Justine Musk's Blog, page 32

the art of creative destruction

1

In his book THE ACCIDENTAL CREATIVE, Todd Henry introduces this great phrase: "Die empty."

Too many of us die with our novels unwritten, our songs unsung, our talents undeveloped, our creative work left buried inside us.

Todd Henry challenges both himself and the reader to fill ourselves up with ideas and stimuli and then bring ourselves fully to our projects.

We should empty ourselves every day:

Do the work.

Do the work.

Do the work.

And it occurred to me that many women (and men) do "die empty", but in a very different sense: we pour ourselves into our relationships and forget to keep something for ourselves, something we can nurture as our own, something that is worth taking seriously.

2

Very recently my ex-husband had a huge 40th birthday bash that took place in Paris and then in Venice. Since my ex and I move within an overlap of social circles, casual mentions of the festivities came back to me from multiple sources. None of it was all that interesting– except for something that went unsaid, but seemed palpable nonetheless, rising from between the lines of dialogue: a resentment on the part of some of the wives, who are starting to see themselves replaced by younger versions of themselves as the men work and party on into middle age.

I was thinking about this and leafing through a book by Harriet Rubin when I came to a line I'd underlined several years ago:

Whether through seduction or rejection, women have been made to feel small, the prey in men's war games. Women often conspire in their own destruction.

We do this when we stake our lives on something or someone outside of ourselves, when we look to him (or her) for the kind of meaning that we need to create for ourselves. We devalue ourselves; we tolerate too much; we ask for too little and are surprised if we get it.

But 'destruction' can also be 'creative destruction': tearing down the old structures to build something new.

That's the kind of destruction I like.

3

I get a lot of compliments on my vintage ring. It's hard to miss. "It's my bling-bling divorce ring," I'll sometimes say in response.

It's in the shape of a serpent paved with diamond chips, twisting round my finger up to my knuckle, with glinting bits of emerald for eyes. I found it in the back of a little clothing boutique on South Beverly Drive, where it had been sitting in a jewelry case for so long that the owner leaped at the chance to sell it at a discount.

And depending on how much I like you, I might add, "It's the symbol of the divine feminine."

Back in my blondest, trophy-wife days, a friend once told me, "I love watching the expressions on people's faces change when they start talking to you. They see you as one thing, and then they start realizing that you're actually very intelligent, and they're forced to re-categorize you."

I enjoyed this, because I understood that as a female you're initially perceived to be one or the other: the 'feminine' option, or the stronger smarter alternative. You can be "the hot one" or "the smart one". You can be stylish or you can be good at math. You can be a model (or just look like one) or you can be Hilary Clinton. You can be a mother or you can be an artist.

The idea that you can do and be both, if you want to (and have the abilities) never seems to present itself as an option. On some level we seem to think that if we want power we have to give up the so-called feminine, because the two cancel each other out. To contain the feminine = to be contaminated with weakness.

But Harriet Rubin makes the point that one should fight the enemy as the enemy's worst fear.

So if the 'enemy' is, in this case, the culture's preconceived notion of 'the feminine', then one could fight it…very much as someone who celebrates her own sense of the 'feminine'.

Those elements of femininity that some of us used to deride – the color pink, for example — can be reinvented with whatever meaning we decide to give it.

By refusing to fit ourselves into a neat little category, we can force the categories to rearrange themselves around us. Because by devaluing the 'feminine', by buying into those notions of what it is and isn't, we can't help but devalue ourselves. Which makes it harder to declare who we are and what we need, from our relationships and also from our art.

4

I'm writing this from my hotel room in Venice, Italy. Today I took in three awesome exhibits at three different art galleries.

Part of my purpose for coming here was to feed my head: to disrupt my routine and introduce new sights, elements, ideas into my general scheme of things that will become reflected in my work, whether it's the novel I'm working on now or some project in the future.

Feeding your head is a crucial part of the creative process.

And yet we go about it so haphazardly – if at all – when we should make it a weekly or daily practice.

This involves serious reflection on your overall purpose, your project, your 'gig'. You need to orient your mind in that direction.

Then you deliberately structure the course of stimuli that you plan to take in – the books, movies, conversations, blogs, art, people, lectures – in order to build out that purpose.

You also feed your head with stuff that seems to have nothing to do with your 'gig'. A powerful way to be creative is to find ideas in a sphere other than yours and adapt them to your own work.

All of this, of course, requires time and space away from the demands of everyday life. It's not enough that you carve out the space to do your creative work, you also have to carve out the space for the dreaming and wandering and studying and exploring that fuels your creativity.

You have to take your art seriously, and declare that you are entitled to the time and solitude you need in order to practice it.

You make your own meaning.

Otherwise you conspire in your own destruction.

Make it a point to die empty.

the art of rocking out your identity crisis so you can go on to rule the world

1

A young woman and I were driving my older boys to Pasadena when I learned that she gave motivational speeches to teenage girls.

"I talk a lot about the importance of developing your own identity," she said.

This is something my therapist – one of the smartest women I've ever met in my life – has brought up in our discussions together. The issue of female identity, how girls will get into relationships with boys or men before their own identity is formed ("when it needs to be the other way around: you become who you need to be, and then you find the person you need to be with").

It's why many women will often have a second coming-of-age when they're – oh, what a coincidence – around my age — when unresolved issues tend to raise their blobby heads.

(I thought this was referred to as a midlife crisis, but maybe that's just for men.)

(My therapist trained her own daughters not to get married until they were over thirty, when they had established both careers and financial independence. I thought this was VERY VERY WISE. I know that marriage is great for many people, but I also have this sneaking suspicion that if marriage was so great for women the culture wouldn't have to work so hard to sell it to us.

At a black-tie event a month or so ago, a major movie star of my mother's generation sitting next to me told me, "If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't get married. And I say this as a happily married woman." And also, I pointed out, saying it as a woman with an amazingly successful career. "Even so," she said. "Your identity can still get subsumed." But I digress. )

Identity has been on my mind lately, because everything I've been learning and blogging about in the past couple of years demands knowing who you are and what you stand for.

It demands not just a sense of identity, but a finely honed blade of an identity to cut through the marketplace.

You can't build a platform, start a movement, create a great personal brand, if you are a question mark to yourself. (You can, however, use the work of developing a platform, a brand, to soul-search and figure out some answers.)

2

When we were in Pasadena, this same young woman – let's call her Kelly, it's the name of a favorite character on the soap opera SANTA BARBARA I was addicted to in junior high — noted the fact that I am an obsessive reader (I was e-reading on my new cellphone, an Infuse 4G I chose partly for its massive screen) and asked me if I could recommend any biographies of cool women.

"Yeah, I love those," I said. (I had just finished DANGEROUS MUSE, about Lady Caroline Blackwood: aristocratic, beautiful, brilliant, difficult, damaged, alcoholic.) I rattled off some of my favorites: books about Edna St Vincent Millay, Lee Miller, Coco Chanel, Catherine the Great.

Kelly said: "I want to read about women who were – you know – not just great and powerful and accomplished and everything, but, you know. Who knew how to rock being a woman. Who totally rocked being a woman."

"Then you will love these books," I said.

We moved on to other things.

But that phrase has lingered in my head ever since:

how to rock being a woman

because I thought it was interesting (especially in light of my previous post) that she had to specify that. Would a man say something like, "Yeah, Alexander the Great conquered countries and shit, but I don't know, did he rock being a dude"?

But I knew exactly – on a deep, nonverbal, womanly kind of level – what Kelly meant.

So I was trying to take this gut feeling and articulate it. A certain savoir-faire, or je ne sais quoi…? No, not quite right. Being comfortable in your woman-skin…?

But I think it goes beyond that.

3

I started Tribal Writer – spinning it off from my faithful little Livejournal – about a year and a half ago.

It was a way for me to explore this idea of author platform. Since the moment I took to my Kindle, I sensed the sea change in publishing and how online platform would be key to future survival.

For the past ten years I'd been moving between the technology community and the writing/publishing community, and the two are a world apart. One also moves faster than the other. If I wanted to explore platform, it made sense to ask some of my tech-business friends about where they thought publishing was going and what they would be doing right now if they were writers. It made sense to pour over social media blogs and how-to-blog blogs, which segued into online marketing and direct marketing and branding and creative entrepreneurship (which, I realized, is what platform can become: an exercise in creative entrepreneurship, and oh, isn't that interesting) and innovation and creativity in general.

I read – obsessively – about all these things.

Because I realized that I loved this stuff. Loved it. Loved.

And I also began to notice that there seem to be two different – and I'm not quite sure what to call them – creative-content-entrepreneurial subcultures or 'spheres' on the Internet. There's a lot of overlap, and they're very friendly with each other, and they both celebrate the unconventional life (while acknowledging how difficult it can be), but they each have a different feel to them – at least to me. One is male and the other is female.

The 'male' sphere is all about authority blogging, world domination, battling The Resistance, creativity + organization = success, creativity + productivity = success, prolific + healthy + brilliant = success. I went to check out the website to a book I'm reading called the ACCIDENTAL CREATIVE by Todd Henry. Note all the guys. Go to the BOOK page and scroll down to the many testimonials. All guys. Also note how books about creativity and innovation – which tend to be business books – which tend to be written by guys — tend to use the same examples of people being brilliantly innovative and creative. Who are mostly guys. (Hell, mostly Steve Jobs.)

The women are all about getting down to business too, but it's presented in a more holistic and even spiritual approach (spiritual in the sense of creative and personal growth, not organized religion!. Take Marie Forleo's 'Rich, Happy + Hot' adventure mastermind program for female entrepreneurs at various stages of biz development: a participant's goal for the year is just as likely to include becoming a nonsmoking cleaneating hardbodied yogi* as well as making six figures or landing a book contract. One of the queens of the realm – Danielle LaPorte, who recently landed a quarter-million dollar book contract with a major publisher – sets the tone by blending the spiritual in with the business advice (it's pretty cool).

This sphere is all about self-actualization rocks and marketing from your magnificence and empowering passionate people and calling you to rule your realm. Many of the products and services are marketed to a mostly-female audience. It's not because anybody is discriminating against men. It's because of underlying themes that perhaps appeal uniquely to women. Not just how to run a successful biz or build a successful brand, but how to create a successful life that brings everything together: that harmonizes. A new kind of model for a new kind of life, powerful from the inside out. How to rock being a woman.

* I, uh, know this because this is my goal. one of my goals. i've accomplished the nonsmoking part, am working on the hardbodied part, and then shall tackle the cleaneating part. but right now I'm eating salt and vinegar chips. because I can. dammit.

4

The overriding message is the same: we are moving into a new era (if not already in it) of what Daniel Pink calls "high-touch, high-concept."

Empathy, ideas, connection, community, design and storytelling are the orders of the day: reaching people emotionally as well as intellectually.

It's an interconnected world that demands authenticity + transparency because it runs on influence + trust. You are what you do, and not what you say you do, or pretend to be in public. Because somebody's going to blog about it, and somebody is going to share it, and people are going to compare notes, and discuss, and all this is going to happen in about thirty seconds.

The command-and-control power model doesn't work so well here. There's no center to rule from. The 'message' is whatever people say it is. What's more effective is power to: empower and inspire and relate to each other in ways that change the game and move the needle. It is also an oddly level playing ground, where Goliath often finds himself outmatched by the quicker, nimbler David (and is still a bit confused by "the Twitter").

It is a world that plays to what have traditionally been perceived as the strengths of women. This might be why Adam Carolla's latest book is called In 50 Years We'll All Be Chicks.

Which is probably a slight exaggeration.

But still.

Time to rock.

we give up our power because

We learned that we were pretty.

We learned that we were not pretty.

We starve to fit the skinny jeans.

We learned that skinny jeans = power.

We learned that being the hottest girl in the room = power

We learned that to please = power

And boys, especially boys

We learned what not to be:

too smart or ambitious or GOD FORBID competitive.

We learned to laugh when required and listen and applaud

We learned to disguise our boredom

We learned to stand on the sidelines

We learned that boys chasing us = power

We learned that being chosen = power

We learned that men are hunters and we should let them hunt us

(why else would they want us)

We learned that spending money on lipstick and shoes = power

We learned that men spending money on us = power

Because it means they love us

even when they don't.

We learned our role is to serve

And show gratitude and ask for nothing

Otherwise we're golddiggers

(and selfish)

We learned to make excellent coffee.

We learned that we're bad at math

and if we're good at math we're bad at personal finance

and if we're good at personal finance we should still let the man

Deal with the money, or act and talk like he does

So people won't think that he's pussywhipped

We learned not to talk about money or care about money

Otherwise we're golddiggers

(and selfish)

We learned not to learn about money because it's boring.

We learned to do housework and volunteer work and go into the arts.

We learned to wear pink uniforms.

We learned to be poor.

We learned that business is for businessmen

and if we go into business

We learned not to set our prices high

so people won't feel bad 'cause they can't afford us.

We learned not to push for first or value ourselves too highly

Otherwise we're conceited or deluded

(and selfish)

We learned to avoid confrontation

We learned that anger isn't ladylike

We learned that when we fight it's not tough and noble like when guys fight

It's just a catfight

If we do it in mud they charge admission.

We learned that we're supposed to be happy

Or strangers will tell us to smile

We learned to unplug from our pain and send it under

We learned to sneak and manipulate and cajole and charm and flatter

We learned to be the angel of the house

We learned to be the good wife

We learned our place.

Otherwise we were wrong, or wrong in the head

(And selfish)

We learned that if women were as smart as men

where are the great female physicists and chess players

We learned that our talents are second-rate

We learned that we're emotional, hormonal and crazy

We learned that our wombs are hysterical

We learned that our bodies belong to the public

And fathers + husbands + religions + governments

We learned to get off on getting them off

We learned to fake orgasms

And that sex isn't really sex if we just have it with each other.

We learned that we don't need feminism anymore

Because feminists hate men because they can't get any

we've come a long way baby and what's left to fight for

Except decent maternity leave

and a mate who doesn't expect us to do most of the housework

Because his paycheck is bigger

Because we learned to work part-time or quit for the babies.

We learned to be guilty.

We learned that working moms are bad moms and evil.

We learned that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world

although it doesn't.

We learned that we're doctors and judges and district attorneys now

on tv

and what's left to fight for but The Bachelor.

We learned that power is only sexy in a man

We learned that women with power are freaks with bad haircuts

And doomed to die alone

Unless they put up with philandering husbands.

We learned that landing a powerful man = power

Even though it's his and he takes it back at will.

We learned that somewhere out there was a prince who would save us

Even if he works all the time and is damaged or abusive

We learned that his work is important and worth sacrificing for and ours is not.

We learned that his time is valuable and ours is not.

We learned to play small and be small.

We learned that power hurts and we shouldn't want to want it.

We learned to fight for the rights of others.

We learned to fight for ourselves and almost win – then step back, turn away

in love with the so-called enemy

We learned not to be inconvenient.

We learned the old stories, the marriage narratives, the fairy tales

We learned that we still lack replacements.

the art of more (money, readers, love): fighting off the scarcity complex

1

I have a problematic relationship with money.

I didn't learn about it growing up.

I married a man I met in college who, in the course of our marriage, became wealthy. I had no access to any of it other than what he gave me.

My attempts to carve out my own career (and income) as a dark-fantasy novelist got sidetracked by babies. Nothing had my name on it – not the house we bought together, not the car I drove, and because I didn't know anything different, and because we lived an amazing lifestyle, I told myself I was fine with it. I didn't want to be spoiled or ungrateful.

Two and a half years after my husband filed for divorce and after a prolonged battle over a document I signed without a lawyer under questionable circumstances, I received a divorce settlement.

Now I'm a woman of substance, so to speak.

I have a business manager and an investment advisor and investments and a house in my name.

And yet I don't feel any different than when I legally had nothing. Some deep part of me continues to feel impoverished, and I worry about losing everything.

So this is what it means to have a scarcity complex.

I've been working on mine (thank you, helpful therapist).

I read Tara Gentile's THE ART OF EARNING and it inspired a shift in me. She talks about the "paycheck prison": how you focus on spending less…instead of challenging yourself to develop other streams of revenue.

To create more.

It's about unlocking your potential to create the

wealth that supports that latte habit, increases savings, decreases spending

(yes, increased earning can result in decreased spending), and creates ideas that put money to work for you & your world.

This, I all-at-once realized, is what people refer to as an abundance mentality. It's a deep sense of the potential in you and all around you. You can use your gifts and skills to create what you need – more than you need – as you need it. Instead of worrying over the size of your pie as you fritter it away (people with a scarcity complex often indulge in careless, might-as-well-spend-it-while-i-have-it consumption), you focus on enlarging it.

What you put your attention on – grows.

(Which is why a "gratitude practice" can be life-changing: it keeps your attention on the things you want more of.)

So simple, I know.

And yet it isn't.

And yet it is.

2

A writer remarked that she was discussing with a writer friend the possibility of self-publishing her novel. Her friend started trumpeting the merits of traditional publishing…and then they were arguing over self vs traditional…and "nearly came to blows".

What struck me was how unnecessary that argument was.

Because it assumes either one or the other.

It's "the tyranny of either/or" …

….instead of and.

Self-publishing and traditional publishing.

In today's rapidly changing publishing landscape, they serve different purposes and different kinds of fiction. I predict – and I'm hardly alone in this – that a successful writing career will now include a mix of both. Together, they enlarge the pie of what's possible: the material you publish, the readership you connect with, the profit you make.

But scarcity complex can blind you to this. You find yourself 'competing' for resources even when the circumstances that limited those resources…have changed. You respond to the past instead of the present, and run the risk of turning your anxiety into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Perception is reality.

What you put your attention on…grows…even if it's the dark space of lack.

3

Attention.

We are all competing for it.

It's the one thing you can't make more of. There's only so much mindshare to go around.

We are writers competing for a readership.

But what if we focused on creating more readers?

On using platform/social media — trust, influence, credibility, authority — different kinds and forms of storytelling — to reach into the neighboring entertainments and bring people back to books.

What would that look like?

4

Something happens when you start thinking in terms of creating more instead of settling for less. You start asking different questions, which frames your thinking in different ways.

As Chris Guillebeau puts it:

Fighting over a Small Pie = dumb idea, rooted in scarcity, fear, and small-mindedness.

Expanding the Pie = abundance, rooted in a belief that there is enough for everyone.

When you strive to expand the pie, you redefine the category and change the game. You utilize your strengths and talents and knowledge. You experiment with new ideas, and allow those ideas to evolve – or die out.

According to Seth Godin, embracing change – or being the change – is the one true way to stay in the game in the first place.

After all, this is the age of: innovate or die! Not to mention the ubiquitous: be remarkable!

In his book SURVIVAL IS NOT ENOUGH, Godin stresses the necessity of evolution and the importance of the fast feedback loop. By making lots of tweaks, experiments, improvements, and little bets, and hooking yourself into a constant loop of constructive criticism that lets you know what works and what doesn't, so you can keep revising and adjusting accordingly, you rise through the environment as it is now – and not five or ten or fifteen years ago – and influence what it becomes.

You stay relevant and meaningful.

Platform can be a great example of this. Instead of fighting for a narrow slice of your right people, you build out a deeper pie. Your platform forces a constant interaction with your audience; day in, day out, you have to create value – and more value – through your blog posts and tweets and videos. You see which of your ideas hit the ground running, or need more development, or fall by the wayside. Instead of competing with other bloggers, you form partnerships with them – which allow both of you access to each other's audience and to deepen and increase your readership and the value you put out into the world.

5

In order to be successful at creating more, you have to follow your strengths and interests.

By 'strength', I mean it in the way Marcus Buckingham means it: whatever activity energizes you and makes you feel strong and alive and most like yourself. Identify those moments. Cherish them. Organize your life around them – figure out how to do more of them – and, over time, the dots will start to connect into a skillset uniquely yours.

I like the analogy Sally Hogshead uses in her book FASCINATE. She's comparing flowers in the Amazon to successful marketing – the ability to fascinate people – but I think it's a great analogy for thriving in any highly competitive world.

University of Florida biology professor David Dilcher wrote, "flowering plants were the first advertisers in the world. They put out beautiful petals, colorful patterns, fragrances, and gave a reward, such as nectar or pollen, for any insect that would come and visit them."

Plants offer other lessons in marketing survival. For instance, the Amazon jungle might look like it would be a desirable place to live, if you're a plant. It's lush, exotic, flourishing, with plenty of water. But with thirty million species in the rain forest, vegetation grows so thickly that each plant to must fight to gain food, protection, and even a slender ray of light. Plants act like marketing managers: developing unique adaptations, designing spinoff extensions, and seeking unconventional niches.

By listening closely to your environment and playing to your strengths, through constant experimentation and feedback and revision and more experimentation and feedback and revision, you can be abundant.

You can create things and express things that no one's quite seen before.

You can make more.

the art of more (money, readers, love): baking a bigger pie

1

I have a problematic relationship with money.

I didn't learn about it growing up.

I married a man I met in college who, in the course of our marriage, became wealthy. I had no access to any of it other than what he gave me.

My attempts to carve out my own career (and income) as a dark-fantasy novelist got sidetracked by babies. Nothing had my name on it – not the house we bought together, not the car I drove, and because I didn't know anything different, and because we lived an amazing lifestyle, I told myself I was fine with it. I didn't want to be spoiled or ungrateful.

Two and a half years after my husband filed for divorce and after a prolonged battle over a document I signed without a lawyer under questionable circumstances, I received a divorce settlement.

Now I'm a woman of substance, so to speak.

I have a business manager and an investment advisor and investments and a house in my name.

And yet I don't feel any different than when I legally had nothing. Some deep part of me continues to feel impoverished, and I worry about losing everything.

So this is what it means to have a scarcity complex.

I've been working on mine (thank you, helpful therapist).

I read Tara Gentile's THE ART OF EARNING and it inspired a shift in me. She talks about the "paycheck prison": how you focus on spending less…instead of challenging yourself to develop other streams of revenue.

To create more.

It's about unlocking your potential to create the

wealth that supports that latte habit, increases savings, decreases spending

(yes, increased earning can result in decreased spending), and creates ideas that put money to work for you & your world.

This, I all-at-once realized, is what people refer to as an abundance mentality. It's a deep sense of the potential in you and all around you. You can use your gifts and skills to create what you need – more than you need – as you need it. Instead of worrying over the size of your pie as you fritter it away (people with a scarcity complex often indulge in careless, might-as-well-spend-it-while-i-have-it consumption), you focus on enlarging it.

What you put your attention on – grows.

(Which is why continuing gratitude can be life-changing: it keeps your attention on the things you want more of.)

So simple, I know.

And yet it isn't.

And yet it is.

2

A writer remarked that she was discussing with a writer friend the possibility of self-publishing her novel. Her friend started trumpeting the merits of traditional publishing…and then they were arguing over self vs traditional…and "nearly came to blows".

What struck me was how unnecessary that argument was.

Because it assumes either one or the other.

It's "the tyranny of either/or" …

….instead of and.

Self-publishing and traditional publishing.

In today's rapidly changing publishing landscape, they serve different purposes and different kinds of fiction. I predict – and I'm hardly alone in this – that a successful writing career will now include a mix of both. Together, they enlarge the pie of what's possible: the material you publish, the readership you connect with, the profit you make.

But scarcity complex can blind you to this. You find yourself 'competing' for resources even when the circumstances that limited those resources…have changed. You respond to the past instead of the present, and run the risk of turning your anxiety into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Perception is reality.

What you put your attention on…grows…even if it's the dark space of lack.

3

Attention.

We are all competing for it.

It's the one thing you can't make more of. There's only so much mindshare to go around.

We are writers competing for a readership.

But what if we focused on creating more readers?

On using platform/social media — trust, influence, credibility, authority — different kinds and forms of storytelling — to reach into the neighboring entertainments and bring people back to books.

What would that look like?

4

Something happens when you start thinking in terms of creating more instead of settling for less. You start asking different questions, which frames your thinking in different ways.

As Chris Guillebeau puts it:

Fighting over a Small Pie = dumb idea, rooted in scarcity, fear, and small-mindedness.

Expanding the Pie = abundance, rooted in a belief that there is enough for everyone.

When you strive to expand the pie, you redefine the category and change the game. You utilize your strengths and talents and knowledge. You experiment with new ideas, and allow those ideas to evolve – or die out.

According to Seth Godin, embracing change – or being the change – is the one true way to stay in the game in the first place.

After all, this is the age of: innovate or die! Not to mention the ubiquitous: be remarkable!

In his book SURVIVAL IS NOT ENOUGH, Godin stresses the necessity of evolution and the importance of the fast feedback loop. By making lots of tweaks, experiments, improvements, and little bets, and hooking yourself into a constant loop of constructive criticism that lets you know what works and what doesn't, so you can keep revising and adjusting accordingly, you rise through the environment as it is now – and not five or ten or fifteen years ago – and influence what it becomes.

You stay relevant and meaningful.

Platform can be a great example of this. Instead of fighting for a narrow slice of your right people, you build out a deeper pie. Your platform forces a constant interaction with your audience; day in, day out, you have to create value – and more value – through your blog posts and tweets and videos. You see which of your ideas hit the ground running, or need more development, or fall by the wayside. Instead of competing with other bloggers, you form partnerships with them – which allow both of you access to each other's audience and to deepen and increase your readership and the value you put out into the world.

5

In order to be successful at creating more, you have to follow your strengths and interests.

By 'strength', I mean it in the way Marcus Buckingham means it: whatever activity energizes you and makes you feel strong and alive and most like yourself. Identify those moments. Cherish them. Organize your life around them – figure out how to do more of them – and, over time, the dots will start to connect into a skillset uniquely yours.

I like the analogy Sally Hogshead uses in her book FASCINATE. She's comparing flowers in the Amazon to successful marketing – the ability to fascinate people – but I think it's a great analogy for thriving in any highly competitive world.

University of Florida biology professor David Dilcher wrote, "flowering plants were the first advertisers in the world. They put out beautiful petals, colorful patterns, fragrances, and gave a reward, such as nectar or pollen, for any insect that would come and visit them."

Plants offer other lessons in marketing survival. For instance, the Amazon jungle might look like it would be a desirable place to live, if you're a plant. It's lush, exotic, flourishing, with plenty of water. But with thirty million species in the rain forest, vegetation grows so thickly that each plant to must fight to gain food, protection, and even a slender ray of light. Plants act like marketing managers: developing unique adaptations, designing spinoff extensions, and seeking unconventional niches.

By listening closely to your environment and playing to your strengths, through constant experimentation and feedback and revision and more experimentation and feedback and revision, you can be abundant.

You can create things and express things that no one's quite seen before.

You can make more.

vintage Tribal Writer: the happy death of "genre vs literary" in the rise of the Technorenaissance

I first posted this essay in fall of 2009. I was thinking about it recently in light of everything that's happened in publishing since then, and I believe even more strongly in the message at the heart of this post: that we can no longer afford to think in the old ways, the old boxes, the old categories, which were arbitrary anyway.

Welcome to the new world.

I, for one, am excited to be here.

1

I was hanging out in a writer's forum and came across the age-old question of how do you define genre and literary? which always turns into genre vs literary: genre types bash the literati for lacking plot (which is absurd), while the literati bash the genre-ati for lacking everything else (equally absurd).

One person said you could recognize a genre novel by its "shallow theme and simple characters". He wasn't trashing genre novels; he considered himself a 'genre' writer writing a 'genre' novel. He had given himself an 'out' when it came to considering things like theme or characterization.

I thought, Wow. There's someone who will never ever be published.



Personally, I think rather than defining 'genre' or 'mainstream' novels by their artlessness — as this person did here — literary novels, by far the smaller group of the two, should be defined by their 'literariness'.

Literary is not a genre so much as a sensibility. It's a feel for language, a complexity of theme and character, a general overarching intelligence that informs the novel. It can apply to any and all of the genres.

If you say that genre/mainstream novels are characterized by artlessness, you're also saying that most readers want an 'artless' experience — and that, as an aspiring writer, you can get away with writing an 'artless' novel. But in today's "brutal" marketplace, where an agent will complain about"passing on really good novels because currently I believe that really good might not be good enough in today's market", how successful is a writer likely to be if she thinks it's acceptable to be 'artless'?

This is the part where someone says, But there's so much crap on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. There's so much crap on the bestseller lists.

Those books managed the difficult feat of publication because enough people loved them to spend time and money developing them and putting them into the marketplace.

And just like the public didn't understand why Julia Roberts married that quirky-looking country dude, you don't need to understand why some people love Dan Brown or James Patterson…only that they do.

Which doesn't mean they'll also love you.

2

What writers tend to forget is that 'genre' is a marketing term as much as anything else.

Booksellers want to know where to put the books so that the people most likely to buy them can find them. The people who want to read about space aliens can go to one section and the people who want to read about forensic investigators tracking serial killers can go to another section and the people who want to read about young women coming of age in the city while wearing fabulous shoes can go to yet another section.

No one decides, "I'm looking for an Artless story. Where's the Artless section?"

In fact, many of the 'genre' writers who rise to the bestseller lists bring a literary quality to their novels, like Dennis Lehane, who started out writing experimental short fiction in an MFA program. He established himself with a series of critically acclaimed mystery novels, then broke onto the bestseller lists with a novel called MYSTIC RIVER that was so bleak and 'literary' people had predicted it would end his career.

Martin Scorsese is now making a movie based on Lehane's novel SHUTTER ISLAND. Starring Leonardo Dicaprio. Maybe you've heard of them.

Many 'literary' writers write books that have a strong and riveting sense of story (I challenge you to put down Ian McEwan's much-praised ATONEMENT once you get past the first 50 pages).

In his introduction to Poe's Children, Peter Straub acknowledges this kind of crossover when he mentions "literary" writers such as Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem "who have no problem embracing their inner Poe." He also lists the wave of fantasy/horror/SF writers (Kelly Link, Elizabeth Hand, Graham Joyce) who are "literary and genre writers at the same time".

I like that: literary and genre at the same time.



As a reader, that's what I look for. That would be a perfect world. Some books would be better than others, no question, and art would still range from 'high' to 'low'. But writers, with the exception of those so experimental in nature they resist any categorization except 'literary', would be literary and genre at the same time. Novels wouldn't respect such a clear cut division between 'literary' and 'genre'. That division would cease to exist.

3

Publishing is changing. We're witnessing a revolution and entering the digital age, where writers will still write and readers will still find them but the middleman might just get eliminated. This is the age of tribes, personal brands, author platforms and "1000 True Fans".

Dean Koontz once remarked — way back in the 80s, when a Kindle was a thing in science fiction movies — on his publishers' insistence that he write his different genre novels under different pen names in order "not to confuse the reader".

What Koontz discovered, he went on, was that his publishers were wrong. Readers who really like your stuff "will follow you anywhere".

Ultimately we love our favorite writers not for the type of stories they write but their voice, their worldview, the way they bring their characters into existence so that we may develop relationships with them and, through them, touch the writer's mind.

I'm reminded of a fan of Poppy Z Brite's who said, when she found out that Brite had a blog, "now I can have Poppy every day!" She didn't care that Brite's blog doesn't chronicle vampires (from her early work) or chefs running a New Orleans restaurant (her later work). She craves Poppy's voice, that mash-up of style and thought and personality that defines Poppy's work and marks it apart from everybody else's.

In the digital age, as writers are forced to grapple with blogs and Facebook and Twitter, and develop an author platform alongside their body of work, our 'voice' will define us more than ever before. Our 'voice' becomes our 'brand', and readers connect with it — and us — directly.

According to the theory by Kevin Kelly, in order to survive, artists only need 1000 True Fans who will buy anything he or she does (because if each fan spends $100 a year…).

True Fans are the ones "who will follow us anywhere."

And with that kind of access to us and our work, do we have to adhere to such rigid genre categories?

In fact, might it be kind of dangerous to do so? In a world as cluttered and chaotic as the Web — where anyone can upload a manuscript and set up a blog and call themselves a novelist without having to deal with the age-old filters of agent, editor and publisher — how can any writer develop enough 'pull' so that readers will single him or her out from the competition?

I think Seth Godin had it right: in this age of overabundance and oversupply, where the reader's time and attention are at a premium, the way to survive is to be remarkable.

To use your voice to tell your stories your way, in the best way you know how.

And in a world where readers increasingly flock to author-brands online — and build tribes around them — maybe the emphasis will no longer be on what genre you belong in but the genres you bring together to form what Koontz (who did it himself, with great success, before the Internet was even born) a "cross-genre novel" that isn't like anything else in the marketplace.

4

Copyblogger compares the Internet to the Renaissance, creating what this blogger calls a Technorenaissance:

The Renaissance was one of the most innovative eras in human history, and many credit the Medici family as the catalyst that made it possible. By attracting talented souls from so many different fields and cultures, the Medicis caused these varied artists and scientists to come in contact with one another, trade ideas, and discover the intersections that allowed for giant leaps in creativity and innovation.

…allowing people to seek and find the connections between different disciplines and cultures led to an explosion of exceptional ideas. This intersection of ideas produced huge advances in literature, philosophy, art, politics and science from the 14th through the 17th century, starting in Italy and spreading throughout Europe and the rest of the world.



The Internet isn't about neat little boxes and tidy definitions. The Internet has become, like Florence in the era of the Medicis, a place of access, opportunity and creative convergence. The Internet is a crossroads where ideas from different worlds can meet and synthesize. It's where you smash old boundaries and let the new stuff in; read and write across the disciplines; be both literary and genre at the same time.

I like to play with the idea of what the first 'true' bestselling 21st century writer will look like, a writer who rises from the online world as well as traditional print publishing. I don't think they'll rise from some box marked 'mystery' or 'thriller' or 'science fiction' but, instead, those places where the genres intersect. They will give us what we hunger for: something accessible and engaging, yet innovative and new.

The emphasis won't be on what genre.

The emphasis will be on great storytelling.

the problem with "nice" (and why it's good to be badass)

It is the job of the creative badass to show up as yourself, your true self, and say what is and is not working for you with integrity and grace.

Easier said than done.

how to keep your right readers addicted to your blog (and you)

The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there's no doubt about it. The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who's on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it's alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself. — Joseph Campbell

1

You are not the hero of your blog.

Your reader is the hero of your blog.

You are the guide, the first hero, the shaman.

You've already been through the reader's part of the journey (which is why you can write about it). You've seized the boon, the elixir, the knowledge, and you're on the road home.

2

You can't think in terms of extracting value.

(Friend me. Follow me. Buy my book, my painting, my music, my finger puppets. Like me. Because you do like me, don't you? Don't you? Doesn't anybody care anymore? Damn this marketplace, it doesn't understand me! Idiots! Philistines! Nobody's written a decent novel since 1897! It's all been crap since then!)

You must give value. Create value.

You must give your badass face off.

You can't force or manipulate or bribe people into talking about you (at least not for long). You can't fake word-of-mouth. You generate it through making something that inspires conversation. You make yourself worthy of being talked about.

Why would people talk about you, or your work?

Because talking about it reflects well on them.

When we share stuff that's cool and useful and relevant, we become cool and useful and relevant. We build trust and status and influence. We establish ourselves as valuable members of the tribe.

So the only way to become a valuable member of the tribe is to help somebody else become a valuable member of the tribe.

To lead is to serve.

3

Who is your tribe, your audience, your Right People? Who do you want to invite into relationship?

Who is the hero of the story that you're telling?

You invite the reader into your world through her identification with you.

You help her grow. You help her create meaning.

You take her on a journey that she was planning to take anyway.

Where are you taking her?

That depends on the kind of story that you're telling.

And that depends on the nature of your hero.

In order to tell the story, you need to know your hero.

What's important to her. What drives her. What keeps her awake at 3 in the morning with a clutching sensation in her chest.

What she wants, and needs, and fears, and dreams of doing and becoming.

What it is that you can give her in order to help her advance.

4

Educate.

Empower.

Inspire.

Entertain.

Provide the information she needs to solve her problems.

5

When you plot a story, you raise questions that you answer only to raise more and bigger questions that you answer only to raise more and bigger questions….

and so on, until the end, when the hero is transformed and the plot is resolved.

The story began with a problem that needed solving…

and ends with an identity shift that makes resolution possible.

6

In the end, though, all the characters we create are aspects of ourselves.

To lead someone on a journey, you have to have been through it yourself.

Which means the hero is a mirror of you – beneath a different face.

You have to know yourself in order to know your hero.

You have to know your hero in order to know yourself.

So who is your hero?

Where are you taking her?

What story are you telling?

the art of being different: why you shouldn't compare and compete, but seek to change the game

For a woman to triumph, she cannot play by the rules of the game. They are not her rules, designed to enhance her strengths. She has to change the game. – Harriet Rubin

Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous. – Elizabeth Gilbert

1

Some of the most important lessons I ever learned initially presented themselves as lessons in style.

The first was from a woman I met once and never spoke with again. The second was from a woman I never spoke with at all.

The first woman was blonde, wealthy and in her late forties or maybe early fifties. I was maybe three decades younger, lean and leggy in frayed denim cut-offs with my hair falling down my back. My boyfriend and I were spending two weeks in Nantucket. We met this woman at a dinner party; I remember her intellect, her cosmopolitan air, her naturally aging face, and the way she had my tall and very cute boyfriend eating from the palm of her hand.

She was gracious with me and then flirtatious with him (right in front of me), and I realized that if she couldn't compete with me in terms of youth, I couldn't compete with her in terms of anything else – and she knew it. And yet I didn't feel threatened – maybe because her manner seemed to suggest that although she enjoyed toying with my boyfriend, she couldn't be bothered to actually have him.

In my memory, she remains the most stylish woman I've ever met – which is strange, because I have almost no memory of what she was wearing. (I do recall a shawl, because I started experimenting with wraps and shawls in an effort to get some of her je ne sais quoi for myself.)

The second woman was a dark-haired guest at a black-tie fundraising benefit in Los Angeles about ten years ago. My then-husband and I were visiting from Silicon Valley, where then-husband had recently sold his first company (which you have not heard of) and would soon sell his second (which you have used at least once). I had never seen so many beautiful women in one place – or so many pairs of uncannily rounded and uplifted breasts.

All the women began to blur into each other: the blonde hair, the tight dresses, the plunging cleavage. Only one woman repeatedly caught my eye and marked herself apart as an individual. She had the slender lines (and small breasts) of a dancer. She wore a long skirt that swayed dramatically around her legs, and cowboy boots, and funky jewelry.

She stood out, I realized, because she had style.

I decided that style was more important than beauty. Style can make you beautiful.

I still believe this.

But looking back on these experiences now, I realize I was absorbing other lessons I could not articulate at the time.

They have to do with categories, competition and difference, and why – just like your momma told you – you should never compare yourself with others.

And it's not because – or just because – when you compare, you compete. You put yourself in a one-up (or one-down) relationship with others that limits the authentic interaction you can have with them.

When you compare/compete, you are buying into a specific set of criteria. Am I as young and blonde and skinny and busty as she is? You are accepting that criteria as desirable and valid. I need to be young and blonde and skinny and busty. You're allowing that criteria — those rules — to define the category, set the agenda, and dictate your experience. Problem is, those rules were created to serve someone else.

Someone who is decidedly not you.

(And possibly wants to sell you something.)

Which means it's someone else's game. Sooner or later, you lose.

2

When everybody competes according to the same criteria, everybody starts to seem the same. Everybody is young, blonde, skinny and busty – it's just a matter of degree.

Both the women in the above examples impressed me, I now realize, because through their personal style they were expressing a very different game.

Their own.

They were each challenging one of the conventional rules of female beauty: that you have to be young, or at least try to look young, or that you have to be blonde and busty and wrapped in something tight. They were doing it in a way that played up their specific strengths: the first woman's cosmopolitan glamor, the second woman's slender, bohemian grace. By refusing to compete according to the usual standards, they didn't win the game so much as step outside it. They gave you a strong, compelling reason to notice them – and prefer them — over the alternatives. After all, who was I, except just another young co-ed? Who were all those blonde LA women, except part of a sea of sameness?

3

In a recent article about the latest wave of up-and-coming Internet moguls, the reporter observed how they still tend to live in nondescript apartments with plain furnishings. One of them – a dude in his late twenties – was quoted as saying how, in Silicon Valley, people don't care if you have a "good body" or a hot car. What matters is your intellect and whether or not you're building something cool: the kind of contribution you are making to society. He said that "feminine values" such as spending money on clothes or home décor are dismissed as "silly and frivolous."

A few things struck me about this statement.

One was, of course, the hypocrisy of it – somehow I doubt that 'good body' fails to factor in when the people being evaluated happen to be women. (I lived in or near Silicon Valley for ten years, and saw even the most brilliant and dorkiest of guys go after the usual suspects – the clubgirls, aspiring models, assorted cuties – who also tended to stay the same age as the guys themselves got older.)

Another was how he and his peers had completely redefined their world to play to their strengths (intellect) and minimize their weaknesses (social grace, aesthetics, both of which tend to be related), or flip around something that could be perceived as immaturity, a kind of Peter Pan refusal to grow up (living like college students) so that it seemed like something noble.

By dismissing so-called 'feminine values' as 'silly and frivolous', the dude was also positioning men and women within a very particular context: one in which men are brilliant and superior, and women – especially the girls who wouldn't talk to them in high school – as shallow and vain (which I'm sure female entrepreneurs appreciate when they try to get funding). Women, after all, spend so much time and money trying to look good (maybe because they know they're being constantly evaluated and judged and rated by their appearance?) and trying to create a pleasant home environment (maybe because they want to make it clean, comfortable and attractive for the men in their lives?). Men, on the other hand, are running companies! And playing Xbox!

(On the other hand – I'm sure that if a woman is just as brilliant, powerful and wealthy as they are – and maybe out of shape or funny-looking or socially awkward or badly dressed – with a questionable haircut — these guys wouldn't notice, or talk about, those latter qualities at all. Right?)

4

"I love rules," a new friend of mine said over the weekend.

At the same time, she acknowledged that her love for rules had locked her into a kind of stagnancy. She's a brilliant woman with a thriving online business, but progress demands risk and growth and mess, perhaps the breaking of one rule and the reinvention of another. She has to get messy. She has to put herself out there.

"That doesn't strike me as a problem for you," someone told me.

It's not that I break rules so much as…assume there's a margin for error, or maybe forget to read through them in the first place. I like risk and vision and growth and change. Big thinking. Big plans. I can write you an emotionally stirring manifesto, help you with insight and strategy, but I might not show up for lunch on time (or remember where I was supposed to meet you). It's the details, the crossing of the 't's and the dotting of the 'I's, that bedevil me (and leave me vulnerable).

My friend and I face the same problem from opposite ends. To have proper impact, you have to decide which rules, or conventions, to break and which to maintain. If I am sloppy with all the rules, then challenging one rule in particular won't have impact because it won't make a statement. By obeying all the rules, my friend lets the context define her instead of vice versa.

It's by maintaining some conventions – being a conventionally attractive, feminine woman, for example – that you can get away with being radical in other areas (because you don't seem as threatening, as "different"). Picasso once explained the importance of anchoring the viewer amid the abstract. Give him something that resembles a chair, so that he won't get lost in the rest of it. Give him a way to orient himself, so that he can feel comfortable enough to understand what you're trying to say, and start to see things as you do.

5

But then the question becomes, what conventions do you challenge, and which do you maintain? What do you keep, and what do you throw away?

What kind of story do you want to tell?

In an online interview I said that "style is the story of you and how you tell it to the world". It's about what you edit out as much as what you keep. We define ourselves by what we are not – as well as what we are.

The culture has its own stories it likes to tell over and over again: about men, about women, about rich men and pretty women, about older women. Certain strong-willed individuals in your life are fighting to cast you in their own stories – in the roles they want you to play — even now.

By recognizing the categories you've been placed in or have chosen to enter, by challenging and redefining the criteria, you can change the very nature of the game.

You can tell your story before someone else tells it for you.

the art of creating an authentic belief system (otherwise known as a 'brand') for fans friends + followers

I was reading the blog Transmythology when I came across this:

"Part of the reason that a number of recent theatrical releases have failed to entice a younger demographic is that a 90-120 minute story – when unsupported by larger engagement – is a tricky sell to audiences who are accustomed to being engaged around the clock."



Which made me think about how it's a new world now. Audiences expect a deeper sense of 'engagement' with your writing — and with you. If they love your book, they don't want the experience to end when they turn the final pages; they expect that experience to carry over online, with the story of you.

The most amazing thing about social media is that it gives you the chance to invent yourself, your – for lack of a better word – 'brand' – and connect with your audience before you've even published anything.

(In my case I became a serious blogger partly to reinvent myself a little, and connect with an audience that might not have been interested in my dark-fantasy novels but will totally love my next book THE DECADENTS — they just don't know it yet.)

So the question becomes: how can you blog in a way that will attract the right readers for your future books? Your blog serves a different purpose – and thus a different audience – than your books, so you want to aim for the overlap. You can hook new readers by providing content that is meaningful and relevant to them, but you make them stay — and fall in love with you — and turn into actual Fans — through the resonance of your personality, your worldview –

– and a 'voice' that echoes inside them to create that sense of mounting excitement:Yes. Here. This.

Some people would refer to this as your brand or author-brand.

Which is basically just another way of saying: the sense of identity that your reader constructs around all the accumulated impressions of you, both good and bad.

A mental imprint, if you will.

Why is this important?

Because in a world of millions on millions of blogs, your brand is what sets you apart.

Your brand is your "lighthouse identity". Your right readers in the dark waters beyond gravitate to that light and follow it in to shore. This is even more important because you are a writer, a creative: you aren't just dispensing information. You are showing your soul (and looking for soulmates).

You are aiming for an emotional connection to span multiple platforms, including your published books or ebooks.

The book PRIMALBRANDING talks about the seven components a brand requires in order to be truly charismatic. Read these brief descriptions, think about them, see how you can apply them to your blog, your body of work – you.

1. THE CREATION STORY

For a blog, this is otherwise known as your 'About Me' page – and tends to be one of the first buttons that a visitor clicks.

You might notice that I'm still working on mine (if you click on my photograph there in the sidebar you will travel to my Twitter account. I know, I know, but this is temporary…). Your 'bio' should be more than just a 'bio' – it sets the stage for who you are, what you stand for, and why anybody else should care.

Michael Margolis at GetStoried refers to this as your "brand story" which serves as "a symbolic container for the meaning of stuff".

Because that's what a story provides, that a simple listing of facts never does: meaning. Your story connects your present with your past….and shapes your future.

You don't invent your personal 'brand' out of thin air, any more than you invent your life or your self. You search your soul, you explore your past, you excavate your fascinations and beliefs, and drill down and drill down for the meaning of it all.

And organize your creation story around that.

My creation story, and the creation story of Tribal Writer, starts with my divorce. It kicked off a series of events that changed everything for me — including the books I want to write and the way I approach my career. My 'brand story' carries a message (or so I like to think) of non-conformity, freedom and empowerment. It's about bringing your full-blooded soul — your pure and uncut self — to the world through your creative work, your activism, your outlaw entrepreneurial spirit.

(Something like that, anyway.)

"Creation stories usually embody the who and the why…It is the beginning of understanding. It is a first step to believing and belonging…It often involves a mythic quest, the struggle to create the right product or service…the against-all-odds pursuit…" (from PRIMAL BRANDING)

2. THE CREED

What do you want people to believe? What do you stand for? What is your personal ideology, your life philosophy? What are you willing to fight for (and to write for)?

Your creed is a statement of the bold idea living at the center of you.

Chris Guillebeau (rockstar blogger and bestselling author) has a great one: You don't have to live your life the way that other people tell you.

He champions the art of unconventional living.



He doesn't just say, "Hi. This is my blog!" – he welcomes you to the revolution.



Apple's creed is in its advertising: Think Different.

And so is Nike's: Just do it.

Tribal Writer believes in your right to be a creative badass (and no one can take that from you).

"Once you have the creed that defines who you are and why you exist, it must be integrated with the other elements of the primal code to create a holistic system of belief."

3. THE ICONS

These are the "quick concentrations of meaning that cause your brand identity and brand values to spontaneously resonate." They can be visual images, or sounds (like the Apple start-up 'bong') or maybe a smell (Cinnabon, Aveda). They can be your hair, your profile photo, your logo, the crazy purple sweater you're always wearing, the way you sign your name.

They are "sensory imprints that instantly summon the brand essence. And we recognize these icons early on."

When I hired Paul Jarvis to redo my blog design (very badly needed), I paid an extra fifteen hundred for a logo, a 'brand mark'. I'm a highly visual person, and I wanted an image that would evoke a certain feeling and set of associations — at least in me — to bring my blogging and writing back to center.

I never in a million years would have considered a butterfly.

But a butterfly, as I have learned, is a symbol of fierce transformation. The ink-blot aesthetic introduces a psychological element, the ambiguity and uncertainty that are such an integral part of creativity.

It's not necessary that you see all that, or understand it, just as it's not necessary for you to know all the details of my creation story. What's important is that I do: that I have an internal architecture of meaning to play off of and build on.

4. THE RITUALS

Rituals are the activities that you do over and over again, the repeated ways in which you interact with your audience.

For a blogger, these rituals include: writing the post, publishing the post, checking blog stats, trying not to obsess over blog stats, reading and responding to comments, commenting on other blogs, receiving and answering emails from readers, engaging in other forms of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube), etc.

"Ritual replaces chaos with order. Rituals are active engagements that can be imbued with either positive or negative meaning….The vitality of your brand comes with the number of positive interactions you have with your [reader]."

5. THE NON-BELIEVERS

"In order to have the yin of believers you must also have the yang of nonbelievers. The pagans. The heathens and idolaters. Part of saying who you are and what you stand for is also declaring who you are not and what you don't stand for."

In other words, it's perfectly okay to have trolls and 'enemies', people who attack you in the comments section, who tell you that you suck.

By pushing against your message, these people only serve to reinforce it.

After all, one of the best ways to unite a group of people is to give them a common enemy to rally against.

(One of the rather wonderful lessons I learned from my Livejournal is that when someone attacked me – often with a vicious and misogynistic flavor – it wasn't necessary for me to respond. Chances were that someone else would rise to my defense. )

The 'enemy' doesn't have to have a human face. It can be a corporation (Apple vs Microsoft); it can be an idea or concept; it can be a political party, a movement; it can be the status quo. It is the flipside of your creed: the darkness to your light, the sour to your sweet….you get the idea.

Opposites have a way of defining each other.

Often it's contradiction and conflict that drives the conversation forward.

6. THE SACRED WORDS

"Words tell who we are."

Every group forms its own insider language.

Each profession has its own professional terminology – or jargon. So does every sport.

If you're addicted to Starbucks you know the difference between a 'tall' and a 'grande'.

If you watch MADMEN, you know the names of all the characters.

Yesterday I went to a Pure Barre exercise class and was struck by some of the words tripping off the instructor's tongue – 'flat-back', 'back-dancing', 'seat' (instead of 'ass').

In the online space that I inhabit, I've picked up certain terms and used them in my blogging – and, elsewhere, have seen people associate them with me or with Tribal Writer. "Genius zone", "write epic shit" (which I picked up from Corbett Barr), "soul DNA", "creative badass", "right readers". If you've read my earlier posts, you know that I encourage every blogger to find the "Big Meaning" that unifies their content and ties it to a bigger picture, or that the idea of "the bad girl" has special meaning for me.

Pay attention to your own language. What are the words, the phrases, that surface in your writing again and again? What have they come to mean for you – and your readers? When a visitor lands on your blog for the very first time, what are the concepts ("Big Meaning" "creative badass") they must learn to fully understand what you're talking about?

Sacred words act as a kind of initiation rite and marker of group identity. They help to create a sense of culture. We bond when we speak the same language…especially when the people around us speak something different.

"The language defines those who belong, and those who do not. Sometimes those words are secret; sometimes the sacred words are so laden with meaning that people are willing to fight and die for them."

7. THE LEADER

"All successful belief systems have a person who is the catalyst, the risk taker, the visionary, the iconoclast who set out against all odds (and often against the world at large) to recreate the world according to their own sense of self, community and opportunity….Enterprise without a leader is like a headless elephant. It may eventually get somewhere, but only by destroying everything in its path along the way."

This, Dear Reader, would be you.

As Seth Godin likes to say: We need you to lead us.