Time to Write

The two sides of creativity

In his new book, "No B.S. Business Success in the New Economy," Dan S. Kennedy makes the distinction between people who are in it for the art itself and those who want to be creative in business.

The artist starts with a blank page or canvas; the creative entrepreneur starts with something like a perceived need and maybe an established way of doing things that he or she tries to improve.

The 'pure' artist can be guided by intuition and break totally new ground. If supported by a grant, a patron (who could be a spouse or partner), or some other source of income, this type of artist need not care whether the public accepts what he or she offers.

The artist, writer, or inventor who wants to make money with their art, however, has to be guided at least in part by the marketplace. "Build it and they will come" is a romantic notion, very appealing, but not reliable.

This split probably is what many of us find the most difficult aspect of creativity to deal with. Navigating between what you want to do artistically and what the world is ready to pay for isn't easy.

It's interesting but not surprising that the kinds of writing that give you the least ultimate control over your work pay the best. Scriptwriters have no power over what happens to their work once they hand it over. A tender love story can be turned into a torture-porn thriller if the producer feels like it ("Hey I have an idea--instead of wanting to marry the girl, he wants to imprison her in his cellar!") But they pay you well for the right to do that to your material. The same is true for top-level copywriters.

People who write for the stage, on the other hand, can insist that nothing be changed--but unless they happen to have a hit on Broadway or the West End, they won't see all that much return for their labors, either. That also is true for most novelists (again allowing or the occasional Grisham or Rowling as the exceptions). And as for poets...never mind.

It's not that one kind of creativity is right and the other is wrong; it's just important to know which is which and to go into whichever you choose with your eyes open. Going into either one with false expectations is a sure prescription for unhappiness.

An experiment in creativity - open to all

Talented young actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is conducting a unique online experiment in creativity. As reported in USA Today, he has established a website called hitRECord.org where writers, actors, artists and others can collaborate and re-mix each other's work to create something new.

On the site, Gordon-Levitt writes, "In a nutshell: we create and develop art and media collaboratively here on our site; we use my position in the traditional entertainment industry to turn that creativity into money-making productions; and then we share any profits with the contributing artists."

He has recruited a few famous types to contribute but it's open to everybody. There's not a lot there yet, but keep an eye on it and maybe contribute something. Seems like a very cool opportunity to have some fun. (And it, or at least he, must be popular--when I typed "Joseph..." into Google images, he came up first, ahead of Joseph Stalin and Joseph and Mary...)

(Would you like your creativity tickled once a month? Subscribe to my free Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

Keep your creative & productive brain strong - here's how

Researchers in British Columbia conducted a study that shows that women who did an hour or two of strength-training exercises per week had better brain function a year later than women who did only balancing and toning exercises.

The women were between 65 and 75 years old and the ones in the weights group improved their "executive functions" (defined as the ability to make decisions, resolve conflicts  and focus on subjects without being distracted by competing stimuli) by an average of about 11% while the other group saw a decline of about half a percent.

This is one of a number of studies that suggest that regardless of your age doing weights training helps maintain and even enhance your mental functioning. I've been doing weights workouts for quite a few years now. Don't worry, you won't end up looking like those grotesque muscle guys (the secret of that look is injecting steroids). But you will look better, feel better, and even think better.

How to collaborate, how to find collaborators and a warning

Are you considering collaborating? Here's what Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote the screenplay of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" told Carpetbagger:

"I think if you were trying to pair up writers, you probably would say it’d be good to have someone who is more intuitive and goes by feeling and does just what feels right in the moment, and then someone who is really good with story, and nuts and bolts and conceptual look. Both of us are much more in terms of feel. We don’t have the nuts and bolts guy in the organization."

The difficulty is that we tend to like working with people like ourselves and the more alike two collaborators are, the less they actually need each other. That often leads to each person to thinking they're providing all the value and the other person is getting all the credit.

Where can you find potential collaborators? In writing classes, writing groups, and even online.

But before you commit to any long term collaboration, have a bit of a trial marriage first. And when you do start working together, put everything in writing. Like many marriages, it always starts with sweetness and light but, sadly, sometimes ends in acrimony and different ideas about what was agreed and who did what.

(For more useful tips on the entire writing process from idea through to publication or production, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

Dear John, please rewrite your ending-- your friend, Big Box Office

I haven't read the book or seen the movie version of "Dear John," but was interested to read today that three weeks before release they did frantic re-shoots to change the ending. (Warning: spoiler--kind of--ahead).

Apparently in the book, the star-crossed lovers don't end up together but the Sony studio executives were concerned that this would be too dark for the target audience. Director Lasse Halstrom was skeptical but went ahead with the reshoots. Testing and market research on that version convinced him that an ending in which there is the likelihood that the lovers will end up together was much more popular.

Considering that the movie had a $31 million opening (finally knocking "Avatar" off the top spot) they were right--at least in commercial terms.

Now watch for my new production of "Romeo and Juliet" where, instead of poison, the two of them drink a Red Bull and walk off into the sunset together.

What lurid marketing can teach you about writing

If you want to learn more about storytelling, one unusual source is direct marketing material that is designed to hook people and get them to spend money--sometimes a lot of money.

The top copywriters are as skilled any of the best commercial novelists. For instance, here is a headline that was designed to get people sign up for a financial publication called Government-Driven Investing.

"A Technology So Powerful Saddam Hussein Once Kidnapped the Inventor to Get HIs Hands on It..."

That's not all--this mystery technology is also described this way:

"A Solution So Valuable It Could Save California...And a Company So Profitable it Could Return +257% in the The Next Year Alone!"

Wait, there's more:

"Obscure Norwegian Inventor Creates a 'Perpetual Motion Machine' To Solve the Biggest Crisis of the 21st Century!"

Wow. And the strong storytelling goes on (by the way, I found this written about on a blog called StockGumshoe.com). Here's the Saddam part:

“Iraqi helicopters crossed the border with their guns blazing, dropping their payload of Special Forces and Iraqi Republican Guard squads to secure strategic locations.That same night, the air raid sirens awoke Norwegian inventor, Bjorn Hakken*, from a deep sleep.He quickly learned that this was no drill. And there was no time to waste. He rushed to his laboratory at the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research and began to destroy key documents related to his work.

Saddam’s people were not only looking to take over Kuwait’s oil resources. They were looking for advanced technology. And they knew they could find it at the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research."Kuwaiti forces were vastly outnumbered by the Iraqis. They were quickly overrun. And within just five hours Saddam had seized the country. He soon announced that Kuwait had become the 19th province of Iraq.

And Bjorn Hakken had become a prisoner of war…"

It's a true story but Bjorn Hakken wasn't the scientist's real name. Why use a fake name about a public story? Because if you knew the real name you could research the topic yourself and not have to buy the newsletter to figure out how to invest.

Anyway, the scientist was released and eventually developed his technology which is for taking the salt out of ocean water. And if you paid the newsletter people a lot of money ($497 per year) they would have revealed the name of the company to you. You could also have read about in Forbes magazine, which costs only about $5 a copy, but i'm sure their story was not as thrilling.

I'm not suggesting the newsletter is doing anything wrong, by the way, and they offer a full 90 day guarantee but what interests me isn't whether their tips are any good but rather the skill they have in drawing you into a story.

(For friendly guidance on writing your book, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble and other online and offline retailers.)

Online writing: where the money ISN'T--and what it means for you

I suppose you can look at this as the glass being half full or half empty. Or maybe one-quarter full. In the New York Times, David Carr wrote an article about Demand Media. They crank out an endless supply of how-to articles (over one million so far) and videos on how to do things like boil an egg, knit a pair of socks, or put up a roof. The company says its videos are accessed on YouTube 2.5 million times a day.

So who writes all this stuff? Freelance writers. They get paid between $15 and $20 per article, about $30 per video. Flat rate, buy-out, that's it.

The glass half-full picture is that writers choose their own topics, work any hours they want, wherever they want, and may be able to crank out up to 6 to 8 articles a day. For some unemployed people that could mean the difference between eating and not eating, paying their mortgage or losing their home. The company's founder says, "the people who work with us are thrilled because there is such a lack of opportunity everywhere else."

The empty glass version is that unless you're fast, you're probably not even making minimum wage for content that will continue to enrich the company for years to come.It had more than $200 million in revenue last year and is valued at between and and two billion dollars. (For a more positive take on this, see the comment below, from someone who is contributing articles and making good money by virtue of the quantity of articles she is able to write.)

What it means for writers, I think, is this: generic writing is getting more and more devalued. The internet is awash with it and that will only increase. If you want to profit from what you write, it is ever more important to figure out: what is it that only you can write? What unique experience or viewpoint do you have--or can you find--that sets your writing apart. I believe that's equally true in fiction and non-fiction. Finding that is not easy, but in today's writing market it's crucial. Unless you're happy enough doing the equivalent of fast-food writing for fast-food pay.

No excuses Monday 1: I DON'T HAVE TIME TO WRITE!

 

Here's the deal: You have 24 hours a day just like everybody else. 

Yes, you have responsibilities. Maybe a family, maybe a full-time job, maybe you have to help care for a family member. But you do have some spare time. How you spend it tells you what your priorities are.

Do you watch TV? Then you value that more than writing.

Do you go to the movies or sports events? Then you value you that more than writing?

Do you spend time on the internet? Sleep more than seven hours a night? Read magzines? Then...you know.

There's nothing wrong with doing those things instead of writing, as long as we admit we're making a choice. 

You may not have as much time as you'd like, but you have time. 

(My book, "Your Writing Coach" is another great source of excuses-killers. Get it from Amazon or other online and offline retailers. And for a monthly dose of inspiration and guidance on how to be more productive, sign up for my free Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected]) 

Seth Godin on persistence and resistance for writers and others

Seth Godin is my favorite marketing guru. Gretchen Rubin interviewed him on her Happiness Project blog/Psychology Today column and he had some great observations about resistance and persistence. Here are a couple of excerpts (the full interview is here):

GR: You argue for people to change their way of thinking about the world, and that’s exciting -- but it can be hard for people to translate big ideas into practical actions. What are some concrete steps that would help people put these kinds of ideas into action in their everyday lives?

SG: "It's extremely difficult to "to do something big." I think setting out to do something small is easier and more likely to work.

Small as in human, transparent and connected. Small as in 'worth doing' but also 'worth failing at.'

You're asking me a specific question, and I think a specific answer is the worst thing I can hand you. We won't solve this problem with 9 ways to do this or 11 ways to do that. Instead, I think it begins with a fundamental set of assumptions.

Who are you leading? Where are you going? Does it matter?

Don't let the resistance get in the way of doing something that makes a difference. That little voice in the back of your head that says, "this will never work," or perhaps, "you'll fail and they'll laugh at you..." That voice must be ignored, or even better, do the opposite of whatever it says!

So, the first step is the hardest: you need to care enough about the outcome that you're willing to call out the resistance, to stand up and shout it down.

Once you've made that commitment, there are a hundred techniques that will work. Most of the successful ones have one thing in common: they inch along, below the lizard brain's radar. They don't involve huge jumps, instead they take small steps. You don't go and give a speech to 1,000 people. That's too scary, the resistance is too strong, the voice inside your head recoils in fear. Instead, you give a speech to three people, then six and then twelve. Over time, bit by bit, you continue to increase your footprint and bit by bit, become ever more remarkable.

As you point out, it’s hard to resist inertia and the status quo. Is there a mantra you repeat to yourself, or a quotation you call to mind, that helps remind you to think big and to think original?

"For me, the restlessness is now ingrained. That's the goal, to make it a habit. Yes, restlessness is the goal, not a tactic, but the point of the exercise. Once you can become restless enough to persistently challenge the status quo, you're on your way back to being the artistic genius you used to be.

I was lucky enough to discover Zig Ziglar's work when I most needed it, about twenty years ago. I bought 72 hours of his tapes and listened to each one at least 20 times. I'm talking about two or three hours a day of audio for years. I'm not saying you need Zig, or even tapes. I'm pointing out that the act of working on quieting the lizard brain, the effort to consistently and persistently push yourself to move forward... it's an effort, it's not a hobby."

For inspiration for being more creative and productive, subscribe to my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected].

Reinventing yourself the Starbucks way

 Whether or not you like Starbucks (it seems to evoke very strong feelings one way or the other), there's something to be learned from its comeback. It has quadrupled its earnings this quarter compared to last year. Here's part of a report in the Seattle Weekly on how CEO Howard Schultz did it:

"By inventing the local coffee house - creating what will from here on out be called, oh, let's say, the neighborhood mom and pop place.

"He clearly has a knack for deep-thinking creativity. Sitting in one of his new cafes, such as the unchained 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea house on Capitol Hill, he talks about "the authenticity of the coffee experience" and "the romance, the theater of bringing that to life."

To overcome the market over-saturation he created by opening a new store every eight hours, "We went back to start-up mode," he says, "hand-to-hand combat every day."

His stores now have communal tables, small-batch beans, local bakery goods, second-hand decorations, and - good lord - whole milk. Customers can even take home the coffee grounds and sow their gardens.

He is "reinventing" coffee, says one expert. He is tailoring his places so they, get this, fit in with the neighborhood!"

Again, whether you think this tactic is a brilliant marketing move or an attempt to fool customers (or both), it's a great lesson in reinvention--in listening to what your customers or clients want and giving it to them. I wonder what the publishing version of this would be?

(Writers need to be good at marketing, too. You can get lots of ideas from my two books: "Marketing for Entrepreneurs" (Pearson) and "Do Something Different" (Virgin). Available from the usual sources!)

Here's what it's like to be a successful writer (says AL Kennedy)

 So you think once you're a successful writer your life transforms and you get away from all those distractions? Think again, here's AL Kennedy writing in The Guardian about getting her new novel started:

"I pretty much always should be somewhere and someone other than I am at this point. The initial stages of all my novels have always been sabotaged by (in order) my day job, my part-time job, the other writing I was doing while I was writing them, the work I was meant to have finished long before I got to this point and – naturally – the hideous diseases which flesh is heir to, if you persist in making it work and sit on trains and never give it days off and trips to the zoo with balloons. Or even without balloons."

Oh well, at least as a successful writer you don't have any of those anxieties about whether you're getting it right. Or maybe not.  AL Kennedy again:

"A greater part of writing than you might suppose relies upon the writer ignoring or temporarily setting aside a whole circus troupe of ugly fears and just typing in spite of them. Once I've dodged my own novel-related anxieties I can get used to the familiar cycle of enthusiasms and despairs – I wake up in the middle of the night having finally found out the male protagonist's proper name: he promptly stops speaking to me and I lie in the dark wondering what he's up to, if he's found someone else to let him be expressed ... ?"

But surely a pro doesn't suffer from procrastination. Hmm:

"I look forward to being no longer poorly [she had the flu] and therefore able to avoid the whole novel-writing issue in a more traditional manner - by dusting, making soup, staring, pacing, repainting the stairwell, dozing, crying, fainting ... Even so, I'll always eventually end up battering away at the thing until it batters back. It's lovely and it's mind-bending and I wouldn't be without it. Onwards."

Yep, that's pretty much how it is when you start out and how it is when you're established. The important part is the "Onwards."

(If you would like to get a monthly dose of inspiration, sign up now for my free Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

Travel writing--what's wrong with this rosy picture?

I’ve just received an offer for travel writing training that paints a wonderful picture of the life of a travel writer—first class air travel, staying free at great resorts, being wined and dined… Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?

The problem is that, for the most part, it’s about 50 years out of date.

These days, when you want to do some research about a travel destination, where do you go? Increasingly, it’s the internet and what we look for is reviews by other visitors. I’d be willing to bet that the sales of the traditional travel guidebooks are declining, maybe moribund. Soon you’ll automatically turn to your iPhone for other portable device.

By the way, there are also people out there trying to tell you that you can make a lot of money snapping travel pictures (if you buy their course). Wrong again--if anything, the outlook there is even worse than for travel writers because it's so easy now to get stock photography literally for pennies--some publications even lift them off flickr for free. (I get many of the photos and graphics I use on this blog from clipart.com, with unlimited access for an annual subscription of around $160. These are low resolution images, fine for online use; higher resolution versions for print publication have to be bought individually.)

Sure, newspapers (themselves in trouble) still have travel sections to support the ads but many of the articles that fill the space between the ads are syndicated and appear in hundreds of papers. The well-established writers who provide these article do get in on some excellent freebies. Furthermore, if you can come up with a unique angle to travel writing I’m sure there are still some great opportunities.

However, if someone tries to tell you that starting out now as a travel writer or photgrapher is an easy and profitable path, get yourself a very large grain of salt.

(You'll find more 'tell it like it is' advice on writing in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

Will your book be chunked and sold?

I've discovered that the publisher of my book, "Focus: how to be more productive at work" (that's the US subtitle; in the UK it's "Focus: the power of targeted thinking"), has chopped it up into bite-size chunks, about ten pages each, and is selling them separately. They have the right to do that contractually and I'll get the specified royalty but it would have been nice if they'd told me about it themselves...

Anyway, this may be the way things are going for non-fiction books, so if that's your realm you may be interested in seeing what this is being marketed. The link to one chunk (this one about procrastination) is: www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0137072651

These chunks are available to be downloaded to your iPhone (or iPad...do you have an extra one of those sitting around? I'd be happy to take it off your hands :-)) or other portable viewing device, and I suspect these chunks may end up being very popular.

If you're considering self-publishing, you may also want to think about doing it in chunks either instead of or in addition to publishing the whole thing as one unit.

(for friendly guidance in writing your own book, get a copy of mine, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon, BarnesandNoble, and other online and offline retailers.)

Von Gogh--on writing and painting

I love the letters of van Gogh almost as much as his paintings. As of this writing, there's an exhibition called "The Real van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters" at London's Royal Academy. In case you think his painting was all intuitive, here's a little excerpt from a letter to his brother about the painting, Mountains at Saint-Remy:

"These are exaggerations from the point of view of the arrangement, their lines are contorted like those of the ancient woodcuts...People will tell me the mountains aren't like that... "I've tried to express the time of day when one sees the green beetles and the cicadas flying in the heat."

There's a good article by William Underhill in Newsweek, called "Van Gogh's Letters: Writing in Color." He writes:

"Painting was never his only creative passion. Fluent in French and English, van Gogh steeped himself in the literature of the day. His letters make reference to more than 800 books and 150 authors. What he prized in writing was the same focus on everyday life that he sought in his own art. His favorite writers included Charles Dickens, Émile Zola, and Honoré de Balzac—all chroniclers of grim social conditions that van Gogh had witnessed. His enthusiasm for words spilled into his art. In one letter he remarks, "Books and reality and art are the same kind of thing to me."

In another letter, he revealed his appreciation of writers and writing: "There are so many people, especially among our pals, who imagine that words are nothing. On the contrary, don't you think, it's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint things?"

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

Why I find scriptwriting frustrating sometimes

OK, so I wrote a screenplay in which a present-day woman dreams that Beethoven comes into her life.

The producer sends it to a colleague for reactions and the colleague hates it, well at least hates the dialogue, characters, atmosphere, description...he might have liked the page numbers, but I'm not sure. And something else really bothers him: how come Beethoven speaks English?

The woman having this dream lives in New York...might that be a reason why ALL the people in her dreams speak English even if the real people didn't?

Last night (before I got this feedback) I had a dream that I was being tortured. Maybe it was a premonition...