Mike Reuther's Blog, page 13

Why writing a book is like opening day of baseball season

 

I love baseball, and I never get tired of the opening day of the Major League Baseball season, which begins today. Okay, there was a game last night, but that seemed more of a warm-up to opening day than anything else.

My team, the New York Mets, start their season today.

So what is it about opening day?

Opening day means new beginnings. It’s excitement about another season. Spring arrives almost simultaneously. The days are getting warmer, and its a great time to go outside and shrug off the chill of winter. You just know it’s time to start playing the summer game again.

Everything starts anew on opening day. All the teams are 0-0. Every team has a chance. It’s hope, optimism.

Opening Day is a lot like beginning a book. You want to get off to a good start. You’re excited about the prospect of a new season. And when you’re excited, the chances are that much better you will have that needed push, that bit of momentum for making positive things happen.

There are 162 games in a Major League Baseball season. The season isn’t finished in one day. Nor is a book. Just as you sit each day before the computer or writing pad and spill out words, a baseball season consists of games played out over time.

A baseball season runs roughly from early April to late September. Start a book on opening day, and you can have a first draft done before your team finishes its April schedule in first place. By June, when your ball club is already well ahead of the rest of the teams, you can have it polished and edited and ready to publish.

The days are warmer now. Take a breath. Then, start another book by the end of June and have a second book done before your team is in the playoffs in October.

Pretty cool huh?

Opening day is a great time to get started on that book. Don’t you think?

Do you have the passion for writing that book?

 

Included among the stories on CBS Sunday Morning today was a profile of a kid – I think he might have been all of 10 years old.

His passion is dinosaurs. And it’s quite a love affair. He’s been on an archaeological dig or two. Sometimes, he dredges up the back yard of his home looking for bones. He even wrote a book about dinosaurs. And, he told the interviewer, he’s working on a second book.

Okay. Some of you may be rolling your eyes out there. But stay with me here. Admittedly, his book was no lengthy treatise on dinosaurs. It indeed looked like a kid’s book. Still, he wrote a book – this little kid.

One of his goals is apparently to work in this particular museum where those giant creatures that roamed the Earth billions of years ago are included among the exhibits. He even managed to get an interview with the museum officials. He told them quite simply he has a passion for dinosaurs. So they decided to make him an honorary curator for a day. He even got to make a speech.

I think you know where I’m going with this.

This is a kid who’s following a dream. He’s pursuing exactly what he wants to do in life. Of course, he’s far too young right now to make any kind of a living out of his passion, but I have a pretty strong feeling he’s going to end up doing some kind of work related to dinosaurs – archaeologist, historian, curator. He may even become a writer.

You’re never too young or too old to follow your passion. If it’s writing that book, what’s holding you back? Lack of time? Commitment? If the passion is there, you can find a way to make it happen.   

 

Writers: Don’t be afraid to walk on the wild side

 

Joseph Epstein of the New York Times wrote a piece in 2002 in response to a poll of the time revealing that 81 percent of Americans felt they had a book in them.

First of all, let’s reflect on that number – 81 percent. That’s a lot people who think they could write a book – about something.

Epstein used his column to throw out this interesting little nugget from Samuel Johnson: ”There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man to hope, and then to believe, that nature has given himself something peculiar to himself.”

I think he was on to something there. Many of us do have this need to be unique and to be heard. The problem is, too many of us are afraid to heed our own voices, what’s deep within our souls. And so, we refrain from trying something different, whether as writers, business persons, architects – you name it.

The fear of failure has us imitating what has already worked. We opt for security rather than danger. And it’s a shame because God only knows the McDonaldization of America has only proliferated over time. Too much out there looks the same.

Don’t be afraid of being different, of being you. If you think you have a book in you, and that  poll which has so often been cited clearly indicates you likely do, then write what’s in your heart.

Write that book you’ve been carrying around inside you for so long. Don’t spend time pondering if it will become a best-seller, or if anyone cares about what you have to say.

Walk on the wild side.

Now get writing.

 

More options than ever these days exist for authors and their books

 

These days writers have more options than ever for finding a home for their books. Time was when conventional publishing was more or less the only route to seeing one’s book resting on bookshelves.

Trying to get published could be an utterly frustrating, daunting experience. Many writers spent literally years attempting to convince literary agents to take on a project. If an author was successful, that was only the first step. Eventually, a publisher had to want the book.

Now, with ebooks and print on demand publishing, authors can get their works out there before the public in no time at all. There’s no selling of one’s work. A writer doesn’t have to pore over books that offer the best ways of writing query letters.

Of course, these new opportunities present a double-edged sword. More books than ever now flood the market, making it more difficult for an author’s work to rise above the deluge of books out there.

Writers today have to make the choice of whether to go the traditional publishing route or that of print on demand or epublishing. Some authors scoff at the notion of anything other than traditional publishing. Others, including those who have banged their heads against the dark and impenetrable walls of traditional publishers for far too many years, perhaps see a vast ray of light with ebooks and print on demand.

Publishing is changing like never before. Ebooks continue to capture an increasingly larger segment of readers. Some studies indicate that ebooks eventually will eclipse print books. How this will ultimately affect traditional publishing remains to be seen. A single writer out there scribbling away at his next novel really has no control over these market forces.

What the writer can control is the effort, the time needed to produce the best book possible. Writers should not focus so much on how to get published as just writing the book.

Again, there are more options than ever these days. It’s an exciting time to be a writer.


Keep at it. There’s nothing like making a dream a reality.

Attention authors: If you really want to write a book just be yourself

 

Be yourself.

How many times have you heard that advice? Quite a few times, I’m sure.
When you think about it, it’s pretty good advice. But what does it really mean? Not trying to imitate someone else?

Well, sure.

It’s really about tapping into the amazing you. That’s not so hard when you think about it, and it can lead to some pretty wonderful results. Coaches tell their players: Play your game, or stay within yourself. It’s the same thing with any activity, endeavor or discipline.

When you stay true to yourself, you draw from your strengths, not from those of someone else. It’s a pretty good route to take when you’re writing a book.

The book you write should be reflective of you – not someone else. And you should write your book naturally, not by trying to copy someone else’s style or trying to show off with big words you know.

When you write fast and from the heart, you’ll write naturally. The words will flow in a seamless parade across the page. You’ll like what you write because it will come off so effortlessly.

Too many writers and aspiring authors have this crazy idea that they have to struggle and sweat and suffer for their art. And I suppose, there always will be those writers who emerge from the ruins of some life to produce the next great American novel.

It doesn’t matter who you are, what background you come from. You may have lead the most interesting life of any creature who walked the Earth; you may have the most humdrum life of anyone.

Never mind. Be yourself. Write your book. Tap into the inner you and find your voice. Remember, it’s a unique voice. No one else is you. You have something important to say, but you have to believe that you do.

Now get writing that book. Today.

Good outdoors books

My son is home from college and had to work Christmas day. He needed a book to get him through his long, boring shift as a security guard. I suggested "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. About that time he happened to see Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" sitting nearby. "What about that?" he asked. I told him it was one of the funniest books I've read. Of course, it really is. Pick up any Bryson book and he'll have you howling. Beyond that, you'll also learn a few things. "A Walk in the Woods" is all about Bryson's misgivings and eventual adventures on the Appalachian Trail with his buddy Katz. Our two heroes may just be the most unlikely pair of hikers to be found in the U.S., which is part of the fun of this great book.

National Novel Writing Month

Some people I know are participating in National Novel Writing Month, and I wish them luck. But I've heard these same people say they've hit hurdles in their writing. In other words, instead of allowing for the Niagara-like rush of words by writing fast, they stop to ponder, consider how to proceed with their stories. This is a mistake. Let those fingers race across the keys. Don't stop writing until you really intend to stop for the day. Allow for the free expression that comes from writing from the heart - not the brain. It doesn't matter what you're writing - fiction, nonfiction. Good luck everyone.

Re-reading old favorites

Sometimes you have to dust off those books you read years ago that you just can't forget. Maybe getting older has something to do with it. Or, perhaps I just don't feel there are enough books unfamiliar to me that will keep me entertained. Some of the books I've re-read in recent years have included "Catcher in the Rye" (a novel that really got me started reading as a teen),"Cannery Row," "The Great Gatsby," Richard Ford's "The Sportswriter" and several of Bill Bryson's books - "The Lost Continent," "A Walk in the Woods." Bryson's works are worth devouring two and three times. He's uproariously funny,and who doesn't need a good laugh? Give me a well-written book that takes me on an adventure, strikes my funny bone, and I'm a happy guy.

Trout Bum

Who wouldn't want to be John Gierach? A guy who spends many days of the year fishing, mostly in the streams and lakes of the Rocky Mountains where he lives. "Trout Bum," I believe, was the first Gierach book I read, back in my own early days of fly fishing when I was gobbling up any information I could find on the subject. Naturally, I wanted to be entertained too. Gierach was my man. He's got an easy writing style and an incredible knack to insert simple philosophical passages at just the right time. Gierach is a guy who has lived life on his own terms, and who doesn't love that? It's always baffled me how he manages to squeeze so much fishing time into his life and do so on the modest budget of a writer. Make no mistake about it, Gierach is well-known in the fly-fishing fraternity, but I doubt he's gotten rich off his many books. This 1986 book is a gem, consisting of twenty personal essays. It captures Gierach's earlier years, and like many of his books, provides a glimpse into Gierach's life and his personal take on matters that go beyond fly fishing. Chapter 14, entitled "Turning Pro" finds Gierach at home tying flies which he's done over the years to help pay the bills. He describes a bit of the fly-tying process, along with the frustrations that come with it. Through it all, the reader gets a sense of what is really important to Gierach: "Front money? Bookkeeping? Taxes? How about tying flies all summer when you should be fishing?" The reader also gets a sense from these essays that Gierach takes this whole business of fly fishing very seriously, and that he's very competent at it - whether it's fishing for mountain brook trout or fat bass in a farm pond. Gierach covers all aspects of angling, discoursing on insect hatches, cane rods or his take on catch and release fishing. It's clear after reading any Gierach book - "Sex, Death and Fly-Fishing" or "Even Brook Trout Get the Blues" that the author is in love with this sport of fly fishing and the whole lifestyle that comes with it. I love the prologue to this book by the late Gary Lafontaine who writes of a week-long fishing expedition the two took to Montana. The fishing was slow, the weather cold and wet, but Gierach was determined to catch some of the big rainbow trout to be found in that lake on the remote Blackfoot Reservation. That he did finally catch them is a testament to his angling skills, but also his rugged determination. "There's a magnificent streak of independence in John. That (along with an obvious love of trout fishing) lets him lead a lifestyle that makes being on the water a priority. He's a real fly fisherman, not an armchair observer who reports on other anglers' exploits or parrots other anglers' ideas."

Best Baseball Book

My favorite baseball book has to be a "A False Spring" by Pat Jordan. Jordan was a hot pitching prospect in the late 1950s and early 1960s who couldn't get his act together. Blessed with a blazing fastball, his basic problem was he couldn't find the plate. But Jordan goes a bit deeper. He spends most of the book trying to explore many years later why he couldn't get a grip on his career which took him to backwater towns in minor league outposts. Jordan reveals a picture of a self-absorbed young man who remained aloof from most of his teammates. The book provides a rich description of some of the towns and baseball figures he played with and against. However, some of the best parts of the book are the adventures and misadventures he encounters off the field, the sort of experiences many readers, especially men, can relate to. The book is certainly sad, but revealing in its message that most of us, even the more talented among us, end up not grabbing the brass ring.