Justine Musk's Blog, page 34

little bets + creative badassery + what seth godin cannot teach you.

"As the late theologian, mystic + Harvard professor Howard Thurman often said, there are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. "The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble." – Caroline Myss

"We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world." – Joseph Campbell

1

When you commit to the life of the creative badass – including your engagement with social media – you're going on a journey. The 'journey' thing might be an overused metaphor – and make you think of Steve Perry telling you to don't stop believin' — but that doesn't make it less apt.

Because social media isn't a marketing campaign in the traditional sense. It doesn't begin, blast out a message, and then end six weeks later. You don't get in and then get out with a happy sense of mission accomplished.

You don't slap it on your novel like an afterthought. ("My book comes out next week – I better hop on that twittering Tweeter thing!")

To get anywhere, you have to put one foot in front of the other – one tweet in front of a blog post in front of a status update – day after day after day.

2

Likewise, creative badassery doesn't begin and end with a single project, whether it's a novel or presentation or multimedia art thing or your first startup. It requires long-term vision, ferocity of soul, and a willingness to wander.

That's where the journey part comes in.

This is the part that no one, not even Seth Godin — who has been criticized for telling you that you need to be an artist at work and at life without telling you how — can teach you. You don't have to reinvent the wheel – because that would be stupid – but any truly creative life belongs solely to the person living it. It is their soul DNA made manifest, fleshed out with love and blood and sweat and tears and endless hours of deliberate practice, served up to the world with their particular brand of style and savvy. It is the work, but it is also the life. It is the self that knows itself, that has learned to align its values and purpose and passions, its dreams and actions, until the inner life is no longer at war with the outer life.

It knows how to flow with the go.

You're not just born into this; it's not like a silver spoon that a few kids get through a happenstance of fate while the rest of us stand in line at Target. The creative life is an achievement that is nonetheless fluid and constantly evolving. You don't just achieve it once, but over and over again. You have to keep showing up.

3

The creative life is shaped by creative, adaptive, experimental thinking as opposed to procedural thinking.Peter Sims calls this the "little bets" approach. He uses Chris Rock as an example. When Chris is putting together new material, he goes to a small local club and shows up, unannounced, on the stage. Night after night after night he sits and talks to the audience, making observations and trying out jokes, building on what works and discarding what doesn't. Instead of writing out an act, and waiting until he decides it's 'perfect' before presenting it to an audience – and risking disaster– Chris makes a series of bets so little that when those bets fail, it's no big deal. It is, however, a great education.

Sims remarks that

Similar ways of thinking and work methods showed up in the ways that Pixar creates its films…entrepreneurs and savvy CEOs like Jeff Bezos identify and develop new market opportunities…architect Frank Genry designs new buildings…generals go about counterinsurgency strategy and training…stand-up comedians generate new material.

The creative person's willingness to wander exposes her to new ideas, new experiences and potential interests. Some of these blossom into fascinations and tap into her strengths, and a lot of them don't. But by making a series of little bets, she can move and feel her way forward into a life that is shaped to her strengths and desires. She can discover her passion: not all at once, but little by little, as she builds on what works for her and discards or minimizes or delegates what doesn't.

4

There is no map for your creative life, no step-by-step procedure that someone else can hand down in a book or a blog that will magically reveal to you the meaning of your existence. It could be that the mission of your life is to find your mission, and in that process discover who you are and what you have to give.

It's not a linear process. You're allowed to loop back to learn something you might have missed the first time. You can kind of spiral your way forward.

The important thing is to begin the journey.

This can be the tough part. Every journey starts with a separation, a leave-taking, a realization that the place you are right now is a place where you can no longer stay. It might be your hometown, but it could also be a relationship that no longer allows you to grow, friends who don't want you to change, or a culture or a country or a religion or a profession.

As Carolyn Myss puts it, "You cannot live for prolonged periods of time within the polarity of being true to yourself and needing the approval of others."

A creative badass must to her own self be true. The irony is that, in the end, this allows her to be more truthful with others. You can't transcend your desires if you've never even learned what they are, or if you've never tried for what you want.

Sometimes, in order to find the life you need, you need to leave the life you have – and navigate that uncertain space between. You have to declare yourself. You might have to be solitary for a while. You will encounter doubt and dark nights of the soul (although this would happen anyway). You will have to stand up against conformity and shed your false identity.

You will lose some things, gain others, and find a new tribe.

The tribe of the creative badass.

 

little bets + creative badassery + what seth godin cannot teach you.

"As the late theologian, mystic + Harvard professor Howard Thurman often said, there are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. "The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble." – Caroline Myss

"We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world." – Joseph Campbell

1

When you commit to the life of the creative badass – including your engagement with social media – you're going on a journey. The 'journey' thing might be an overused metaphor – and make you think of Steve Perry telling you to don't stop believin' — but that doesn't make it less apt.

Because social media isn't a marketing campaign in the traditional sense. It doesn't begin, blast out a message, and then end six weeks later. You don't get in and then get out with a happy sense of mission accomplished.

You don't slap it on your novel like an afterthought. ("My book comes out next week – I better hop on that twittering Tweeter thing!")

To get anywhere, you have to put one foot in front of the other – one tweet in front of a blog post in front of a status update – day after day after day.

2

Likewise, creative badassery doesn't begin and end with a single project, whether it's a novel or presentation or multimedia art thing or your first startup. It requires long-term vision, ferocity of soul, and a willingness to wander.

That's where the journey part comes in.

This is the part that no one, not even Seth Godin — who has been criticized for telling you that you need to be an artist at work and at life without telling you how — can teach you. You don't have to reinvent the wheel – because that would be stupid – but any truly creative life belongs solely to the person living it. It is their soul DNA made manifest, fleshed out with love and blood and sweat and tears and endless hours of deliberate practice, served up to the world with their particular brand of style and savvy. It is the work, but it is also the life. It is the self that knows itself, that has learned to align its values and purpose and passions, its dreams and actions, until the inner life is no longer at war with the outer life.

It knows how to flow with the go.

You're not just born into this; it's not like a silver spoon that a few kids get through a happenstance of fate while the rest of us stand in line at Target. The creative life is an achievement that is nonetheless fluid and constantly evolving. You don't just achieve it once, but over and over again. You have to keep showing up.

3

The creative life is shaped by creative, adaptive, experimental thinking as opposed to procedural thinking.Peter Sims calls this the "little bets" approach. He uses Chris Rock as an example. When Chris is putting together new material, he goes to a small local club and shows up, unannounced, on the stage. Night after night after night he sits and talks to the audience, making observations and trying out jokes, building on what works and discarding what doesn't. Instead of writing out an act, and waiting until he decides it's 'perfect' before presenting it to an audience – and risking disaster– Chris makes a series of bets so little that when those bets fail, it's no big deal. It is, however, a great education.

Sims remarks that

Similar ways of thinking and work methods showed up in the ways that Pixar creates its films…entrepreneurs and savvy CEOs like Jeff Bezos identify and develop new market opportunities…architect Frank Genry designs new buildings…generals go about counterinsurgency strategy and training…stand-up comedians generate new material.

The creative person's willingness to wander exposes her to new ideas, new experiences and potential interests. Some of these blossom into fascinations and tap into her strengths, and a lot of them don't. But by making a series of little bets, she can move and feel her way forward into a life that is shaped to her strengths and desires. She can discover her passion: not all at once, but little by little, as she builds on what works for her and discards or minimizes or delegates what doesn't.

4

There is no map for your creative life, no step-by-step procedure that someone else can hand down in a book or a blog that will magically reveal to you the meaning of your existence. It could be that the mission of your life is to find your mission, and in that process discover who you are and what you have to give.

It's not a linear process. You're allowed to loop back to learn something you might have missed the first time. You can kind of spiral your way forward.

The important thing is to begin the journey.

This can be the tough part. Every journey starts with a separation, a leave-taking, a realization that the place you are right now is a place where you can no longer stay. It might be your hometown, but it could also be a relationship that no longer allows you to grow, friends who don't want you to change, or a culture or a country or a religion or a profession.

As Carolyn Myss puts it, "You cannot live for prolonged periods of time within the polarity of being true to yourself and needing the approval of others."

A creative badass must to her own self be true. The irony is that, in the end, this allows her to be more truthful with others. You can't transcend your desires if you've never even learned what they are, or if you've never tried for what you want.

Sometimes, in order to find the life you need, you need to leave the life you have – and navigate that uncertain space between. You have to declare yourself. You might have to be solitary for a while. You will encounter doubt and dark nights of the soul (although this would happen anyway). You will have to stand up against conformity and shed your false identity.

You will lose some things, gain others, and find a new tribe.

The tribe of the creative badass.

 

little bets + creative badassery + what seth godin cannot teach you.

"As the late theologian, mystic + Harvard professor Howard Thurman often said, there are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. "The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble." – Caroline Myss

"We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world." – Joseph Campbell

1

When you commit to the life of the creative badass – including your engagement with social media – you're going on a journey. The 'journey' thing might be an overused metaphor – and make you think of Steve Perry telling you to don't stop believin' — but that doesn't make it less apt.

Because social media isn't a marketing campaign in the traditional sense. It doesn't begin, blast out a message, and then end six weeks later. You don't get in and then get out with a happy sense of mission accomplished.

You don't slap it on your novel like an afterthought. ("My book comes out next week – I better hop on that twittering Tweeter thing!")

To get anywhere, you have to put one foot in front of the other – one tweet in front of a blog post in front of a status update – day after day after day.

2

Likewise, creative badassery doesn't begin and end with a single project, whether it's a novel or presentation or multimedia art thing or maybe your first startup. It requires long-term vision, ferocity of soul, and a willingness to wander.

That's where the journey part comes in.

This is the part that no one, not even Seth Godin, can teach you. You don't have to reinvent the wheel – because that would be stupid – but any truly creative life belongs solely to the person living it. It is their soul DNA made manifest, fleshed out with love and blood and sweat and tears and endless hours of deliberate practice, served up to the world with their own brand of style and savvy. It is the work, but it is also the life. It is the self that knows itself, that has learned to align its values and purpose and passions, its dreams and actions, until the inner life is no longer at war with the outer life.

It knows how to flow with the go.

You're not just born into this; it's not like a silver spoon that a few kids get through a happenstance of fate while the rest of us stand in line at Target. The creative life is an achievement that is nonetheless fluid and constantly evolving. You don't just achieve it once, but over and over again. You have to keep showing up.

3

The creative life is shaped by creative, adaptive, experimental thinking as opposed to procedural thinking. Peter Sims calls this the "little bets" approach. He uses Chris Rock as an example. When Chris is putting together new material, he goes to a small local club and shows up, unannounced, on the stage. Night after night after night he sits and talks to the audience, making observations and trying out jokes, building on what works and discarding what doesn't. Instead of writing out an act, and waiting until he decides it's 'perfect' before presenting it to an audience – and risking a total bomb — Chris makes a series of bets so little that when they fail, it's no big deal. It is, however, a great education.

Sims remarks that

Similar ways of thinking and work methods showed up in the ways that Pixar creates its films…entrepreneurs and savvy CEOs like Jeff Bezos identify and develop new market opportunities…architect Frank Genry designs new buildings…generals go about counterinsurgency strategy and training…stand-up comedians generate new material.

The creative person's willingness to wander exposes her to new ideas, new experiences and potential interests. Some of these blossom into fascinations and tap into her strengths, and a lot of them don't. But by making a series of little bets, she can move and feel her way forward into a life that is shaped to her particular strengths and desires. She can discover her passion: not all at once, but little by little, as she builds on what works for her and discards or minimizes or delegates what doesn't.

4

There is no map for your creative life, no step-by-step procedure that someone else can hand down in a book or a blog that will magically reveal to you the meaning of your existence. It could be that the mission of your life is to find your mission, and in that process discover who you are and what you have to give.

It's not a linear process. You're allowed to loop back to learn something you might have missed the first time. You can kind of spiral your way forward.

The important thing is to begin the journey.

This can be the tough part. Every journey starts with a separation, a leave-taking, a realization that the place you are right now is a place where you can no longer stay. It might be your hometown, but it could also be a relationship that no longer allows you to grow, a spouse or family or group of friends that doesn't want you to change (since any change that you make would ripple out to them in some way), or a culture or a country or a religion or a profession.

As Carolyn Myss puts it, "You cannot live for prolonged periods of time within the polarity of being true to yourself and needing the approval of others."

A creative badass must to her own self be true. The irony is that, in the end, this allows her to be more truthful with others. You can't transcend your desires if you've never even learned what they are, or if you've never tried for what you want.

Sometimes, in order to find the life you need, you need to leave the life you have – and navigate that uncertain space between. You have to declare yourself. You might have to be solitary for a while. You will encounter doubt and dark nights of the soul (although this would happen anyway). You will have to stand up against conformity and shed your false identity.

You will lose some things, gain others, and find a new tribe.

The tribe of the creative badass.

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the secrets and revelations of a powerful middle act

I've been thinking about secrets.

The characters in my novel-in-progress, THE DECADENTS, all have them. They have to do with desire, especially forbidden desire, and the destructive forms it can take when repressed. And as these secrets surface, one by one by one, the world of the story changes forever.

I'm fascinated with the idea of the Shadow. We all have one, made up of the parts of ourselves we learned when young to dismiss and deny in order to feel loved by the people around us. But the things that we repress have a way of sneaking back to secretly inform our behavior. In English class at university I learned the term 'return of the repressed' (and "what is repressed, explodes").

Until we learn to acknowledge these rejected aspects of ourselves and integrate them into our beings, every now and then they take possession of us. Every now and then we are completely at their mercy.

Maybe a story — or any creative project — also has a shadow side.

An important part and purpose of a story's middle act is revelation. The middle act, as Michael Halperinputs it, "is the central place where revelations, motivations, and confrontations take place – making the stories we create live and breathe." Information rises from that secret underside to raise the stakes, deepen character, and shift the reader's perceptions.

It also changes the course of the story. The protagonist is forced to deal with this new information and the impact it has on his life. He can no longer hide or deny. He is past the point of no return. But because of the necessary confrontations that result, his character transforms. He gains the wisdom he needs, the shift in perspective, to become a more complete individual — which allows him to defeat the antagonistic forces in a way he could not do at the beginning of the story.

This is the thing about the Shadow. When we confront it, we learn and grow and benefit. We unearth the vein of gold that's been buried deep inside it – and ourselves — all this time.

Do your characters have secrets? What would happen if some of those secrets came to light?

Are there aspects of the story that make you uneasy, that you find yourself downplaying or avoiding?

Often there are scenes that we don't want to write, usually because they force us to go somewhere uncomfortable. Maybe you're a 'nice' girl who needs to inflict some major suffering on a beloved character. Maybe you need to write about anger or sex or blasphemy or violence, or explore an emotional wound, or call up a childhood trauma.

Maybe you need to go someplace dark.

Some writers like to say it's the scenes you don't want to write that you need to write the most. Like Luke Skywalker in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, into the cave you must go.

Why do you think this is?

 

the secrets and revelations of a powerful middle act

I've been thinking about secrets.

The characters in my novel-in-progress, THE DECADENTS, all have them. They have to do with desire, especially forbidden desire, and the destructive forms it can take when repressed. And as these secrets surface, one by one by one, the world of the story changes forever.

I'm fascinated with the idea of the Shadow. We all have one, made up of the parts of ourselves we learned when young to dismiss and deny in order to feel loved by the people around us. But the things that we repress have a way of sneaking back to secretly inform our behavior. In English class at university I learned the term 'return of the repressed' (and "what is repressed, explodes").

Until we learn to acknowledge these rejected aspects of ourselves and integrate them into our beings, every now and then they take possession of us. Every now and then we are completely at their mercy.

Maybe a story — or any creative project — also has a shadow side.

An important part and purpose of a story's middle act is revelation. The middle act, as Michael Halperinputs it, "is the central place where revelations, motivations, and confrontations take place – making the stories we create live and breathe." Information rises from that secret underside to raise the stakes, deepen character, and shift the reader's perceptions.

It also changes the course of the story. The protagonist is forced to deal with this new information and the impact it has on his life. He can no longer hide or deny. He is past the point of no return. But because of the necessary confrontations that result, his character transforms. He gains the wisdom he needs, the shift in perspective, to become a more complete individual — which allows him to defeat the antagonistic forces in a way he could not do at the beginning of the story.

This is the thing about the Shadow. When we confront it, we learn and grow and benefit. We unearth the vein of gold that's been buried deep inside it – and ourselves — all this time.

Do your characters have secrets? What would happen if some of those secrets came to light?

Are there aspects of the story that make you uneasy, that you find yourself downplaying or avoiding?

Often there are scenes that we don't want to write, usually because they force us to go somewhere uncomfortable. Maybe you're a 'nice' girl who needs to inflict some major suffering on a beloved character. Maybe you need to write about anger or sex or blasphemy or violence, or explore an emotional wound, or call up a childhood trauma.

Maybe you need to go someplace dark.

Some writers like to say it's the scenes you don't want to write that you need to write the most. Like Luke Skywalker in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, into the cave you must go.

Why do you think this is?

 

the secrets and revelations of a powerful middle act

I've been thinking about secrets.

The characters in my novel-in-progress, THE DECADENTS, all have them. These secrets have to do with desire, especially forbidden desire, and the destructive forms it can take when repressed. And as they surface, one by one by one, the world of the story changes forever.

I'm fascinated with the idea of the Shadow. We all have one, made up of the parts of ourselves we learned when young to dismiss and deny in order to feel loved by the people around us. But the things that we repress have a way of sneaking back to secretly inform our behavior. In English class at university I learned the term 'return of the repressed' (and "what is repressed, explodes").

Until we learn to acknowledge these rejected aspects of ourselves and integrate them into our beings, every now and then they take possession of us. Every now and then we are completely at their mercy.

Maybe a story — or any creative project — also has a shadow side.

An important part and purpose of a story's middle act is revelation. The middle act, as Michael Halperin puts it, "is the central place where revelations, motivations, and confrontations take place – making the stories we create live and breathe." Information rises from that secret underside to raise the stakes, deepen character, and shift the reader's perceptions.

It also changes the course of the story. The protagonist is forced to deal with this new information and the impact it has on its life. He can no longer hide or deny. He is past the point of no return. But because of the necessary confrontations that result, his character transforms. He gains the wisdom he needs, the shift in perspective, to become a more complete individual — which allows him to defeat the antagonistic forces in a way he could not do at the beginning of the story.

This is the thing about the Shadow. When we confront it, we learn and grow and benefit. We unearth the vein of gold that's been buried deep inside it – and ourselves — all this time.

Do your characters have secrets? What would happen if some of those secrets came to light?

Are there aspects of the story that make you uneasy, that you find yourself downplaying or avoiding?

Often there are scenes that we don't want to write, usually because they force us to go somewhere uncomfortable. Maybe you're a 'nice' girl who needs to inflict some major suffering on a beloved character. Maybe you need to write about anger or sex or blasphemy or violence, or explore an emotional wound, or call up a childhood trauma.

Maybe you need to go someplace dark.

Some writers like to say it's the scenes you don't want to write that you need to write the most. Like Luke Skywalker in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, into the cave you must go.

Why do you think this is?

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the art of a compelling 'voice' (or: turn your online voice into a gateway drug)

1

Marketers talk about how marketing has to be baked inyour product.

The product is so cool, unique and remarkable that it inspires conversations, buzz, word-of-mouth.

Because – and this point can't be stressed or repeated enough – brand messaging no longer arrows one-way, from the television or the billboard to the masses. The Internet enables people to talk back to the brand, and to alter its message with, you know, the truth and spreadthat message through their networks to sometimes devastating effect.

Used to be that when Hollywood studio execs had a massive turkey on their hands, they would hype the hell out of it. And hope for a big opening weekend before word-of-mouth got out that the movie sucked.

But now, people can text and Twitter the bad news to their networks before the movie's halfway over. So much for a big opening weekend.

If the quality isn't there – if it isn't baked into the movie – the movie sinks.

2

So lesson number one: write a great book. Different people have different versions of what 'greatness' involves. The important thing is that enough people agree that your stuff is freaking awesome.

But then, how are you supposed to market it? Unlike a song or a movie, a book requires an investment of time and energy. It takes hours or days or weeks for someone to read it before they can pass it on to someone who also has to read it before they can pass it on…etcetera.

This might be why Seth Godin recommends that you start marketing your book three years before it comes out. Three years gives you time to cultivate those people formerly known as your audience, so that when the book comes out they are ready and waiting. (a.k.a. your 'platform'.)

But how do you market a book that doesn't even exist yet? That maybe hasn't even been started yet? Especially if the book is supposed to be marketing itself because of its baked-in awesomeness?

Especially if you're writing fiction?

It might help to reframe what it is you're selling (and baby, I know it's not romantic, but in the end we're all selling something). You are not just selling a book. You are selling your ability to enlighten and entertain the reader through the content you provide. You are selling them an interactive experience. (If your stuff can make someone feel something, or alters their worldview in some way, it is interactive.)

Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo would say that you are selling your soul (and this is a GOOD thing).

Which means that you are marketing your unique and distinctive ability to make people feel and think.

And you do that by…providing unique and distinctive online content that makes people feel and think.

This is where 'voice' comes in.

It is what you say…and how you say it. Form and content converge so that you can't separate one from the other. It's not just a message but an overall feeling, worldview, sensibility, personality. Your voice conveys a deep, instinctive sense, a vivid mental imprint, of who you are.

Online creative whiz and entrepreneur Abby Kerr is interviewing me for a digital product called Freeing The Voice of Your Business. During our initial conversation she made the point that when people buy your products and services – Abby is coming from a business perspective — what they are really buying is a closer relationship with your 'voice'. Yes, they are looking for information, but they're also looking for an experience, a feeling.

This made sense to me, since I have shelled out money to get 'closer relationships' with the aforementioned Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo, who have two of the most distinctive voices around. "Those women," marveled their website designer, who is currently redesigning my own website, "get so much traffic , it's amazing."

So when people in publishing make doom-and-gloom statements about how readers will no longer pay for content because they're too used to getting it for free, I look at the world of 'entrepreneurial experts' like Danielle (who recently raised her hourly consulting rates to $1000/hr and landed a book deal with a major publisher for a cool quarter million) and Marie (whose own business pulled in over a million dollars last year). Both women put out extensive, high-quality content for free. But because their voices – what they say and how they say it – are so compelling, their stuff acts like a gateway drug that only pulls you in deeper.

The blog is not enough: you want a free report, a video, a podcast. Those are not enough: you want to buy a book. The book is not enough: you want a seminar, a retreat, you want to experience the person in person.Even if you don't know where you're going, you know that you are on some kind of journey – that this person is taking you somewhere – and you find it compelling.

What this means for writers, I think – especially fiction writers – is that you have to open up your sense of your work, your content, and release your voice so that readers can experience it online. And be compelled by it. And then follow it to Amazon or Barnes & Noble so they can buy your book and get more of it.

I know, I know. Easier said than done.

3

How do you develop an online voice that is the most compelling version of you?

I would say: through constant practice, trial and experimentation. It's not just a matter of development but (self) discovery. It's about knowing who you are and how to best tell that story, consistently, to the world.

As Dolly Parton put it, "Know who you are and be yourself on purpose."

But you also need to figure out that spot where who you are intersects with what the world wants.

Copyblogger's Brian Clark talks about "meaning" and "fascination". A compelling voice has to have both. It brings value and meaning to someone's life. It is relevant. The 'fascination' part has to do with how the meaning filters through (and is shaped by) the personality, the sense of a specific mind at work.

4

It's important to expose yourself to as many influences as possible. You are the sum of your influences – so choose them wisely.

Read a lot. Read good stuff. The more you read, the more your brain absorbs the flow of language, the notes and variations. The more ideas you take in, the more material you have to take apart and re-arrange into yourown ideas.

Write a lot. Julia Cameron suggests the use of "morning pages". Every morning you move your hand across the page until you've filled three of them with whatever comes out of your mind. You don't censor or judge. If you feel like writing, "Holy crap I would really like to be eating pancakes right now" over and over again, that is exactly what you do.

This is a powerful exercise because it acquaints you with your own mind. Nature abhors a vacuum – so when you empty your mind of the thoughts that usually occupy it, new thoughts arise in their place.

Also when you write, you activate a different part of your brain. Your thinking deepens as a result, flashes on new insight, dives in unexpected places.

(Try it. Ask yourself: "What is my message to the world?" or "What are the things that I passionately want to communicate?" or "What are the themes that I need to explore?" and free-write for twenty minutes with no censorship or judgment whatsoever. See what your mind presents you with. You might be surprised.)

And finally, you learn to let go. Your natural writing voice will emerge when you're relaxed and in the flow. Like anything else: the more you practice, the easier this gets. It's like learning to drive. What feels so alien and uncomfortable eventually becomes second nature.

The thing is – you can't invent your 'voice' anymore than you can 'invent' your DNA. You are what you already are. The trick is to clear away the excess, burn off those internalized voices that pretend to belong to you but belong to your parents or teachers or an old abusive lover or even the culture at large. It's not about what you should care about, or what you ought to say or how you ought to say it.

It's about who you are at the core.

It's about baking your soul into your content in a way that feeds the world.

If it was easy – if it didn't take courage and effort – then everybody would do it.

Are you?

 

the art of a compelling 'voice' (or: turn your online voice into a gateway drug)

1

Marketers talk about how marketing has to be baked inyour product.

The product is so cool, unique and remarkable that it inspires conversations, buzz, word-of-mouth.

Because – and this point can't be stressed or repeated enough – brand messaging no longer arrows one-way, from the television or the billboard to the masses. The Internet enables people to talk back to the brand, and to alter its message with, you know, the truth and spreadthat message through their networks to sometimes devastating effect.

Used to be that when Hollywood studio execs had a massive turkey on their hands, they would hype the hell out of it. And hope for a big opening weekend before word-of-mouth got out that the movie sucked.

But now, people can text and Twitter the bad news to their networks before the movie's halfway over. So much for a big opening weekend.

If the quality isn't there – if it isn't baked into the movie – the movie sinks.

2

So lesson number one: write a great book. Different people have different versions of what 'greatness' involves. The important thing is that enough people agree that your stuff is freaking awesome.

But then, how are you supposed to market it? Unlike a song or a movie, a book requires an investment of time and energy. It takes hours or days or weeks for someone to read it before they can pass it on to someone who also has to read it before they can pass it on…etcetera.

This might be why Seth Godin recommends that you start marketing your book three years before it comes out. Three years gives you time to cultivate those people formerly known as your audience, so that when the book comes out they are ready and waiting. (a.k.a. your 'platform'.)

But how do you market a book that doesn't even exist yet? That maybe hasn't even been started yet? Especially if the book is supposed to be marketing itself because of its baked-in awesomeness?

Especially if you're writing fiction?

It might help to reframe what it is you're selling (and baby, I know it's not romantic, but in the end we're all selling something). You are not just selling a book. You are selling your ability to enlighten and entertain the reader through the content you provide. You are selling them an interactive experience. (If your stuff can make someone feel something, or alters their worldview in some way, it is interactive.)

Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo would say that you are selling your soul (and this is a GOOD thing).

Which means that you are marketing your unique and distinctive ability to make people feel and think.

And you do that by…providing unique and distinctive online content that makes people feel and think.

This is where 'voice' comes in.

It is what you say…and how you say it. Form and content converge so that you can't separate one from the other. It's not just a message but an overall feeling, worldview, sensibility, personality. Your voice conveys a deep, instinctive sense, a vivid mental imprint, of who you are.

Online creative whiz and entrepreneur Abby Kerr is interviewing me for a digital product called Freeing The Voice of Your Business. During our initial conversation she made the point that when people buy your products and services – Abby is coming from a business perspective — what they are really buying is a closer relationship with your 'voice'. Yes, they are looking for information, but they're also looking for an experience, a feeling.

This made sense to me, since I have shelled out money to get 'closer relationships' with the aforementioned Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo, who have two of the most distinctive voices around. "Those women," marveled their website designer, who is currently redesigning my own website, "get so much traffic , it's amazing."

So when people in publishing make doom-and-gloom statements about how readers will no longer pay for content because they're too used to getting it for free, I look at the world of 'entrepreneurial experts' like Danielle (who recently raised her hourly consulting rates to $1000/hr and landed a book deal with a major publisher for a cool quarter million) and Marie (whose own business pulled in over a million dollars last year). Both women put out extensive, high-quality content for free. But because their voices – what they say and how they say it – are so compelling, their stuff acts like a gateway drug that only pulls you in deeper.

The blog is not enough: you want a free report, a video, a podcast. Those are not enough: you want to buy a book. The book is not enough: you want a seminar, a retreat, you want to experience the person in person.Even if you don't know where you're going, you know that you are on some kind of journey – that this person is taking you somewhere – and you find it compelling.

What this means for writers, I think – especially fiction writers – is that you have to open up your sense of your work, your content, and release your voice so that readers can experience it online. And be compelled by it. And then follow it to Amazon or Barnes & Noble so they can buy your book and get more of it.

I know, I know. Easier said than done.

3

How do you develop an online voice that is the most compelling version of you?

I would say: through constant practice, trial and experimentation. It's not just a matter of development but (self) discovery. It's about knowing who you are and how to best tell that story, consistently, to the world.

As Dolly Parton put it, "Know who you are and be yourself on purpose."

But you also need to figure out that spot where who you are intersects with what the world wants.

Copyblogger's Brian Clark talks about "meaning" and "fascination". A compelling voice has to have both. It brings value and meaning to someone's life. It is relevant. The 'fascination' part has to do with how the meaning filters through (and is shaped by) the personality, the sense of a specific mind at work.

4

It's important to expose yourself to as many influences as possible. You are the sum of your influences – so choose them wisely.

Read a lot. Read good stuff. The more you read, the more your brain absorbs the flow of language, the notes and variations. The more ideas you take in, the more material you have to take apart and re-arrange into yourown ideas.

Write a lot. Julia Cameron suggests the use of "morning pages". Every morning you move your hand across the page until you've filled three of them with whatever comes out of your mind. You don't censor or judge. If you feel like writing, "Holy crap I would really like to be eating pancakes right now" over and over again, that is exactly what you do.

This is a powerful exercise because it acquaints you with your own mind. Nature abhors a vacuum – so when you empty your mind of the thoughts that usually occupy it, new thoughts arise in their place.

Also when you write, you activate a different part of your brain. Your thinking deepens as a result, flashes on new insight, dives in unexpected places.

(Try it. Ask yourself: "What is my message to the world?" or "What are the things that I passionately want to communicate?" or "What are the themes that I need to explore?" and free-write for twenty minutes with no censorship or judgment whatsoever. See what your mind presents you with. You might be surprised.)

And finally, you learn to let go. Your natural writing voice will emerge when you're relaxed and in the flow. Like anything else: the more you practice, the easier this gets. It's like learning to drive. What feels so alien and uncomfortable eventually becomes second nature.

The thing is – you can't invent your 'voice' anymore than you can 'invent' your DNA. You are what you already are. The trick is to clear away the excess, burn off those internalized voices that pretend to belong to you but belong to your parents or teachers or an old abusive lover or even the culture at large. It's not about what you should care about, or what you ought to say or how you ought to say it.

It's about who you are at the core.

It's about baking your soul into your content in a way that feeds the world.

If it was easy – if it didn't take courage and effort – then everybody would do it.

Are you?

 

the art of a compelling 'voice' (or: turn your online voice into a gateway drug)

1

Marketers talk about how marketing has to be baked in your product.

The product is so cool, unique and remarkable that it inspires conversations, buzz, word-of-mouth.

Because – and this point can't be stressed or repeated enough – brand messaging no longer arrows one-way, from the television or the billboard to the masses. The Internet enables people to talk back to the brand, and to alter its message with, you know, the truth and spread that message through their networks to sometimes devastating effect.

Used to be that when Hollywood studio execs had a massive turkey on their hands, they would hype the hell out of it. And hope for a big opening weekend before word-of-mouth got out that the movie sucked.

But now, people can text and Twitter the bad news to their networks before the movie's halfway over. So much for a big opening weekend.

If the quality isn't there – if it isn't baked into the movie – the movie sinks.

2

So lesson number one: write a great book. Different people have different versions of what 'greatness' involves. The important thing is that enough people agree that your stuff is freaking awesome.

But then, how are you supposed to market it? Unlike a song or a movie, a book requires an investment of time and energy. It takes hours or days or weeks for someone to read it before they can pass it on to someone who also has to read it before they can pass it on…etcetera.

This might be why Seth Godin recommends that you start marketing your book three years before it comes out. Three years gives you time to cultivate those people formerly known as your audience, so that when the book comes out they are ready and waiting. (a.k.a. your 'platform'.)

But how do you market a book that doesn't even exist yet? That maybe hasn't even been started yet? Especially if the book is supposed to be marketing itself because of its baked-in awesomeness?

Especially if you're writing fiction?

It might help to reframe what it is you're selling (and baby, I know it's not romantic, but in the end we're all selling something). You are not just selling a book. You are selling your ability to enlighten and entertain the reader through the content you provide. You are selling them an interactive experience. (If your stuff can make someone feel something, or alters their worldview in some way, it is interactive.)

Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo would say that you are selling your soul (and this is a GOOD thing).

Which means that you are marketing your unique and distinctive ability to make people feel and think.

And you do that by…providing unique and distinctive online content that makes people feel and think.

This is where 'voice' comes in.

It is what you say…and how you say it. Form and content converge so that you can't separate one from the other. It's not just a message but an overall feeling, worldview, sensibility, personality. Your voice conveys a deep, instinctive sense, a vivid mental imprint, of who you are.

Online creative whiz and entrepreneur Abby Kerr is interviewing me for a digital product called Freeing The Voice of Your Business. During our initial conversation she made the point that when people buy your products and services – Abby is coming from a business perspective — what they are really buying is a closer relationship with your 'voice'. Yes, they are looking for information, but they're also looking for an experience, a feeling.

This made sense to me, since I have shelled out money to get 'closer relationships' with the aforementioned Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo, who have two of the most distinctive voices around. "Those women," marveled their website designer, who is currently redesigning my own website, "get so much traffic , it's amazing."

So when people in publishing make doom-and-gloom statements about how readers will no longer pay for content because they're too used to getting it for free, I look at the world of 'entrepreneurial experts' like Danielle (who recently raised her hourly consulting rates to $1000/hr and landed a book deal with a major publisher for a cool quarter million) and Marie (whose own business pulled in over a million dollars last year). Both women put out extensive, high-quality content for free. But because their voices – what they say and how they say it – are so compelling, their stuff acts like a gateway drug that only pulls you in deeper.

The blog is not enough: you want a free report, a video, a podcast. Those are not enough: you want to buy a book. The book is not enough: you want a seminar, a retreat, you want to experience the person in person. Even if you don't know where you're going, you know that you are on some kind of journey – that this person is taking you somewhere – and you find it compelling.

What this means for writers, I think – especially fiction writers – is that you have to open up your sense of your work, your content, and release your voice so that readers can experience it online. And be compelled by it. And then follow it to Amazon or Barnes & Noble so they can buy your book and get more of it.

I know, I know. Easier said than done.

3

How do you develop an online voice that is the most compelling version of you?

I would say: through constant practice, trial and experimentation. It's not just a matter of development but (self) discovery. It's about knowing who you are and how to best tell that story, consistently, to the world.

As Dolly Parton put it, "Know who you are and be yourself on purpose."

But you also need to figure out that spot where who you are intersects with what the world wants.

Copyblogger's Brian Clark talks about "meaning" and "fascination". A compelling voice has to have both. It brings value and meaning to someone's life. It is relevant. The 'fascination' part has to do with how the meaning filters through (and is shaped by) the personality, the sense of a specific mind at work.

4

It's important to expose yourself to as many influences as possible. You are the sum of your influences – so choose them wisely.

Read a lot. Read good stuff. The more you read, the more your brain absorbs the flow of language, the notes and variations. The more ideas you take in, the more material you have to take apart and re-arrange into your own ideas.

Write a lot. Julia Cameron suggests the use of "morning pages". Every morning you move your hand across the page until you've filled three of them with whatever comes out of your mind. You don't censor or judge. If you feel like writing, "Holy crap I would really like to be eating pancakes right now" over and over again, that is exactly what you do.

This is a powerful exercise because it acquaints you with your own mind. Nature abhors a vacuum – so when you empty your mind of the thoughts that usually occupy it, new thoughts arise in their place.

Also when you write, you activate a different part of your brain. Your thinking deepens as a result, flashes on new insight, dives in unexpected places.

(Try it. Ask yourself: "What is my message to the world?" or "What are the things that I passionately want to communicate?" or "What are the themes that I need to explore?" and free-write for twenty minutes with no censorship or judgment whatsoever. See what your mind presents you with. You might be surprised.)

And finally, you learn to let go. Your natural writing voice will emerge when you're relaxed and in the flow. Like anything else: the more you practice, the easier this gets. It's like learning to drive. What feels so alien and uncomfortable eventually becomes second nature.

The thing is – you can't invent your 'voice' anymore than you can 'invent' your DNA. You are what you already are. The trick is to clear away the excess, burn off those internalized voices that pretend to belong to you but belong to your parents or teachers or an old abusive lover or even the culture at large. It's not about what you should care about, or what you ought to say or how you ought to say it.

It's about who you are at the core.

It's about baking your soul into your content in a way that feeds the world.

If it was easy – if it didn't take courage and effort – then everybody would do it.

Are you?

Share on Facebook

the art of discovering + developing your compelling online voice (+ why you need to)

1

Marketers talk about how marketing has to be baked in your product.

The product is so cool, unique and remarkable that it inspires conversations, buzz, word-of-mouth.

Because – and this point can't be stressed or repeated enough – brand messaging no longer arrows one-way, from the television or the billboard to the masses. The Internet enables people to talk back to the brand, and to alter its message with, you know, the truth and spread that message through their networks to sometimes devastating effect.

Used to be that when Hollywood studio execs had a massive turkey on their hands, they would hype the hell out of it. And hope for a big opening weekend before word-of-mouth got out that the movie sucked.

But now, people can text and Twitter the bad news to their networks before the movie's halfway over. So much for a big opening weekend.

If the quality isn't there – if it isn't baked into the movie – the movie sinks.

2

So lesson number one: write a great book. Different people have different versions of what 'greatness' involves. The important thing is that enough people agree that your stuff is freaking awesome.

But then, how are you supposed to market it? Unlike a song or a movie, a book requires an investment of time and energy. It takes hours or days or weeks for someone to read it before they can pass it on to someone who also has to read it before they can pass it on…etcetera.

This might be why Seth Godin recommends that you start marketing your book three years before it comes out. Three years gives you time to cultivate those people formerly known as your audience, so that when the book comes out they are ready and waiting. (a.k.a. your 'platform'.)

But how do you market a book that doesn't even exist yet? That maybe hasn't even been started yet? Especially if the book is supposed to be marketing itself because of its baked-in awesomeness?

Especially if you're writing fiction?

It might help to reframe what it is you're selling (and baby, I know it's not romantic, but in the end we're all selling something). You are not just selling a book. You are selling your ability to enlighten and entertain the reader through the content you provide. You are selling them an interactive experience. (If your stuff can make someone feel something, or alters their worldview in some way, it is interactive.)

Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo would say that you are selling your soul (and this is a GOOD thing).

Which means that you are marketing your unique and distinctive ability to make people feel and think.

And you do that by…providing unique and distinctive online content that makes people feel and think.

This is where 'voice' comes in.

It is what you say…and how you say it. Form and content converge so that you can't separate one from the other. It's not just a message but an overall feeling, worldview, sensibility, personality. Your voice conveys a deep, instinctive sense, a vivid mental imprint, of who you are.

Online creative whiz and entrepreneur Abby Kerr is interviewing me for a digital product called Freeing The Voice of Your Business. During our initial conversation she made the point that when people buy your products and services – Abby is coming from a business perspective — what they are really buying is a closer relationship with your 'voice'. Yes, they are looking for information, but they're also looking for an experience, a feeling.

This made sense to me, since I have shelled out money to get 'closer relationships' with the aforementioned Danielle LaPorte and Marie Forleo, who have two of the most distinctive voices around. "Those women," marveled their website designer, who is currently redesigning my own website, "get so much traffic , it's amazing."

So when people in publishing make doom-and-gloom statements about how readers will no longer pay for content because they're too used to getting it for free, I look at the world of 'entrepreneurial experts' like Danielle (who recently raised her hourly consulting rates to $1000/hr and landed a book deal with a major publisher for a cool quarter million) and Marie (whose own business pulled in over a million dollars last year). Both women put out extensive, high-quality content for free. But because their voices – what they say and how they say it – are so compelling, their stuff acts like a gateway drug that only pulls you in deeper.

The blog is not enough: you want a free report, a video, a podcast. Those are not enough: you want a book. The book is not enough: you want a seminar, a retreat, you want to experience the person in person. Even if you don't know where you're going, you know that you are on some kind of journey with this person – that this person is taking you somewhere – and you find it compelling.

What this means for writers, I think – especially fiction writers – is that you have to open up your sense of your work, your content, and release your voice so that readers can experience it online. And then be compelled by it. And then follow it to Amazon or Barnes & Noble so they can buy your book and get more of it.

I know, I know. Easier said than done.

3

How do you develop an online voice that is the most compelling version of you?

I would say: through constant practice, trial and experimentation. It's not just a matter of development but (self) discovery. It's about knowing who you are and how to best tell that story, consistently, to the world.

As Dolly Parton put it, "Know who you are and be yourself on purpose."

But you also need to figure out that spot where who you are intersects with what the world wants.

Copyblogger's Brian Clark talks about "meaning" and "fascination". A compelling voice has to have both. It brings value and meaning to someone's life. It is relevant. The 'fascination' part has to do with how the meaning filters through (and is shaped by) the personality, the sense of a specific mind at work.

4

It's important to expose yourself to as many influences as possible. You are the sum of your influences – so choose them wisely.

Read a lot. Read good stuff. The more you read, the more your brain absorbs the flow of language, the notes and variations. The more ideas you take in, the more material you have to take apart and re-arrange into your own ideas.

Write a lot. Julia Cameron suggests the use of "morning pages". Every morning you move your hand across the page until you've filled three of them with whatever comes out of your mind. You don't censor or judge. If you feel like writing, "Holy crap I would really like to be eating pancakes right now" over and over again, that is exactly what you do.

This is a powerful exercise because it acquaints you with your own mind. Nature abhors a vacuum – so when you empty your mind of the thoughts that usually occupy it, new thoughts arise in their place.

Also when you write, you activate a different part of your brain. Your thinking deepens as a result, flashes on new insight, dives in unexpected places.

(Try it. Ask yourself: "What is my message to the world?" or "What are the things that I passionately want to communicate?" or "What are the themes that I need to explore?" and free-write for twenty minutes with no censorship or judgment whatsoever. See what your mind presents you with. You might be surprised.)

And finally, you learn to let go. Your natural writing voice will emerge when you're relaxed and in the flow. Like anything else: the more you practice, the easier this gets. It's like learning to drive. What feels so alien and uncomfortable eventually becomes second nature.

The thing is – you can't invent your 'voice' anymore than you can 'invent' your DNA. You are what you already are. The trick is to clear away the excess, burn off those internalized voices that pretend to belong to you but belong to your parents or teachers or an old abusive lover or even the culture at large. It's not about what you should care about, or what you ought to say or how you ought to say it.

It's about who you are at the core.

It's about baking your soul into your content in a way that feeds the world.

If it was easy – if it didn't take courage and effort – then everybody would do it.

Are you?

Share on Facebook