountain time.
