Time to Write

He trades art for smiles

A report from Reader’s Digest features three people doing inspirational things. Here’s part of their story about Bren Bataclan. He paints cartoon characters and leaves his small canvases around Boston and other cities—free.

 After Bataclan lost his job, he relocated to Boston and started painting what are now his signature characters. He sold 49 in two days and wanted to show his gratitude. He decided to give away his artwork and ask just one thing in return. He attached this note and his website address, bataclan.com to each canvas: "This painting is yours if you promise to smile at random people more often."

 In what he calls his Smile Project, Bataclan has left his creations in 20 states and 20 countries. He’s received notes and photos from people who have found his paintings (you can see some of them on his site).

 He says, "It's nice to know that my art really is making a difference." Since the economy has gone downhill, he has been attaching a different note to his canvases: "Everything will be all right."

 (for tips and techniques on how to be more creative and productive, sign up for my inspirational Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected] -- like Bren Bataclan's paintings, it's free!)

Take the chance, get the assignment--2 minute audio case study

How writers & other free-lancers can save on taxes

Paul Michael’s Wisebread blog featured 101 tax deductions for bloggers and free-lancers. Here’s a random selection, with his notes:

 Computer equipment insurance

Food and drink purchased on business trips

Client entertainment (be reasonable…not sure you’ll get away with Strip Club deductions)

 Postage costs (Stamps.com is ideal for keeping track of postage, and the service itself is tax-deductible)

PayPal and Western Union fees

 Post Office Box fees.

Safe Deposit Box fees.

Self-storage fees, especially useful if your files and records are spilling over into your garage and you need extra space.

Advice. Any professional advice you pay for that pertains to your business is a tax deduction, and that includes counseling or coaching.

 Membership dues to labor unions (do bloggers have a union?)

Charity work or donations (this one’s tricky. It’s limited to your out-of-pocket costs, not the final cost of the product. In my case, I’ve done some writing for charity, which is not applicable because you can’t deduct time spent. But any materials used during your charity work can be deducted).

Prizes and giveaways. Here at Wise Bread, we give away some very nice things. Often, they are generously given to us as gifts to pass on to you, or readers. But when we go out and spend money on a prize to give away, that can be deducted, as well as the cost to mail it out to you.

Business furniture. If you use it exclusively for your blogging or freelancing, then anything from a chair or filing cabinet to the whole desk can be written off.

Business functions. If you hold a little get-together for clients, even just one or two, then everything from the rental of the room (or golf course…know what I mean?) to food and drink can be deducted.

To which I would add: some of these you have to be a bit careful—for instance, on business trips, if you take extra time on the trip to be a tourist, that part is not deductible. If in doubt, check with your accountant, but it’s worth having a look at the list to see if there’s anything you (or the accountant) are missing.

(for practical advice on being more productive and creative, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected] before you forget.)

How writing has changed --what does it mean for you?

An article by Eleanor Chute in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette took a look at how writing is changing for the younger generations.

 She quotes professor of English, Kathleen Blake Yancey: “We’re moving from submission to participation… I think we're conceiving of writing very differently than we did before. We're understanding writing takes place in lots of different environments and for lots of different purposes.” She cites texting on phones, writing emails, and writing on social media sites.

The article states that Yancey thinks some schools try to erect a firewall between the writing students do outside of school and in school and that schools in the U.S. are only twenty percent toward understanding this. She points out that historically writing has been linked with punishment (like writing, “I will not…” a hundred times, or an essay on why it’s bad to…) and testing. Therefore, it’s no wonder so many people have at least a mild phobia around any kind of formal writing.

 Her conclusions are part of a nine-page report called “Writing in the 21^st Century,” and you can access it here (www.ncte.org/press/21stcentwriting). It’s worth a look; even though it’s not about writing professionally, it has implications for all of us.

(If you're interested in writing for the new media, there's a chapter about it in my book, Your Writing Coach, published by Nicholas Brealey and available online and offline. Also see the associated website, www.yourwritingcoach.com)

Writing Slumdog Millionaire

In an article in the Jan/Feb 09 issue of Script magazine, Simon Beaufoy tells how he went about writing "Slumdog Millionaire." First: he broke the rule, 'write what you know. He says, 

"Where's the fun of writing what you know when you can instead dive headlong into the new, the exotic, the utterly unknown?"

Although the film is based on a book called "Q & A," structuring the film was a major challenge. The book is in effect a series of short stories, each one revealing how the boy came to know the answer to a specific question when he competes on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" 

The other problem was that the boy's drive was only to win the money. Beaufoy says, "I just can't get excited about money as a motivation in a film." That's why he made the driving force a love story. Danny Boyle, the director, eventually told him, "It has to be Romeo and Juliet, otherwise why bother?"

Even more interesting are his observations about how going to Mumbai, seeing the slums, meeting the kids who resembled the novel's characters, all changed his writing: "The usual, rather mealy mouthed English nuance and subtext (was) being replaced by something that bordering on melodrama," because that matched the atmosphere of the city and its people.

He was also involved in the casting and they discovered that the middle-class kids who spoke English well were not the right type nor were they good enough actors. Instead, they cast kids from the slums--meaning that about a third of the picture had to be in Hindi, with subtitles.

The whole story of how the film was made is rather heartening--few compromises, genuine passion, and--many Oscars!

(If you'd like to write but aren't sure of how to start, get my book, Your Writing Coach, from your favorite online or offline store.)

Overcome procrastination with a headline

We’re getting an economic stimulus (maybe) but equally important is a creativity/productivity stimulus. Here is the first of half a dozen ways you can give your creativity and productivity  a boost:

 WRITE A HEADLINE FOR YOUR DAY

 This is something to do at the start of your day. If you write a to-do list, add this element right at the top so you can see it all day long. Simply write a headline that you want to describe what will happen that day. For example:

 [Your name] Clears the Annoying Pile of Papers on his/her Desk!

 [Your Name] Completes the Insurance Forms he’s/she’s been Meaning to Submit!

[Your Name] Makes the Phone Call he/she has been Avoiding!

 Turning it into a headline makes it a more fun, less daunting, more motivating. Give it a try.

 (For useful tips on how to be more creative and productive, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

 

 

Why the writer should disappear (Juno's didn't)

Writing on justpressplay.com, Neil Pedley made a great point about writing and especially about Juno, the independent film that was the media darling before Slumdog Millionaire:

"...Juno as a whole is a film that succeeds in spite of Cody’s screenplay, not because of it.

 Great screenplays are a lot like sports officials in that the good ones stand back and orchestrate events, facilitating the flow of the action while doing their best to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. You know the referee has had a good game when you simply didn’t notice he was there and the same is true of a good screenwriter.

 But if there was ever a case of the writer speaking directly out of the mouth of the characters then Juno is it. The impossibly named Juno MacGuff comes across as a great many things: brave, smart and compassionate. But one thing she spectacularly fails to come across as is a 16-year-old high school girl and it is a testament to Page’s great ability that she could carry the film off while weighed down by a screenplay littered with distractions and attention seeking dialogue. Diablo Cody seems so desperate for some sort of validation from her audience that she is completely unable to detach herself from the story she is telling and ends up sounding like the worst kind of writer - one whose material so insists on itself that she not only tries to tell the adults what all the kids are into these days, she tries to tell the kids, too."

Amen! To me, the best writer leaves you amazed or surprised or delighted or shocked by what you know, think or feel--not what he or she knows, thinks or feels.

(For help in writing your project, from idea through to publication or production, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.)

Check out these little stories

In what they describe as “universal truths in bite-sized [300 word] chunks, Chips Hardy and Oscar Grillo post illustrated short stories about once a week at the blog, "The Full Story." Hardy is the writer, Grillo does the wonderful spindly drawings (that's one, below). A nice diversion and maybe it gives you an idea for some writing? If you don't have the time or temperament for a novel, creating a blog like theirs could be a nice way of getting your work out there.

for UK readers: Two Jurgen Wolff Workshops coming up!

On Saturday, March 28, 2009 I will be offering two half-day workshops in central London. One is “Writing where the money is.” If you’d like to find out how to make money with your non-fiction writing, this is the workshop for you. You’ll learn about how to sell non-fiction books with only a proposal, and how to make money writing articles, press releases, and online. It’s a practical, action-packed session. 

The other one is “Reclaim your time!” and it will give you practical right-brain methods for overcoming procrastination, handling deadlines, and finding time to do the things that matter most to you (instead of just what you “should” do. Each workshop is only £49 +VAT. That includes a full set of handout materials and access to me via email for any follow-up questions for 90 days after the workshop. There’s a discount for signing up for both and also an early-bird discount. For more information and a sign-up form, please email [email protected] with the subject line, “workshop information.”

Elizabeth Gilbert's solution to creative blocks

Speaking at this year’s TED conference, Elisabeth Gilbert talked about how she handled writer’s block (this account is from the Wired Epicenter site:)

 “…when she was in the midst of writing Eat, Pray Love and fell into a pit of despair when she felt blocked. She said aloud to whatever entity it was that usually helped her but was on furlough that day that if the book didn't turn out to be good it wasn't going to be entirely her fault since she was putting everything she had into the project. ‘So if you want [the book] to be better, then you've got to show up and do your part of the deal,’ she told it. ‘But I'll keep writing anyway, because that's my job. And I'd like the record to report today that I showed up.’”

 She told how in the deserts of North Africa, during long dance rituals, once in a while one of the dancers would be imbued with something transcendental and the others would start to chant, “Allah, Allah, Allah”—which over centuries was changed to Ole, Ole, Ole, and is still called out at bullfights and to flamenco dancers.

 She concluded: “Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it. If your job is to dance, then do your dance.  If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed for just one moment for your efforts, then Ole. And if not, do your dance anyhow. Ole to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.”

(You could be receiving free monthly tips on how to be more creative and productive, just by signing up for my free Brainstorm e-bulletin. Send an email request now to [email protected])

How to pitch /present powerfully : the four steps

Writers and others sometimes have to pitch or present their ideas, so what’s the secret of doing that effectively? Dr Nick Morgan has written a book called “Trust Me,” in which he reveals his four-step communication process. In an interview on the Personal Branding blog, he summarized the process:

 “You first have to get your body language to be open. You do this by focusing on your emotions, and imagining a scenario where you would be open — say, talking to your spouse, your partner, or a close friend — and then recapturing that body language for your speech. That’s step one. Step two is to connect to the audience. Once again, you do this by forming the intent to connect. You might imagine, for example, that your spouse is distracted and not hearing you. What would you do to get his or her attention? You might move closer, raise your voice, establish eye contact, even touch the other person on the arm. All of those gestures and actions, used appropriately, will help you connect. Third, you focus on the emotional attitude you have toward the content. And fourth, you focus on the audience — how it is receiving your material.”

 As with everything, practice is important, and he suggests three different ways to practice:

“ What I tell clients is to practice your speech at least 3 times, the first time focusing on being open, the second time on being connected, and the third time on your emotional connection to the material. Then, when you’re ready to deliver it, you should have both the content and the body language down well enough to be able to pay attention with, say, 10 % of your brain, to the audience. Having a speaker that is capable of truly paying attention to the audience is very charismatic for that audience.”

(Presenting your ideas is a topic I cover more fully in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available online and in book shops.)

What clients really want (usually)

I guess the TV business is not so different from others. Below, from the Creative Review blog, is a little snippet from an interview with London-based designers Chris Gove and Robert Evans, whose firm is called Telegramme. Evans is talking about one of their early commissions, from housewares company Habitat:

 “At first they said do what you want. The ideas we had were really surreal, we thought, wow, this is the best job ever. But they came back to us and said; actually we want a dog and some houses.”

 Whatever business you’re in, I’m betting you’ve had that experience: the client says, go wild, use your imagination, we want cutting-edge stuff! And when you deliver it, they says, “actually we want a dog and some houses.” If you can find any who really do want your full creativity, hang on to them!

(For tips on how to be more creative and productive, subscribe to my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

Want to get your book published? Just add zombies!

The latest publishing sensation--even before it comes out--is a book that combines a Jane Austen novel with zombies. Below hear Jason Rekulak from Quirk Books tell how the internet buzz built up. (If you can't see the video here, you can go to: www.viddler.com/explore/Mediabistro/videos/235/

The most unusual place for your writing

What's the most unusual place you can get your writing read? How about this, as reported in the Scotsman:

"From next month, poetry lovers on the Shetland Islands will be able to read the best of locally written verse while they are on the loo in public toilets.

The project is being headed by Jen Hadfield, the Shetland-based poet who was last month awarded the prestigious TS Eliot prize for poetry for Nigh-No-Place, her second book of poetry written in Shetland.

Ms Hadfield yesterday appealed to local poets to submit poems for the competition. Six of the best entries will be chosen every three months."

Well, getting read is getting read, so I thought I should bog, er, blog about this...

(If you've been putting off writing because you don't know how to start, start by buying my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing--it will guide you all the way from idea through to publication.)

A hug (and a drink) for you on Valentine's Day

Since it's Valentine's Day I thought I'd do an extra post of this one-minute video from Absolut Vodka ("In an absolut world, currency will be replaced with acts of kindness.") It's kind of ironic that it comes from a vodka company, since (sadly) being drunk is the only time most people would feel uninhibited enough to act this way... [if you can't see the video below, you can find it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORC8YSS1WrI ]