Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 44

On Gratitude

I’ve spent the last month writing hundreds of thank you notes.

My son asked why I didn’t have them printed, since the message is the same on each card.

It’s the time and the motion.

Printing is easy.

One message. Push a button. You’re done.

Writing requires focus and time.

Same with gratitude. It requires focus and time.

Did you see Tiffany Haddish’s explanation of “Joyful Greens” a few months back? She was on Ellen Degeneres’ show, talking about a dinner she had with Taylor Swift, and how she smiled when she picked the collard greens in her garden and how she smiled through every step of cooking them, hence the name “Joyful Greens” and the creation of a delicious meal.

Does smiling while cooking make the meal any better?

Does writing hundreds of cards make them any better than if they were printed?

If you have gratitude in your life it does.

As I wrote the cards, I thought about each word.

If my mind wandered, a mistake would follow. Same thing if the kids turned on the TV or stereo in the background. Like Tiffany Haddish smiling, I focused on saying thank you and eliminated background noise.

Thinking of Thank You for so many hours was calming.

The voices in my head were silenced.

I left my office and worked at my kitchen table.

The afternoon sun was warm.

I could see the birds and the leaves and the squirrels.

It was calming.

It reminded me of all I have to be thankful for in my own life.

If you’re in the U.S. reading this, you likely had Thanksgiving yesterday, and then the pressure to shop Black Friday sales is on today.

As I write this, I know that I’ll do some online shopping myself. I’d be lying to say otherwise. But the rest of the day? I’m off with my kids. I’m not working. I’m thinking about being grateful for everything I have in my life.

Do the work is a key message on this site, but just as important as doing the work is doing gratitude—and gratitude takes a clear mind. Takes Rest. Takes Reflection. Takes Calm.

I hope today finds you sitting in a sunny spot, whether in your kitchen window or office. I hope you have time for quiet. I hope the head voices stop chattering. I hope thanks are given and received.

Thank you to all of you for supporting us year after year.

Reinforcement and Self-Reinforcement

Let me start with an overstatement:

For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.

What exactly is reinforcement?

It’s when your coach or your mentor or your spouse tugs you aside and tells you how well you are doing, and how proud of you they are, and how certain ultimate success is if you just keep doing what you’re doing.

Nick Murray’s “The Game of Numbers”

That’s reinforcement.

What’s self-reinforcement?

It’s when you do the exact same thing for yourself.

Let me rephrase my original overstatement by quoting my (fictional) literary agent, 96-year-old Marty Fabrikant:

“Talent is bullshit. I seen a million writers with talent. It means nothing. You need guts, you need stick-to-it-iveness. It’s work, you gotta work, do the freakin’ work. That’s why you’re gonna make it, son. You work. No one can take that away from you.”

Self-reinforcement, however, is about more than just patting yourself on the back when your efforts have produced results.

When self-reinforcement really counts is when it’s for actions that have not produced results and may not for a long time.

This is self-reinforcement at the Ph.D. level.

It’s professional self-reinforcement.

Have you read Nick Murray’s book, The Game of Numbers?

If there is one work I would recommend to a young writer after The War of Art, it’s The Game of Numbers.

Full disclosure: Nick Murray is a good friend.

Full disclosure #2: The Game of Numbers costs forty bucks. [Available at Amazon and at www.nickmurray.com.]

But back to Nick and the meat of his concept:

Nick is a guru to financial advisors, the investment professionals that you or I might hire to help us take care of our money.

A big part of succeeding as a financial advisor is the ability to “prospect,” i.e., make cold approaches seeking clients. This is a helluva daunting chore. It elicits MAJOR Resistance among financial planners trying to do it. Many go out of business simply because they can’t make themselves pick up the phone and make the cold calls necessary to acquire clients.

Nick Murray’s answer:

Make five approaches a day, rain or shine, and evaluate your success (i.e., self-reinforce) based exclusively on the fact that you made the approaches, not whether they produced a new client.

It may take 500 calls to get one client. It may take a thousand. But if you keep doing the work, you will get the clients.

The law permits of no exceptions.

Your job is to keep believing. And keep making approaches.

And you, my fellow writers in the trenches, your job, like mine, is to keep doing your pages. And keep believing.

Which brings us back to self-reinforcement.

How do we keep believing?

What keeps us from quitting?

What force stops us from throwing in the towel?

It’s not talent.

It ain’t literary genius.

The ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.

Believe me, my own gift for the profession of letters is iffy at best. Nine-tenths of my ideas are terrible. I can’t remember the last sentence I wrote that I didn’t have to twist, tweak, and rejigger half a hundred times before I accepted it as ready for public consumption.

But I can self-reinforce.

I can self-validate.

I’ve taught myself over decades.

What is the arena of self-validation? In what inner sphere does self-reinforcement reside?

Its seat is among the most mundane, glamorless, least sexy parts of our psyche. In this place, no champion or mentor stands at our side. Glory has fled. The world is black-and-white. No soundtrack. No audience. No paycheck.

There we stand, a twenty-three-year-old financial advisor (or writer) sharing a $450-a-month office suite with a secretarial service and not even a parking space. It’s seven-thirty at the end of a fruitless day and we’ve just gotten off our fifth total-waste-of-time cold call to a soon-to-be retired dentist or a just-starting-out English teacher, both of whom have hung up on us or, worse, taken pity on our obvious plight and signed off with, “Good luck, buddy.” We turn off the office lights, lock the door, and phone our spouse, telling her/him we’re on our way home.

That’s where self-reinforcement lives.

That’s where we stand when we must call upon our deepest resources.

Can you say to yourself, “I made my five calls,” and keep believing?

Can you tell yourself, “I did my day’s pages,” and hang onto your faith?

In the movies we see courage depicted amid explosions and gunshots and fireballs of violence.

But the artist’s courage (and the financial planner’s) plants itself in a different arena—a sphere that is silent, unseen and unheard, void of glamor or romance, and in which the artist/writer/entrepreneur is profoundly, inevitably, excruciatingly alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Focus on the Person, Not the Product

From the Archives, via Sept. 23, 2014.

Flannery O’Connor hooked my interest through a school-assigned reading of A Good Man is Hard to Find and her personal story kept me reading more. I was certain that a bit of that geranium she wrote about—“with its roots in the air”—was her, a transplant to New York City, from Georgia, where the geraniums weren’t put on apartment windowsills for sun, but thrived just fine on their own at home.

While her body was long gone when I arrived on the scene, her stories and articles about her have kept me re-reading her work, always finding something new each time I visit.

With a few exceptions, it’s the individual’s story, not the story itself, that hooks me. There are millions of books and films and paintings and albums and plays and concerts and…  When they are pitched as products – “one of the best films of the summer” or “an instant classic”—I keep walking.

These days, everything seems to be a bestseller, the next best thing, the best film of the year, the best of the best of the best.

When everything is the best…  None of it grabs my attention.

I stop for the personal stories.

It’s what got me reading Say You’re One of Them by Uwen Akpan, a book that still makes me shiver as I type this line. It was Akpan’s personal story—and a story about him that was shared by a friend of a friend of Akpan’s—that hooked me.

So how do you share your work via personal stories instead of product pitches?

When Zach Braff’s film Wish I Was Here was released over the summer, it caught my interest—but not in a way that had me wanting to see it. I’d read about his Kickstarter campaign and the press that followed, and was interested in how the film did, but … I don’t get to the movie theater that often and when I do, it’s mainly for films with my kids. Wish I Was Here would require carving out additional time and a babysitter and, well… It didn’t make the cut. Then I caught Braff on Sirius, hosting a program featuring the music from the film—and found myself pulling over to the side of the road, jotting down artists’ names and mentally thanking Braff for his introduction to Hozier.

Sharing the music of the film—rather than the film itself—made me want to make time for it. It also sent me down a Google rabbithole, learning more about Braff and his work. Count me a fan. Looking forward to what he does next.

Steve’s shared his work in a similar way, via Writing Wednesdays. His stories are often personal—and down-to-earth in a way that readers connect to them. This connection has turned into increased word-of-mouth sharing of his work.

Back in July, I hosted a few members of The Shadowboxers in my home, when they were in town for a performance. I took my college friend’s word for it when she said the band she was working with was good—and wouldn’t trash my home—when she asked if they could crash with us. I listened to a few songs online and found myself grinning ear-to-ear through their performance, but it was the personal side that really sold me. They knew the Lego characters residing all over our home and seemed just as excited as my 10 year old, talking about the wonderfulness that is the Lego DeathStar. I learned that one is always an early riser and another a runner. There’s a baseball fan in there and a native New Yorker turned Georgia transplant, too. I learned how they won a contest in college, after first being told they didn’t make the cut—and how the money they won allowed them to buy equipment to tour. Oh, and there’s a Kickstarter campaign and something about Phat Beets, too. By sharing their personal side, they had me buying copies of their album.

I’ve been watching Chris Brogan’s fitness transformation of late and now view him—and his work—through a different lens. Same thing happened when I started checking out Joanna Penn’s travel-related posts and podcasts. Scott Oden got me with his love of Orcs and Kamran Popkin caught me with what I think of as “Pop talk” (which is often over my head, but I still tune in for). Kamran’s neighbor Olivier Blanchard caught me with pics of Spartan gear (I think it was a hat that first got my attention) and his love of steampunk. Jeremy Brown’s love of all things Elmore Leonard and his diversity as a writer (he can do YA and some serious Leonard himself) got me into his books.

Genuine, personal stories are the best way to expand your audience. Hook their heads and hearts and you’ll find that you’ve hooked their long-term interest (and wallets), too.

A Map of the Unknown World

I’m reading a wonderful book (thanks, Bill Wickman, for turning me onto it) called Bugles and a Tiger, My Life in the Ghurkas by John Masters.

Contemporary Ghurka soldier in Afghanistan

This is the kind of book I absolutely devour—a straight-ahead memoir, no plot, no characters, just an absolutely true account of a fascinating life experience, in this case the tale of a young Brit who served in India in the 30s in a legendary Ghurka battalion.

What exactly is a Ghurka?

The Ghurkas are Nepalese peasantry. Modest of stature, often illiterate, incredibly hardy and brave, loyal, dedicated and true, they have covered themselves with glory in every war they’ve fought in.

Here’s a story (trust me, this is related to our old theme of the Professional Mindset) from World War II:

A Ghurka rifleman escaped from a Japanese prison in south Burma and walked six hundred miles alone through the jungles to freedom. The journey took him five months, but he never asked the way and he never lost the way. For one thing he could not speak Burmese and for another he regarded all Burmese as traitors. He used a map and when he reached India he showed it to the Intelligence officers, who wanted to know all about his odyssey. Marked in pencil were all the turns he had taken, all the roads and trail forks he has passed, all the rivers he had crossed. It had served him well, that map. The Intelligence officers did not find it so useful. It was a street map of London.

I can relate to this story completely. I have written entire books where I was navigating with total confidence by a map in my head, only to realize later that the map bore no relation whatsoever to the ground I was covering. Yet I made it home.

I’ll bet you’ve done it too.

But back to the Ghurka rifleman. He had no legitimate map, but what he did have was a professional mindset.

He had confidence.

He had optimism.

He had faith.

He knew the sun rose in the East and he knew he was heading north. He knew to keep his own counsel, trust no one but his own inner guide, and to keep on trucking.

Who cares if there was no Hammersmith or Wimbledon in the Burmese jungle? There was the stream, there was the crossroads. You gotta believe.

In the end, you and I as writers are artists are guided not by a chart or a concept but by a calling in our heart.

The story we’re telling knows itself. It knows where it’s going. It’ll tell us if we listen.

Our Ghurka rifleman, unlike the Intelligence officers who debriefed him, may not have been able to spell Shepherd’s Bush or King’s Cross. But he knew his heart.

He knew his way home.

 

 

Who Owns—And How Are Artists Paid For—Art?

From the Archives, via May 24, 2013. Five and a half years later and I’m still struggling with this one. ~Callie

Who Owns the Art?

If ideas arrive on the wings of Muses, God, or whatever divine creator you believe in, does the final art belong to the artist or to that divine creator?

I believe in the Muse. I believe that she arrives, laden with ideas, upon that “thunderous train of air” Elizabeth Gilbert described when she talked about poet Ruth Stone:

It would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, “run like hell.” And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she’d be running and running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it “for another poet.” And then there were these times—this is the piece I never forgot—she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right? So, she’s running to the house and she’s looking for the paper and the poem passes through her, and she grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her, and then she said, it was like she would reach out with her other hand it. She and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first.”

I believe in the artist who latches onto an idea and nurtures it from seed to full-blown orchard.

And I believe that the artist’s final product belongs to her. The Muse may have gifted the seed, but the artist planted, nurtured and harvested it.

This past month, I’ve read comments via emails and blogs, about artwork belonging to everyone. The tune these individuals sing, sounds like this: Because the idea was a gift from God/Muses/insert your divine creator here, the idea doesn’t belong to the artist. Therefore, the artist doesn’t have the right to own or copyright said work. The artist was gifted the idea and thus must gift her art, free of charge, to the world.

Years ago, I read an interview with an award-winning writer. I can’t remember the writer or the award, but I remember him asking why he should give the prize money away, after being asked to which charity he would donate it. His answer was along the lines of “Do professional athletes donate their winnings? No. I did the work. Why should I?” He wasn’t living a lavish life and would need the money for retirement. Why, just because his work involved writing, did anyone expect him to give away the money?

Getting Paid for the Art

Last year, Tim O’Reilly was called out, for saying “I don’t really give a shit if literary novels go away” during an interview with Wired.

Porter Anderson corresponded with O’Reilly, to explain the comment:

If anyone saw the session I did on Charlie Rose, you will have some context for this remark (which was part of a larger discussion, excerpted for maximum impact, as I should have expected…).  Ken Auletta and Jonathan Safran were hand-wringing to the tune of “who will pay for the kind of things we do if the big publishers go away.”  Jane Friedman and I were responding: “If people want what you do, you’ll find a way to get paid. But no one owes you continuation of the current players and business model.”  And I was pointing out that popular art forms come and go—classical music was once pop (Franz Liszt elicited reactions akin to those to the Beatles), and that the literary forms of today might one day be less important.

I agree with O’Reilly, on almost everything. I’m not sure that artists will always find a way to get paid.

There are some artists, such as  Arthur Pinajian, whom I wrote about a few weeks back (See: “Louis C.K.: Give It A Minute”), who try, don’t find commercial success, and then turn inward, doing it for themselves. Doing it for yourself is fine, but, my fear is that so much creativity along this road goes unknown—there’s so much that we’d all be the better for knowing. I know I’m being selfish, thinking of myself. But … I want to know what’s out there.

And then there’s the attitude of some consumers…

Earlier this week, Stephen King announced that he’s holding back on releasing an e-book for his new project. The following is one of the many responses to his decision:

Looks like I’ll be downloading a user scanned version of it since good ole SK Decided that he wants to leave those of us living in the 21st century out of this equation.

A number of others followed, questioning King’s judgment.

My anger grew as I read the comments. Why does it matter if King’s words come in a book or on a screen? I’d buy a book printed on the back of soup cans or scrawled on a restaurant-supply of napkins if it was from one of my favorite authors. The format doesn’t matter. It’s the work. I want to read the work. And I’d pay for it.

Paying for the Art

A few weeks back, actor and film maker Nick Job initiated a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a short film. I was late in checking out the link he sent me then, but forward it now as an example of one artist, the pre-production support he’s garnered for his project, and how he garnered that support.

I like the idea of Kickstarter campaigns because there’s a direct connect between the creator and the consumer. There isn’t a book publisher or record company taking cuts between the artist and the supporter. It’s a direct transaction. One creates. The other supports the creation by helping to fund it.

But what of those artists who can’t get it together for Kickstarter or other campaigns?

How to bridge the gap between the artists who don’t have it in them to continue to share their work (when no one else gets the importance of what they’re doing), and the consumers who want the work for free?

I don’t have an answer.

I started this article at  10 a.m. and returned to it at 10 p.m. struggling to end it.

What’s the Point?

I know how ideas arrive.

I know how they’re planted, nurtured and harvested.

I know that artists who produce are the farmers of good ideas.

I know that farmers need to eat, too.

I know that artists need to step up to the plate to do outreach for their projects.

I know that supporters are in extraordinary positions to help artists.

I know that supporters are almost always consumers—and that consumers aren’t always supporters.

I don’t know how to bring out the ideas being developed in silence, left to die with their artists.

I don’t know how to handle the consumers who take but don’t give.

I know I have more questions.

Your thoughts?

What Works and What Doesn’t

I wrote in last week’s post that I would have to kill myself if I couldn’t write. That wasn’t hyperbole.

Here in no particular order are the activities and aspirations that don’t work for me (and I’ve tried them all extensively, as I imagine you have too if you’ve logged onto this blog.)

Money doesn’t work.

Success.

Bradley Cooper as Jackson Maine in “A Star Is Born”

Family life, domestic bliss, service to country, dedication to a cause however selfless or noble.

None of these works for me.

Identity association of all kinds (religious, political, cultural, national) is meaningless to me. Sex provides no lasting relief. Nor do the ready forms of self-administered distraction—drugs and alcohol, travel, life on the web.

Fashion and style don’t work, though I agree they’re pretty cool. Reading used to help and still does on occasion. Art indeed, but only up to a point.

It doesn’t work for me to teach or to labor selflessly for others. I can’t be a farmer or drive a truck. I’ve tried. My friend Jeff jokingly claims that his goal is world domination. That wouldn’t work for me either.

I can’t find peace of mind as a warrior or an athlete or by leading an organization. Fame means nothing. Attention and praise are nice but hollow.

“Winning Wimbledon,” as Chris Evert once said, “lasts about an hour.”

Meditation and spiritual practice, however much I admire the path and those who follow it, don’t work for me.

The only thing that allows me to sit quietly in the evening is the completion of a worthy day’s work. What work? The labor of entering my imagination and trying to come back with something that is worthy both of my own time and effort and of the time and effort of my brothers and sisters to read it or watch it or listen to it.

That’s my drug. That’s what keeps me sane.

I’m not saying this way of life is wholesome or balanced. It’s not. It’s certainly not “normal.” By no means would I recommend it as a course to emulate.

Nor did I choose this path for myself, either consciously or deliberately. I came to it at the end of a long dark tunnel and then only as the last recourse, the thing I’d been avoiding all my life.

When I see people, friends even, destroy their lives with pills or booze or domestic violence or any of the thousand ways a person can face-plant himself or herself into non-existence, I feel nothing but compassion. I understand how hard the road is, and how lightless. I’m a whisker away from hitting that ditch myself.

The Muse saved me. I offer thanks the goddess every day for beating the hell out of me until I finally heeded and took up her cause.

No one will ever say it better than Henry Miller did in Tropic of Capricorn:

I reached out for something to attach myself to—and I found nothing. But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for—myself. I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live—if what others are doing is called living—but to express myself. I realized that I had never had the least interest in living, but only in this which I am doing now, something which is parallel to life, of it at the same time, and beyond it. What is true interests me scarcely at all, nor even what is real; only that interests me which I imagine to be, that which I had stifled every day in order to live.

Anger and Writing

So often I read Steve’s “Writing Wednesdays” posts and think he’s writing about me.

Did you read his last article? It’s the one titled “Being Ignored.”

Steve tackled why he wrote—not for a New York Times review or a spot on a bestseller list, but for himself:

I wrote for twenty-eight years before I got a novel published. I can’t tell you how many times friends and family members, lovers, spouses implored me for my own sake to wake up and face reality.

I couldn’t.

Because my reality was not the New York Times or the bestseller list or even simply getting an agent and having a meeting with somebody. My reality was, If I stop writing I will have to kill myself.

I’m compelled.

I have no choice.

I don’t know why I was born like this, I don’t know what it means; I can’t tell you if it’s crazy or deluded or even evil.

I have to keep trying.

It wasn’t my own writing that came to mind while reading “Being Ignored,” but something that has shredded my heart for almost a decade, a thing that occurred to someone I love. I’m not going into it here, other than to say that I’ve been fighting for this loved one and in the process I have gained weight and wrinkles, lost hair and humor, and for as many rivers I’ve cried, my creative output has gone dry.

Like Steve and his writing, it would be accurate to say I can’t not do what I’m doing, because not doing it isn’t an option.

That’s the part of “Being Ignored” that resonated with me. I have to do what I’m doing.

I’m not doing it for the New York Times or Oprah or any other fame, but . . . I’m angered by the response to my efforts, similar to an artist carrying anger for the response to a book or painting or album not being what’s expected or wanted.

So much time and energy and heart are invested—and then mix in the pain of doing the work.

It’s hard not to be angry.

Enter Steve’s article “Fruits of Our Labor,” in which he mentioned Krishna’s instructions to Arjuna:

“We have a right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor.”

I’m angered by the shape of the fruits of my labor (and the lack of fruit, too).

Stopped me in my tracks for a long time.

Sucked every bit of creativity from my soul and passion from my heart.

And I let it.

It wasn’t responsible for the taking.

I was responsible for the giving.

The time for family? Gone.

The time for friends? Gone.

Laughter? Gone.

Happiness? Gone.

Creativity? Gone.

All because I wouldn’t let go of wanting to control the results.

That thing in my life looks like writing in someone else’s life, and painting in another someone else’s life, and starting a business, and doing whatever it is that is that someone else’s thing.

Being ignored hurts.

Being angry at being ignored will shred you to bits, to the point you aren’t creating anything worthy of being ignored anymore. Vicious cycle—and one I needed to be reminded of this week in particular.

“Being Ignored” hit on Halloween.

Halloween is one of my favorite days. It marks the anniversary of the day I discovered a new creative outlet: makeup and costuming. I love bringing to life different characters, using my kids and my husband as my canvas. I almost gave that love away this year.

So . . . Thanks, Steve.

I know you weren’t writing about me. But as far as “what it takes” goes, this is exactly what it took for me this week.

I wanted to be angry, but I needed to create.

 

 

Being Ignored

If you’re a working writer struggling to get published (or published again) or wrestling with the utility or non-utility of self-publishing, you may log onto this blog and think, Oh, Pressfield’s got it made; he’s had real-world success; he’s a brand.

Even J.K. had to learn to do without

Trust me, it ain’t necessarily so.

I don’t expect to be reviewed by the New York Times.

Ever.

The last time was 1998 for Gates of Fire. The War of Art was never reviewed, The Lion’s Gate never. My other seven novels never.

My recent novel, The Knowledge, came out a while ago. It was reviewed nowhere by no one.

If I want to retain my sanity, I have to banish all reliance on what Shawn calls 3PV, “third-party validation.” I cannot permit my professional or personal self-conception to be dependent on external acceptance or approval, at least not of the “mainstream recognition” variety.

It’s not gonna happen.

I’m never gonna get it.

If you’re not reviewed by the New York Times (or seen on Oprah) your book is gonna have tough, tough sledding to gain awareness in the mainstream marketplace. There are maybe a hundred writers of fiction whose new books will be reviewed with any broad reach in the press. Jonathan Franzen, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, etc. I’m not on that list. My stuff will never receive that kind of attention.

Does that bother me? I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want to be recognized or at least have my existence and my work acknowledged.

But reality is reality. As Garth on Wayne’s World once said of his own butt,

“Accept it before it destroys you.”

It’s curiously empowering to grasp this and to accept it.

It’s truth.

It’s reality.

It forces you to ask, Why am I writing?

What is important to me?

What am I in this for?

Here is novelist Neal Stephenson from his short essay, Why I Am a Bad Correspondent:

Another factor in this choice [to focus entirely on writing to the exclusion of other “opportunities” and distractions] is that writing fiction every day seems to be an essential component in my sustaining good mental health. If I get blocked from writing fiction, I rapidly become depressed, and extremely unpleasant to be around. As long as I keep writing it, though, I am fit to be around other people. So all of the incentives point in the direction of devoting all available hours to fiction writing.

I asked hypothetically in an earlier post, “What if a writer worked her entire life, produced a worthy and original body of work, yet had never been published by a mainstream press and had never achieved conventional recognition? Would her literary efforts have been in vain? Would she be considered a ‘failure?'”

Part of my own answer arises from Neal Stephenson’s observation above.

I wrote for twenty-eight years before I got a novel published. I can’t tell you how many times friends and family members, lovers, spouses implored me for my own sake to wake up and face reality.

I couldn’t.

Because my reality was not the New York Times or the bestseller list or even simply getting an agent and having a meeting with somebody. My reality was, If I stop writing I will have to kill myself.

I’m compelled.

I have no choice.

I don’t know why I was born like this, I don’t know what it means; I can’t tell you if it’s crazy or deluded or even evil.

I have to keep trying.

That pile of unpublished manuscripts in my closet may seem to you (and to me too) to be a monument to folly and self-delusion. But I’m gonna keep adding to it, whether HarperCollins gives a shit, or The New Yorker, or even my cat who’s perched beside me right now on my desktop.

I am a writer.

I was born to do this.

I have no choice.

 

On Sharing

From the Archives: This one is from December 31, 2010—almost eight years ago. Not much has changed, other than the social media piece, which we’ve still not jumped into whole hog, preferring to invest with readers one on one, rather than relying on social media to connect us. Takes more time, but it’s worth it—and the relationships will last longer than Facebook. There’s only one change that really matters. We said goodbye to Carroll LeFon, a.k.a “Neptunus Lex.” His was one of the first blogs I followed and then I had the honor of corresponding with him about books and family. I still have his e-mails and remember the conversations. As kind as he was knowledgeable—and he could write. Still very much alive. ~Callie

Steve’s blog was created to serve as a vehicle for sharing his video series “It’s the Tribes, Stupid.” His goal was to share information about a common thread that had presented itself throughout his years of research. He wasn’t interested in financial gains or promoting his books through this outreach, so we focused on sharing rather than selling. The lessons we learned led us to where we are with the blog and outreach today.

How We’ve Shared

With Steve’s projects, we’ve tried to get to the point and share information that is relevant to the individuals and outlets receiving it.

We’ve avoided generic e-mail press release blasts and postings. Instead, we’ve approached individuals and outlets one by one, with tailored information that speaks to the work they’re doing. The one-by-one approach takes time, but it’s worth it. It’s also a way of showing respect—that we’ve taken the time to learn about the work and interests of others, rather than blanketing everyone with the same release.

Saying thank you is a big part, too. Authors and publishers wouldn’t survive without readers. Though we’ve never expected something in return, more often than not, when we’ve said thank you to someone, they’ve had a valuable lesson to share—about publishing, outreach, blogging, readers’ interests, and so on. Jonathan Fields, Jen Grisanti, Mark McGuinness, Justine Musk, Jeff Sexton, and Barbara Winter are just a few of the people we’ve learned from this past year.

Sharing via Facebook and Twitter involved a bit of trial and error. Steve’s blog posts are automatically posted to both. Soon after setting up his Twitter account, Duane Patterson (@radioblogger) schooled Steve on hashtags, shortening links, and other Twitter to do’s, and Steve tackled his first Twitter Chat, via @litchat. This past year, though, Steve’s  been on a strict schedule finalizing his next book, so I dove into Facebook and Twitter in his name. I always shared info with him about those I contacted, but it was weird. It was important to keep things “real” with his readers, and tweeting and posting as Steve was as far from real as it gets. In an effort to get Steve into social media, I made a huge mistake, by taking Steve outside the “keeping it real” realm. Today, I thank people under my Twitter account, while Steve’s Twitter account is used as a way to share his blog posts. Steve is on Facebook. You can catch him in there from time to time, replying here and there and posting. I remain a HUGE fan of Twitter and Facebook as vehicles for sharing, but if someone is tweeting or posting for you, be clear about that up front.

End of day, how we share comes down to treating others how we’d want to be treated—Karma marketing/outreach/whatever you want to call it.

Who We’ve Shared With

For the launch of the blog, we approached friends, colleagues, and journalists with which we’ve worked in the past. Steve didn’t have any contacts with bloggers at that point, but they were the first to weigh in on the video series.

Some of the responses were positive, some critical and some straight-up nasty. We expected and were open to comments criticizing Steve’s project/effort, but the personal stabs at Steve, by people who’d never met him, were a surprise.

Michael Yon, who is used to being loved, then hated, and back and forth, offered a critical piece of advice:

People who post those comments are like bar-room brawlers. They’re looking for a fight. Even if you’re just defending yourself, by engaging, you end up getting dirty, too. Ignore them.

We took Michael’s advice. The cost of wading into the muck wasn’t worth it.

We thanked the individuals who provided positive feedback and started contacting those who offered constructive criticisms. One of  the first bloggers we approached was Mark “Zenpundit” Safranski. Mark was critical, but he was a professional—he made his points without encasing them in crap.

We had a great first call—during which he pointed out things we could be doing better on the blog (including content that needed more development), and then he and Steve started corresponding. We’ve learned a lot from Mark. He’s always honest and will tell us if an effort is off-mark—and he always does it with respect. His input played into Steve’s first Writing Wednesdays post.

As Steve got to know other bloggers, we found that they were more willing and able to help share than traditional outlets. This isn’t a knock on the traditionals. As mentioned in last week’s “Elephant in the Room” post, there’s only so much column space and air time via traditional outlets. Steve is still interested in working with the traditionals, but working with bloggers has helped him direct-connect with readers—whether those bloggers are independents such as Neptunus Lex and Black Five or are connected with traditional outlets, such as At War and Mouth of the Potomac.

Bringing It All Together

As we continued the outreach for the video series, we were approached by a growing number of bloggers interested in Steve’s books. Steve wasn’t actively promoting his books at the time, but wanted to reach out to the readers who had e-mailed him or posted about the books. Enter Writing Wednesdays.

With the addition of Writing Wednesdays, we knew we needed to mesh Steve’s static site and blog, to present all of his work in one place.

While some of Steve’s readers are interested in all of his books, there are a number who are interested only in The War of Art or in his novels. Steve was almost finished with The Profession and we knew that we’d need to give it a home, too.

More to come on Bringing It All Together.

It Ain’t Pretty

About a year ago I wrote a series of posts titled “Report From the Trenches.” They were about a particularly ugly run of months when I was struggling to make a book-in-progress work.

The good news is that in the end (I think) the process succeeded.

The bad news is I’m back in that same place on the next book.

Paul Bettany as a Wall Street exec in “Margin Call”

I never learn.

I forget each time how back-breaking it was the time before.

One of my favorite movies of the past few years is Margin Call, written and directed by J.C. Chandor. It’s roughly about the market crash of 2008, as seen from the inside—from the point of view of the execs at a giant Wall Street firm who make the decision to tank the U.S. economy to save their own company’s ass.

One of the pivotal characters is played by Paul Bettany, another fave of mine. At one point in the dark hours of the story, a junior exec (played by Zachary Quinto, who was also one of the producers on the film) asks Bettany what top management intends to do.

“It ain’t gonna be pretty,” says Paul Bettany.

The creative action in writing (or any art) is like giving birth.

It’s not pretty.

There’s blood.

There’s chaos.

Weird-looking tools and implements are involved.

People who love each other dearly are cursing each other’s guts.

By the time the baby has safely made his or her entry into the world, the floor of the room is littered with bloody gauze compresses, sodden towels, sanitary wrappers, not to mention bodily fluids that not even the delivery nurses can identify.

It ain’t pretty.

My days of writing right now start with me plunging into scenes in which I have no idea what is going to happen (beyond an outline that I’m now cursing furiously because it isn’t helping me at all) and end, a few hours later, with me clicking the SHUT DOWN panel and staggering out to the pantry for a stiff drink.

This, I’m afraid, is the way it works.

Universes come into being amid collapsing stars and exploding supernovas.

Nations are born in brutal revolutions and counter-revolutions.

Even the cutest litter of kittens spills forth to daylight in a slippery, sanguineous pile of slop.

We need to remember this, you and I, when working events take a turn for the misshapen and the unlovely.

It ain’t pretty.