Amanda Palmer
Performer, writer, giver, taker, yeller, listener, love-lover, rule-hater and author of The Art of Asking
Discussion
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
**ALL DONE** thank you guys for wonderful questions...and thank you producthunt folks for hosting!
a few links to leave you with: the patreon (where i'm doing all my shit now): https://www.patreon.com/amandapa... and a reminder that "the art of asking", my book, is coming out in paperback this fall...watch for it. love to you guys....xxx AFP
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HOLA! I am Amanda fucking Palmer, writer, pianist, ukulele-slayer, general performance artist, communicator, weirdo. i was in a band for a long time called the Dresden Dolls, then I went solo, then I did a big TED talk about kickstarter, then I wrote a book called “The Art of Asking” which hit the bestseller list. I’m also 8 months pregnant. I don’t hold back. Ask me anything.
Editor's note: To see more of Amanda, we chat with her on the Product Hunt Podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/product-h...
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seriously hilary
@seriouslyhilary
@amandapalmer I don't really have a question at all I suppose, I just want you to see me. Is it wrong to care more about some people seeing you than other people, even if you have never met those people? Reading your pregnancy has made me think a lot about my own three years ago, makes me ache for a little baby. There is nothing in this world better than my little boy, your heart will burst with love when you see yours for the first time. Then your boobs will burst, but you won't mind. I'm having a back operation in November, will be stuck in bed for 4-6 months, buying lots of books, made an art-of-asking secret group on fb to ask my closest friends for help if I need it. Thanks for that. Thanks for understanding people and sharing heart. You are important.
John Sweeney
@johnmsweeney · Founder & Chief Kindness Officer
@seriouslyhilary I see you too. Hope the operation goes well. Use the time off to be kind to yourself. :)
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@seriouslyhilary thanks :) and i see you. hi.
Suzie
@softheartedfool · PhD student
@seriouslyhilary I see you. You can ask me, or others in this community for help too! I'll send you books if you like!
Vasili Frankos
@vasilifrankos · Musician
@seriouslyhilary Thanks for warming my heart with your words here :-) Much love to you and to Amanda for creating spaces where kindness and sincere warmth get to dance together around the web like this.
Fine art by Jamie
@fineartbyjamie · Photographer, artist, mom of an awesome
@seriouslyhilary Hi! I see you. I had my back operated on back in 2009. I know what you are feeling. Just wanted to say hi! <3
seriously hilary
@seriouslyhilary
@amandapalmer hi. ;) by the way, drink raspberry leaf tea around your due date, it's good for easing things along and it's yummy too.
Hash_tag_jeff
@jeffumbro · Book Marketing and PR - get in touch
How awesome is it being married to Neil Gaiman?
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@jeffumbro @amandapalmer do you find a trend that many successful creatives marry other creatives? or not really
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@jeffumbro hahahahahahaha. today it's awesome! some days it's a pain in the ass! how awesome is it to be in YOUR LONG TERM AND COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP?? exactly. neil is wonderful. i have no regrets that i wound up with him as my swashbuckling life partner.
Hash_tag_jeff
@jeffumbro · Book Marketing and PR - get in touch
@amandapalmer I love my long term and complicated relationships, romantically and otherwise. That's what makes life worth living.
Hash_tag_jeff
@jeffumbro · Book Marketing and PR - get in touch
@eriktorenberg I personally don't, but I do see a lot of really smart people ending up together because smart people seem to surround themselves with smart people. I look at creativity as another form of intelligence.
Gabe Rios
@fatfullstacks · Marketing Director - LTC
@amandapalmer Would you say that your particular (awesome) kind of relationship (poly right?) has helped in shaping your philosophy about the freedom to just ask and to give freely or the other way around? Its always interesting to me how such things filter through various aspects of life.
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@fatfullstacks both have shaped each other. i talk a lot about this in "the art of asking".
Gabe Rios
@fatfullstacks · Marketing Director - LTC
@amandapalmer Sounds like that's the next book I'm picking up then! Wife and I are huge fans of you both :) Keep being awesome!
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
Hey Amanda! Thanks for joining us.
You've achieved a ton, and I understand no regrets, but what's something in your life that you are _not_ proud of? Would you have done it differently?
Conversely, what's something you've not yet achieved that some part of you (however small) you won't feel complete until you do? (besides the baby of course, congrats!)
Félix Marqués
@felixmarques
@eriktorenberg A good way of rephrasing this is probably “Where did you fuck up, and how do you think someone else can avoid doing that?”
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@eriktorenberg hey erik!!! i don't believe in regrets. i've had them (the college i went to, the songs i never finished, the fact that i still cannot find time to care about spending more than 3 minutes on my hair at any given time)....and i let them go. i'm here now, and happy. as far as achieving more things? i have things i'd like to do, projects, but i don't think they'll complete my life. i refuse to take myself that seriously. i want to make a french album, and a german one, i want to write more theater, i want to play more classical music for shits, i want to write some music for film, i want to finish all the hundreds of songs i've never finished, i want to be laurie anderson, i want to tour brazil, i want...to do a lot of things. but i'm not worried. i'll...do some things. and probably not others. and then i'll die. and it'll be fine.
Suky-chan
@midnightwriter
@amandapalmer Please, do come to Brazil! My mom loved the idea of you couch surfing with your fans!
Vasili Frankos
@vasilifrankos · Musician
@amandapalmer Is there any particular classical music or composer that recently inspired you?
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@vasilifrankos bach bach bach bach chopin and bach. arvo part. philip glass. bach. michael nyman.
Sarah Good
@one_more_sarah · being awesome
@amandapalmer i read a tutorial on how to do a hairdo the other day and it seemed really complicated and it made me want to take a nap. <3
Drew Meyers
@drewmeyers · Co-Founder, Horizon
@midnightwriter Would love your thoughts on @gethorizonapp ... our app would enable Amanda Palmer fans (& her) to couchsurf with each other quite easily.
Vasili Frankos
@vasilifrankos · Musician
@amandapalmer In an interview with Leonard Lopate of WNYC, Neil Gaiman was asked if you have influenced his writing. He said you have especially influenced the book Ocean at the End of the Lane. He says you've influenced his attitude with how you "love, value things like human emotion and human interaction." He said when compared to him, plot tends to be less important to you. As a busker (solo viola is how I busk), I identify strongly with this. I wonder who people are in the very moment I encounter them. I feel less compelled to know thier story, and more interested in who they are being in that exact shared moment. Will you speak a bit more about this?
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@vasilifrankos ha. well - i DO care about plot....but probably not as much as a fiction writer who writes 700-page novels. i've found my lifes work veering me in a direction that has more to do with what i can do to connect with other people - how much i can expose myself without making myself or others unsafe, how much i can say without fucking shit up, how honest i an be without harming anything. i feel like if i can get those things mastered - in any media - i'm moving towards something like progress as an artist. neil sits around trying to create new worlds, and i spend more time thinking about how i can honestly reflect the one i'm already in. it's very yin yang when you think about it - it's almost the same job, just with a different filter or setting switch.
Vasili Frankos
@vasilifrankos · Musician
@amandapalmer Thanks so much for your generous thoughtful response :-) You are a huge inspiration to me. You've helped me affirm my work as a muscian-artist, teacher, and society-participator. I completely identify with what you are saying about Neil and the Yin/Yang nature of the kind of work each of you do. In fact, the only long term relationship I've had (almost 8 yrs) started out, in part, with your brilliant song "Coin Operated Boy" coming up on a mix CD she gave me. I stopped my car and called her to express my excitement at hearing the song and being so inspired. Her mom is an English teacher, and she reads a lot of fiction. As I would report my various busking stories "out there" on the streets, she would report on some of the stories that dance inside of her from pages of fiction crafted by incredible writing artists. One supports the other -- one becomes the other. Yin/Ying inseparable. I'm sending my love to you and the little one inside you, too!
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@demonicasj funny enough, no. i think the baby got the gist that mom was working and was like: shhhhhh.
Julie that's me
@julieduranie
How about a presidential run? Amanda Fuckin' Palmer 2016 or 2020?
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@julieduranie BERNIE. that is all. https://berniesanders.com/
Bob Schimpf
@bobby_rockit · Ukulele Player
@amandapalmer My 16 year old son loves Bernie! He's talking me into him
Claribel Tejeda
@claribeltejeda_ · Filmmaker
Hello Amanda, hope you are well. I wanted to know how you do time management when it comes to your art, music, everything. As a creative who just finished school, it is difficult for me to organize when I no longer have the structure of school to guide me.
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@claribeltejeda_ it never ceases being a bitch, frankly. i've overdone and underdone it for years and i think the key ingredient is to be forgiving about the fact that when you're a self-emplyed artist, you're bascially NEVER going to get it right. you're always going to feel like you're slacking or overworking yourself, and as long as you can forgive yourself and carry on, that's fine. oh, and lists help. real paper ones, that you can cross shit off and feel satisfied. i make daily lists (answer this person! tweet this shit! finish this song!) and sometime big-ass long-term lists (clean up my email inbox! fix my fucking website! find inner peace!). it's amazing how it can help just LOOKING at what you think you have to do.
Suzie
@softheartedfool · PhD student
@amandapalmer I'm a science PhD student and I struggle with time management so much, and it's so hard to forgive myself when I get it wrong. I think it's one of those problems most people suffer from.
John Sweeney
@johnmsweeney · Founder & Chief Kindness Officer
@amandapalmer This is class. :)
Andie Katschthaler
@thegrumpygirl · Founder, Grumpy Girl Communications
@amandapalmer I'm doing alright on the short term lists (fortunate that my wife is a wonderfully organised person and has helped me with that), but it's the long term shit that never gets done, like fix the damn website etc. How do you manage it? Do you set aside time for the non-creative (or less creative) and more organisational stuff?
Claribel Tejeda
@claribeltejeda_ · Filmmaker
@amandapalmer That is a constant for me, blaming myself for all the things I haven't done and then repeating the cycle of slacking because, 'Well I didn't start last week and I would be further ahead if I had so let me just not.' Stupid, I know. I'm trying to break that cycle with small stuff, lists do help, I like that you do the small lists and bigger things separate.
Die Reši
@resivtp · Musician
@amandapalmer yeah totally... like the day to day stuff kinda works - even the practise daily part of being a classicla musician. But how do you keep track of long term to dos or long term plans/goals/stuff that takes more time?
Bob Schimpf
@bobby_rockit · Ukulele Player
@amandapalmer Ha! I'll bet it will be a fine day when you can draw a big black line through "Find Inner Peace" on your list! That's on mine too.
Krista N. Dalton
@kristandalton
@softheartedfool Hi Suzie! I'm a PhD student too and feel this so much. This year I decided to make my PhD a "no-shame" PhD. I'm making a schedule but trying to avoid imposing the shame that comes from having unproductive days. Let me know if you ever want to commiserate sometime :)
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@kristandalton i have MANY. i literally just started the last chapter of "how to build a girl" by caitlin moran today. it's a hilarious coming of age story (thinkly veiled memoir basically) with no holds barred on sex and thoughts and what it feels like to be lost and 15 and horny. i kept reading thinking HOLY SHIT I AM EXACTLY CAITLIN MORAN EXCEPT I GREW UP IN AMERICA AND DIDNT HAVE SIBLINGS WHO HUGGED ME. highly recommended. her book "how to be a woman" is also hilarious.
Krista N. Dalton
@kristandalton
@amandapalmer I read Caitlin Moran's "How to Be A Woman" after seeing her in your recent uploaded show on youtube! Thanks for the recommendation!!
seriously hilary
@seriouslyhilary
@amandapalmer *adds-Caitlin-to-reading-list-for-bedriddenness* #thanks
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@dunnogr thanks for asking!!! i'm TIRED AS FUCK. i have mostly been in bed, with occasional trips to the fridge and toilet. i've heaard about this happening in the last few weeks of pregnancy. but it's CRAZY. i feel like i have level 10 jetlag and am being sucked into the center of the earth. i considered it a triumph that i opened the unopened mail that has been on my desk for three weeks. I WAS PROUD OF THAT. that is how tired i am.
Yen
@yendraws · Illustrator
@amandapalmer All that potential energy is just collecting itself for the awesome expulsion in about a month Ka-BABY
Krista N. Dalton
@kristandalton
@amandapalmer WOW thank you for being here! I wish I had something to offer you, but maybe some sleepy sloths in solidarity?
Leanna Heffner
@leheffner
@amandapalmer and yet here you are on the interweb for an hour typing in answers to our random questions. if i were that tired i don't think i could rally like you are....hot damn woman! ;)
Baukje
@gompieb
@amandapalmer and that's how should be. You're an incubator... A really good one! <3
Athene Numphe
@athenenumphe
@amandapalmer Just wait until people start telling you "You think you're tired now, just wait until the baby comes." No idea why everyone always says that.
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Amanda Palmer
@amandapalmer · love-lover, hate-hater
@leheffner at least i can do it from bed....
Dana Heidelberger
@heidelphoto · Photographer, Heidelberger Photography
@amandapalmer That happened to me at the end of both of my pregnancies. I found that I felt better rested when they were newborns vs the last bit of pregnancy. Hoping you feel better rested soon!
Fine art by Jamie
@fineartbyjamie · Photographer, artist, mom of an awesome
@athenenumphe because the only chance you get to sleep is when the baby sleeps. Which is in about 4 hour shifts with one to two hour breaks to poop, cry, and eat. And if you are unfortunate enough to have a baby with colic there is usually much less sleep time and much more cry time. I tell people my kid is making up for the months of colic by being an awesome teen.
Athene Numphe
@athenenumphe
@fineartbyjamie But it's not like we don't know that babies take round the clock care. We don't need people reminding us. Four hour shifts sound awesome. My first nursed every 2-3 hours all night long until he was well over a year. Thank goodness for co-sleeping!