Archives for March 2016

You want to be a writer? You have to give up something.

Part of this is, of course, the fact you need time to write.  At this point, if you’re not writing already, that potential time is being taken up by some other activity.  Facebook. Hockey. Vodka. TV. Xbox. Take your pick. It doesn’t much matter, but it’s something.  You get to fill in the blank. And you don’t need a lot of time, but if you’re serious about it, you’ll block out an hour each day. If you’re smart, to start with at least, you’ll schedule it at about the same time of day and in the same location.  Later you can work on becoming more of a writer and less of a (you fill in the blank here).

But that’s only part of it.  The other part of it is motivation.  You can’t want to be a writer, you must be one or not be one.  Think about writing all the time? Good. You’re not a writer yet, you’re a thinker.  If you’re finding opportunities during your normal day to jot down ideas, and steal moments to write dialogue or blog or whatever comes to mind.  Yes, you’re a writer. You just need a bit of focus and a bit of discipline.

Where does that come from?  It’s a business lesson.  Say for instance I give you $50 if you write for an hour straight. Check it out.  Nice isn’t it? Yes, you don’t see those bills very often.  I got it from a ATM.  No, you have to take out more than $40 to get one of these.  Nice, eh? Go on. Write something. No, I don’t care what. No, I’m not going to read it. I just gave you $50. What the hell do you want from me?

Good, you’re done. Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?

Now, for the next hour, you’re going to write, but if you don’t reach 1,000 words, you’re going to lose $50. You need to pay me. Now that sucks. You just came face to face with intrinsic human nature.  While we appreciate winning, we hate losing.  For whatever reason.  If we lose $50, we thing there’s something seriously wrong with ourselves.  So you need discipline and motivation?  You need to give up something. And don’t make it something you don’t care about. I had a friend whose father always swore off Eskimo women for Lent.  Not really a motivating factor.  But what about Xbox? Or a poker game? Or one of those other things you listed when you were listing things that weren’t writing.  If you’re serious about it, you’ll give up something you really care about.

That way when you sit down at the keyboard, you’ll be motivated to not waste your time.  What will you do? We’ll talk about that a bit later.  But just like the guy who dropped fifty cents in the outhouse and then promptly tossed his wallet in after it. He wasn’t going down there just for fifty cents!

So this is a two-fer.  Rule one: Make time. Rule two: Make it worth your time. Sometimes tricking our own minds into doing something can pay some serious dividends.

Yes, thanks. I’ll take the $50 back.

Yes, I do think you’re getting it now.

So, what worked for me? I gave up playing music. Once in a while I hear my guitars calling me.  It’s difficult to ignore, but I’ve made some remarkable progress.  When I do sit down to write, I have a greater sense of what that time is worth and do my best to use it appropriately.

But here’s the cool thing. It didn’t take that long before mentally, that new habit took hold.  As the story developed on the page and the characters came to life, they motivated me.  The more I got into the manuscript, the more I got into the manuscript.  I no longer needed to trick myself.  I’d done it. I’d switched addictions. There’s a woman in front of me this morning playing some virtual candy game. The guy across the aisle is snoring.  Not me. I’m creating.  And there’s something magic about it. I can’t explain it to you, but you’ll know when it happens, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Measure twice. Cut once. Perfect, right?

Not really my style, although sometimes I like to fool myself into thinking so. Even though I don’t follow football as much as 99 percent of the world does, I am still the quintessential Monday (or Tuesday) morning quarterback. It’s pretty easy to say what should have happened once it’s happened and fairly easy to say how things should happen before they do.

Self-publishing? Piece of cake.

Watch out for cake.

When we bought our first house, there were a few things that needed fixing. Little things.

Want it fixed? Easy. Piece of cake.

Four years later, I had two things. An awesome set of tools and the knowledge that I should NEVER take on a house refurbishment project. No matter how big or small.

I was SICK of cake.

How does that apply to self-publishing? Based on your talents and time, there are some things you should do by yourself. And, like the home improvement example, there are a lot of times (again, based on your talents) that you should just call a guy. Or a girl. You may be a great writer, but if your graphic design talent falls off directly after stick figures, buying services of an appropriate artist (preferably a starving one) makes a lot of sense. More time to write. Right?

So here’s the self-publishing lesson for folks like me who have little to no time to dedicate to our writing craft: focus on what you know. Outsource what you don’t. Like it or not, self-publishing in the new world of self-publishing is not free. And while, in most of the products, you can exchange money for time, if you have it, some things are absolutely worth the financial investment.

Finished your book and ready to upload to Amazon or Barnes and Noble? Great. Do it. Don’t expect your sales to skyrocket. Nothing personal. It’s just business.

Lots of lessons can be learned from now successful authors for about the same cost as the price of a fancy coffee. Take advantage. Opt for an espresso and buy the book. Read about how you can benefit from avoiding their screw-ups. That’s measuring twice. That’s cutting the cake in half.

Do I take my own advice? Not usually. That’s one of my endearing traits.

Bottom line: Self-publishing isn’t free. There’s a lot more depth to the larger process than first meets the eye. Here’s a list of things you WANT to consider paying for:

1. Expert books. Successful authors offer lessons on just about everything. I share my list here.

2. Software. You be your own judge, but here’s my list.

3. Cover design. Unlike what we learned in grade school. People DO judge a book by its cover. Don’t go cheap on yourself here.

4. Website. This means service, domain, and website construction.

5. IBSNs. Do the research and watch out for buying these second-hand.

6. Education courses. Writing, Marketing, Design. Read the reviews. Invest in yourself.

Check out coffee or more resources here.

In my mind, I mapped out a general plan for writing and publishing a book. The new frontier of Amazon and Amazon competitors has allowed and encouraged a whole generation of writers and like-minded publishing entrepreneurs. It something I’m pretty excited about.

The speed and investment by which thoughts and ideas can be transformed into a format that can me shared with millions, is what Will Ferrell might call, “mind-bottling. You know, when your mind gets all bottled up.”

The speed of my mind is phenomenal.  I wish on a regular basis that I could make it slow down and become more deliberate. More disciplined.  Good luck, James.

As I sat down today to review my list of blog ideas this, I found that I’d made a list of a dozen in my electronic notepad, only about half of which made any sense to me today.  They were great ideas when I thought of them. Great enough to write them down.  What I did with these is what I do with most things, and I’d have to guess that I’m not alone in this problem. I pushed them forward into the future because their time wasn’t right yet. I wasn’t prepared or I wasn’t in the mood.  Had I take a few more minutes when I’d written them down, they’d be done now.  What they are now are, for the most part, are illegible notes that no longer have significance to me. Ideas yet to be rediscovered.

Not that I don’t have a list of items to write about.  All I need to do is look out the window and my zooming mind is full of ideas.  No, ideas are not the problem.  Thinking that I’d remember those great ideas in the future is the actual problem.  In the end maybe they weren’t such great ideas after all, or I would have remembered them, right?

Just a word of advice.  If you’re going to take the time to leave a note for your future self, do this: write a full sentence and print carefully.  If it’s an idea worth sharing with others, then it’s an idea worth taking the extra 20 seconds to complete the thought.

And if it’s not a complete idea?  Bat it away.  If it’s really worth something it will come back in the form of a more fully formed idea. An idea so annoying that it won’t go away, like that song you keep singing even though you don’t even really like the song.  At that point, forget scribbling a note. Take eight minutes and give it its proper due.

Then get back to zooming.

Just because someone else has an idea, doesn’t mean you didn’t have it, too.  Or even that you didn’t have it first.

So, there I am waiting for a bus in southern Maryland.  It’s winter and I’m freezing my ass off.  No, that’s not right. I’m freezing my ears off.  Yes, that’s more like it.  My ass is actually well insulated and relatively warm.  But my ears? They hurt.

If you’re from Alaska or Michigan or Chicago, you can skip ahead to the next section. If you’re from Florida or one of the gulf states, read on.

Anyway, I’m kind of a weather wimp.  Dislike the cold for the most part, and as I’m standing in line, I think it would be a nice touch to have earmuffs on and be listening to music.  Headphone earmuffs? I wondered if that was a thing.  I shared it with my friend Gary.  He liked idea, too. No, he’d never seen that type of a product either.

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.  Fast forward to the same time the following year, and lo and behold, there on the store shelves, in different colors mind you, are earmuff headphones.  Hey, That’s my idea. But apparently not a unique one.

I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times as I’ve written my book.  For whatever reason, my opening scene was going to have a spaceship captain smoking a cigarette.  The narrator would say something like, “Everyone one knows there’s no smoking in space,” or something along those lines.  I thought it would be a unique idea.  Then I’m watching the movie Lockout, and there, big as life is Guy Pearce smoking a damn cigarette. (&#*&O)@)! Hey, that’s my idea!

But I move on.  Another unique aspect of my story is of a futuristic prison that doubles as a meat processing plant. Making license plates in the future just didn’t seem, ah…futuristic. So the character name I chose was Grinder.  That seemed pretty unique.  Weeks or months later, I’m watching Arnold in Sabotage and I stare open-mouthed at the screen as his back is covered by a guy named Grinder. Hey, that’s my idea. Again. And I’m not even going to mention the TV series.

My first thought was, that by the time my book is published, the reader might believe I swiped the name from the big, or small screen. Nice James. Original. But then I thought about it from a different angle. No, I’d had those ideas, and they would be mine. In my own unique way.  Headphone earmuffs?  That’s right, I bought some.  Smoking in space. Yep. Turned that one on its head. And Grinder?  I won’t spoil the story too much. Suffice to say his backstory is something more than grinding meat.

If you’re a creative writer, you’ll see connections to your ideas all the time. My advice? Don’t despair. Make it your own. In your own way. Hey, it’s your idea.