Month: March 2011

I attended a seminar on writing recently.
The presenters talked
to the brutal ‘facts’ of writing,
about the long hours needed
(in romance, four full-length books a year is minimum),
that just because you sold your last book
doesn’t mean you’ll sell your next,
and other slices of realism.

It was realistic
but it was also a real downer.

Like entrepreneurs,
writers don’t need to attend a seminar
to hear their odds of succeeding are low.
We hear it from well meaning
friends, family, neighbors, complete strangers.
If we are doing,
we face rejection day after day.
These low odds slap us in the face every day.

Yet we still do.
We write or we launch companies
or we do a thousand other impossible things.

So don’t tell us our odds of success are low.
Let us have our starry-eyed optimism,
and help us increase those odds.

In Scott Ginsberg’s post
on creating art,
he talks about
creating art without watching the market.

“Stop worrying about
which shelf your book belongs to.
Just write the damn thing.
Stop stressing over
which genre your music is classified as.
Just sing your face off.”

Yeah, been there, done that,
got the teeny tiny royalty check.

Artists have to eat also.
If you want to eat,
you have to sell.
If you want to sell,
you need to produce a product people actually want.

During brainstorming of ideas,
I agree that you can ignore the market.
However,
if you don’t look at how or to whom
you’ll sell this product
before you create,
you’ll end up creating a basement full of unsaleable art.

As a writer,
I look at the tweaks I can make
to the product
to make the market happier.

For example
If I’m writing about a vegetarian vampire
and I know the big bite scene is important to readers,
I’ll have a secondary character
who not only adds contrast
(and usually humor)
but gives the reader the bite scene they want.

Bam.
I’ve made my potential readers happy,
increasing my sales by word of mouth,
AND made the story better.

THAT is what selling creative people do
and selling creative people
get to create full time.

Scott Ginsberg has a great post
on producing creative work
(and yes, creative work includes
designing that snazzy new orange juice carton).

I love his section
on creativity and hard work.

“Anybody can be successful
for a short period of time
before the rest of the world finds out.
Sustainability,
on the other hand,
is a different animal.
It requires patience, stamina,
persistence and labor.

That’s how you build
something real:
By fully engaging of all your faculties.
By enlisting everything you’ve got.
And by committing to an ongoing investment of energy.”

My 10 year old niece
wants to be a pop star.
She has no natural talent
for singing
but that’s okay
because today
there are plenty of artists
who can’t sing.

I told her
that if she works every day
on her singing career,
she WILL make it happen.
Persistence breeds luck and opportunities.

Will she stick with it?
She’s 10 so that’s unlikely
but she does have a shot
at making her dreams happen.

Creativity is NOT enough.
Pair that creativity with sustained hard work.

Many people think
that super successful people
are also always super confident.

That’s a myth.

When trying new things,
super successful people
can be as nervous and unsure
as the rest of us,
maybe even more so
because they have more of a reputation
to lose
if they fail.

Relationships are about exchanges of favors
and
some of us stress about
what we can possibly offer
a super successful person.
These doubtful transitions
give us that opportunity.

Recently, a New York Times bestselling author
sent out an email to her writing chapter.
She had a new website,
designed for a new market,
and she needed
someone to ohhh and ahhh over it.

I replied with an email
ohhh’ing and ahhh’ing
(it WAS a wonderful website),
with comments about
why her new market would love it.

She replied saying what a relief
that was to hear
because she had been worrying about that.

No shit.
That message came through
loud and clear
in her email.

Bam, the favor slate has been wiped clean
and I can now, without guilt,
ask her for another favor.

Buoy a super successful person’s confidence,
especially with new ventures.
They will appreciate it
and remember you.

I’ve been working like a demon
with one of my pen names.
The signs are there
that it will break out
(if it hasn’t already).

What do I want to do?

Yep, you got that right…
I want to celebrate
by taking some time off.
I want to put my ass in neutral
and coast for a while.

NOT a good idea.

Because I know darn well
there are hills up ahead
and you don’t climb hills in neutral.

Luckily, one of my loved ones
is kicking my lazy butt.
He’s asking me what I did TODAY.
He’s pressuring me to produce.

Past performance is NOT
an indicator of future success.
TODAY’s performance is.
Get out there
and get things done!

I was in a check out line at Target yesterday
reading the headlines of the Enquirer and other papers.
The celebrities covered
were almost all reality stars.
I told my loved one
“All these people have no skills.
They are simply famous for being famous.
It used to be…”

And then I stopped.
My loved one grinned
because he knows that phrase drives me
absolutely ape shit crazy.
It signals a resistance to change.

I thought about it
and the reality stars DO have a talent.
They have a talent for marketing
and for retaining the interest of viewers.
They had grasped that the world had changed.

I had not.

Because I was focused on my
‘used to be’s.

I was looking at a package of orange juice yesterday.
I must have looked at that package
a hundred times.
Yesterday was the first time
I noticed the clouds in the sky.

It would have been so easy
to have a plain blue sky.
It might also have been cheaper
(one less color on that part of the package).
Yet the packager designers added clouds.

I didn’t notice it before yesterday.
I’m guessing the average consumer
will never notice it.

But I noticed it yesterday
and it was magic.
It enchanted me.
From yesterday on, I will always see the clouds.

Yes, design your basic product.
Make sure your average consumers are happy.
But if you can,
if you have a little extra in the budget,
add details.
Add clouds.

THAT is when magic happens.

Johnny Depp has played Captain Jack Sparrow
in three earlier installments
of Pirates of the Caribbean.
He has been acting consistently since 1984,
and is considered great at what he does.
When the average person thinks of a pirate,
they envision Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack.

Yet when journalists were invited
to visit the filming of the fourth
Pirates of the Caribbean,
they found Johnny Depp rehearsing his scenes
over and over and over again.

You read that right.
Johnny Depp was rehearsing for a role
he had played in three previous movies.

Within your own sphere of expertise
I’m guessing
you know what you’re doing,
and you are good at it,
but in order to be great,
truly great,
you still have to practice,
over and over,
forever.

If Johnny Depp can’t coast
on his talent and past experience,
we can’t either.