Posts from — December 2007

If you’re like me, you write better with music playing in the background. I generally opt for music that doesn’t require much of my attention but still serves to get my creative juices flowing. For me, classical, techno, piano, and movie scores typically work best. Music I’ve listened to so much that I have it memorized (like U2 or Union Station) works well, too.

While my iTunes library could play for weeks without repeating, I need some variety to get me moving sometimes. That’s why discovering Pandora was a revelation.

Their stable of “musician-analysts” have taken their musical expertise and created an endless catalog of “if you like this artist, I bet you’ll love this song from this similar artist” choices. You enter artists you like and Pandora’s engine creates “stations” for each.

Each station contains music they think matches the style of the artist you entered. And they are very good at getting this right. Many of the artists are ones I’ve never heard of, which is a brilliant way to broaden people’s musical horizons.

All this, and it’s free. After a few hours of music you’ll need to create a free account to keep listening, but that hardly seems an issue for what you get in return.

Due to the byzantine rules of music copyrights, you don’t get standard song controls like rewind and you can’t go back to the beginning of a song and listen again. If you like a song and want to buy it somewhere later, make a note of it. I’m sure that’s a major part of how Pandora funds itself. It’s great advertising for musicians whose music appears on your stations.

Learn more on their About Pandora page.

I don’t think that anyone who writes and freelances for a living ever really takes a vacation. My plan has been to take the last two weeks of the year “off” to spend time with family and friends. Holidays are hardly the way to be “off” and take the kind of restful vacation we need, but on the whole it’s been good for renewing myself and my creativity. At least for this holiday season, taking time off has mostly involved not being at my computer much at all, which has been a refreshing change.

My son tried out a few new words this week, particularly with all the attention – and, therefore, words – he gets from everyone. With all of the speech barriers he has to overcome, every new word he says is a gift greater than any you could wrap and put under our tree.

My days are filled with words, and for the most part they come pretty easily for me. For my son, they don’t. He works extremely hard for each new word and earns every one of them. When a word clicks in his head and he gets it out, his face lights up with pure joy. Not surprisingly, so does mine.

The holidays are meant for wonder. Perhaps as adults we’ve lost much of that innate capacity for wonder that children have. Being with him when he discovers a new word is one of the multitude of ways he’s helped me find that sense again. He’s made me realize that I take language for granted. This week, he’s taught me to appreciate how wonderful ‘banana’ (uh-NAH-nuh!) and ‘knee’ are.

What did I do over my Christmas vacation? I learned that sounding every syllable of every word very carefully and slowly, over and over again, is to unearth the beauty of language all over again. Even more than that, I realized that watching my son discover it for the very first time is to stand on holy ground.

Great news! I recently had my first story published! The audio production of my holiday short story “That Day in the Manger” was released this past Sunday by The Writing Show podcast and is now available online for free!

I actually read and recorded the story myself, which was an entirely new experience for me. I plan to blog more on the experience of writing the story, submitting it to The Writing Show, reading and recording the story myself, being interviewed for the show, and more.

In the interest of getting this out there while the holidays are still going on, here’s a synopsis that will hopefully pique your interest.

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Well, it ain’t your typical Christmas. Then again, nothing with us ever is. We thought we had seen it all after Aunt Eugenia got hurt in that brawl three Christmases ago. Her complete recovery at age 90 was a testament to the unshakable spirit of our family. But even in a family where anything can and will happen, no one will ever forget that day in the manger.

This story has it all! There are pigs in pits and pecan pie; beer in washing machines, barbecue on plates, and bilingual adventures; large pickup trucks and large relatives driving them; big hair and boob jobs; patriotism, parole, and powder muskets; guns galore and the Great Elmo Heist gone wrong; and, of course, muumuus, Mama, and miracles.

“That Day in the Manger” is a hilarious, roller-coaster ride through the holidays in a small, Southern town, as told by a native-son-turned-outsider. He goes back every year with his wife and son to remember his tangled roots and reconnect with how this town full of crazy characters formed him into the person he is today. He searches for what it all means and finds it in the most unexpected of places.

—

After the story, Paula and I have a conversation about it. Hopefully you’ll see it as an added bonus and not the ramblings of a newly-published writer!

The host of The Writing Show, Paula B, is an absolute joy to work with. The Writing Show is a must-have for any serious writer. Her free, weekly podcasts cover an incredible array of topics and genres. You’ll always learn something. I feel honored and privileged that she selected my story and invited me on the show.

This podcast is also featured on the links page of my main site along with a few others I recommend.

My story was one of two she selected. While you’re there, don’t forget to listen to Eric Pliner’s “Santa Baby” as well!

I’m a Mac person. I’m not going to wade into an operating system debate, though. That’s not my purpose here.

For those of you who use a Mac or are thinking of switching, the vast majority of people I work with are on Windows machines, but I’d only need one hand to count the number of compatibility issues I’ve had in the last five years. So, if you are looking to switch, don’t let compatibility issues worry you.

On with the list!

[Read more →]

After you write for a while, you’ll read something you wrote months or years ago and think, “What on earth was I thinking?!”

If what you think is a total dog didn’t get any farther than a journal or a few paragraphs on your computer, hang on to it and don’t worry about it. Many times we have to write complete garbage to get to where the gold is. I still believe that no writing is ever wasted, even if you think you probably were wasted when you wrote it.

If your imagined dog got loose in the wild, either by being published or because a client paid you, taking it out of your portfolio or just letting it go are always options. Often what you wrote isn’t as bad as you think, though. Good writers are their own worst critics.

Right now I’m dealing with what I think is particularly frustrating. When you go to edit or rewrite the next version of something a client paid you for in the past and you fully believe it’s not worth the pixels that gave their lives for it in the first place, then you get really depressed. I’m rewriting a short software help library right now that makes me question my sanity from when we originally wrote it.

It’s challenging material to document, but it’s even worse when you wonder whether you should check yourself into the writers mental hospital for being the one who committed this stuff to the screen. It’s sad when the most important thing isn’t releasing the software but making sure this gets rewritten well and quickly so in case I’m struck dead by a car, this stuff won’t still be out there as part of my dubious life story.

Postscript – I did get over this, accepted it as a learned lesson, and plowed into a rewrite. Every passionate writer has to go through this progression of emotions. You go back to the page and work at it; you have no other choice. You’re a writer after all, and not going back to it is like giving up breathing.

Now, back to it!

I published a set of beliefs and statements on my web site that define much about who I am and what I believe about my work. Feel free to read the My Philosophy or Feel Good About Hiring Me sections.

I’m including a few more here. Maybe these are like the deleted scenes bonus section!

• Having a child has made me a better writer and designer. My son makes me pay attention to every little thing, and then name it 42 times. He’s wise beyond his years, too.
• Coffee makes the world a better place. Fair trade coffee makes it even better.
• The optimal temperature for writing and designing is about 74 degrees Fahrenheit. A slight northerly breeze helps.

People ask me how I manage working from home and being a stay-at-home parent. It’s not easy. I don’t really have a typical workday. The list below is more the good life stuff that flows in and through my work projects. Remembering them keeps me feeling good about how the chaos is working out these days.

• I walk to work, which consists of approximately eight steps. My carbon footprint is low. My web site is carbon neutral thanks to offsets.
• I take breaks by reading to my son and taking him out for a walk.
• I make an ongoing game out of trying to recycle everything in the house.
• I listen to Garrison Keillor every day and try to pass on a bit of his goodness to others.
• I don’t have a personal trainer.
• I can recite Dr. Seuss’s ABCs book by memory.
• I’m on pace to memorize a half-dozen Sandra Boynton books by year’s end. She may now be the torch-bearer for the Seussian tradition.

What are the little things that seep into your day that make you feel better about it?

I know trillions of dollars have changed hands over the generations through direct mail and various kinds of cold-calling and telemarketing. It’s my opinion, for whatever that’s worth, that we’re quickly approaching a tipping point where these kinds of marketing will be more expense and frustration than they are worth in most cases.

Most books on earning a living as a freelance writer encourage these as critical pieces of your marketing. My opinion is that many of them paint this in strokes that are too broad to be cost-effective for most of us.

For a view on marketing from the complete opposite end of the spectrum, read Seth Godin. The rules of marketing and business growth are shifting by the minute. It behooves all of us who freelance to keep generating fresh ideas and constantly evaluate how our marketing and business plans are working.

Do I think contacts to hot leads, referrals, and people who hint at interest in your services are a good thing. Absolutely and without question. Do I think mailing 500 or 1,000 pieces – or making that many cold-calls – to a list of prospects is going to help you, even though you get a high-quality, targeted list to mail to? My answer to that is a resounding ‘eh’. If you’re even a decent writer with average sales skills, you’ll very likely make a profit from such a marketing campaign. I doubt you’ll be inspired by how much profit you get out of it, though.

The 80/20 rule of business works almost without fail. You’ll get 80% of your business from 20% of your clients. This means repeat business, and referrals from your happy clients, will make or break you. If you can get your happy clients to spread the word about you to others, the effectiveness of this kind of marketing is infinitely better than mailings, cold-calling, and the like. If you make it easier for happy clients to spread the word about you, that’s even better.

Personally, I think it’s a much better investment of your time and money to work your existing network of contacts, do great work for anyone who hires you, and be interesting enough and good enough and easy enough for those clients to want to spread the word about you.

There are a bazillion freelancers in the world. What makes you so great? What makes me so great for that matter?

My goal here is to explore the answer to that question and look for other writers and designers on the same path. Ideas? Questions? Comments? Chime in!

Um, O-What-U? Oh Taco?

Otaku is my new favorite noun, and it isn’t even from English. I’ve yet to discover an equivalent word in our language. It’s powerful, it’s fundamental, and it even sounds beautiful.

The legendary science-fiction author William Gibson used the word otaku to mean “passionate obsessive”. If you have a profound passion for something, and you can’t imagine doing anything else except devoting your life to the full expression of this passion, then you have discovered what you are otaku about.

I am writing otaku. I may also be word otaku, information otaku, and language otaku, but you get the point. I am passionate about bringing words to life. Whether it’s a web site, letter, story, brochure, book, or a grocery list, I am writing otaku. Give me a pen and a pad of paper and all will be right with the world. Just check on me to make sure I eat regular meals.

Otaku was once a negative term that meant you were obsessive about something to the point of ignoring all the other people who occupy this Earth with you. If you’ve ever gotten so wrapped up in something you love doing that the rest of the world melts away, you may realize that this isn’t the worst thing someone can say about you. The world is realizing that celebrating a deep passion for something should be our aim. To be otaku is to find your purpose in this world.

The great theologian Frederich Buechner referred to your true vocation in life as where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. If you work in a cubicle and hate your job with the Boring Widget Company making a trivial product that a zillion other companies make but no one really needs, you probably haven’t found your true vocation. Don’t feel bad; you have a lot of company.

Two otaku working together – even if they love different things – is a powerful combination. My mission is to help people tell the world what they are otaku about. Not surprisingly, most people I work with are otaku about things other than writing. That’s why I love my work. I get to hear about what people love to do and then help them find the best ways to keep doing it successfully.

Now here’s the real question. What are you otaku about?