Time to Write

If It Hasn't Happened for You Yet

It can be frustrating to keep on writing while waiting for your break. Sometimes we wonder whether we're just wasting our time. All those days, weeks, months, years with nothing happening.

Of course, it's not really that nothing is happening. You're constantly learning, improving, and bringing new stories to life. The part that hasn't happened yet is the recognition from others, like editors or producers, of the value of what you're creating. And that hurts.

I have experienced this myself, and at times it has put me off even submitting material. I love the process of creating. The process of marketing? Not so much. But, of course, we have to do both. Both call for patience. Here's what the poet Rilke wrote about that:

"Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!"

That's the lesson I have to learn and re-learn. Maybe it'll help you, too.

 

WISE ADVICE FROM ANDY WARHOL

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make more art."

--Andy Warhol

How to avoid being scammed by people like this guy

Author and TV producer Lee Goldberg has a post on his blog about James Strauss, a "convicted con artist and fake TV writer."

Goldberg has received many emails with horror stories from people saying they've been conned or harassed by Strauss.

A recent one was from a young filmmaker asking whether he should do free work for Strauss in exchange for help breaking in to the business. Since Strauss has zero real Hollywood experience and has stiffed screenwriters, conference organizers, and many others, the answer is a loud NO.,

In 1998 Strauss pleaded guilty to defrauding a teachers' retirement fund out of $400,000. He was sentenced to 21 months. In addition he was accused of embezzling more than $20,000 from a Santa Fe Business while out on pre-release from the other case. 

Unfortunately, there are many like him out there, swindling aspiring writers and others. 

HOW TO AVOID BEING SCAMMED

If you are unsure about anybody offering you services like matching you with producers or publishers, public relations, promotion, editing, publishing help, etc. do your homework before you hand over money or agree to work for free! Here's what to do:

1: Google their name, the name of their company and anything else you know about them. Go past the first page of results. Smart crooks often set up fake websites full of endorsements for themselves, but under different names.

Many times they'll have a headline like, "Is X a scam?" and in the body of the site say, of course not! They use SEO to drive these sites to the top of Google results, pushing genuine sites down to page 2 or 3 or 4.

In the case of a bogus publisher, I Googled the names of the books they had supposedly published and none were listed on Amazon, nor did any of the alleged authors have websites.

2: If they feature endorsements, follow them up. Ask for complete names and contact details. If all you can get is quotes like, "X got me a big Hollywood deal!" -- Annette F., Detroit...well, that's not enough!

It's true that some people who give an endorsement don't like to give their full names and email addresses but the person in question should be able to give you at least a few who are willing to be contacted via email.

3: If the endorsements also feature photos, do a reverse image search.

First, go to http://images.google.com/ and click on the camera button and upload the image (you can usually click and drag it off the page on the person's website). Or you can drag and drop it into the search blank on the Google image search page.

Then also use TinEye, the simple instructions are at www.tineye.com. Both are free to use and sometimes an image source pops up on one but not on the other.

If you're dealing with a con artist, the image may turn out to have been sourced from a stock image site. That turned out to be the case with one subsidy publisher I looked into a couple of years ago.

4: Ask for specifics. For instance, if they say they can get you in the door at a studio, ask whom they deal with there--who is their contact?

That may be enough to scare them off.

If they're brazen they may say, "Spielberg, of course!" Don't be afraid to email that supposed contact, tell them what you've been told and ask if they have a relationship with the person making the claims.

5. Spread the word. If you find somebody is deceiving people, spread the word via your blog, Facebook, other social media and to relevant groups (like writing groups) and organizations.

Be sure to stick to the facts. Don't say, "X is a  con artist and fraudster!" Instead, say, "X offered to connect me with producer Y, yet when I got in touch with Y I was told they have never heard of X." Or, "The pictures of supposed satisfied clients on X's websites turn out to be stock photos purchased from iStock."

The reason for being careful to stick to the facts is that scam artists often like to threaten lawsuits. I had a few threatening letters from Tate Publishing, for instance, before they went bust and two of the principals were arrested. But because I'd stuck to the facts, there was nothing to sue me about.

Usually they're bluffing, but getting into even a bogus lawsuit is no fun. The facts should be damning enough. The reason I can characterize James Strauss as a con artist is that he's been convicted of embezzlement. Is he still conning people right now? I don't know but I'd sure avoid getting involved with him in any way, based on his past and the continuing complaints.

Let the buyer beware!

 

 

 

 

 

 

An improv principle that can improve your year

The number one thing I learned when I studied with improv group The Groundlings and also with Keith Johnstone when he visited the UK is:

"YES, and..."

It has applications far beyond the improv stage, so let me give you a quick explanation of what it means, starting with an example:

Let's say you're on stage and another actor (one new to improv) comes in. You decide he's your dad, so you say, "Hi, Dad!"

The other actor says, "I'm not your dad!" thinking that's funny and it'll lead to conflict--after all, comedy and drama are based on conflict, right? Well, the right kind of conflict.

But in this case, now you have to come up with a reason why you thought this person is your when he actually isn't...or you have to say something like, "Dad, your dementia is getting worse!" In which case, I'm pretty sure the other actor would say, "I don't have dementia!"  

As you can probably imagine, this scene isn't going anywhere interesting.

Starting a scene by denying (saying no) to what you are offered is a dead end.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ACTOR SAYS "YES, AND..."

Now imagine that the other actor accepts that you're his son or daughter. He says, "Hi, Brad/Janet, I just wanted to find out whether you've decided yet."

Now you accept (say yes to) the idea that you were about to make a decision and make one up, like "I have! I'm not going ahead with the wedding." 

If you're working with a group, that could be the cue for the bride or groom to come into the scene and say, "This is the happiest day of my life! I never thought I'd actually get married!"

Now you have some conflict that has potential to become a funny (or tragic) scene and the conflict is rooted in something real.

The "and" is the secret sauce.

If you just said, "I'm not marrying you!" and she said, "Yes, you are!" and you said, "No, I'm not!" etc. that doesn't go anywhere.

But if you say, "Darling, I'm not marrying you after all, but (this is the "and" additional material) I know someone who would be perfect for you!"

Rather than her screaming "No!" her more interesting response might be, "Oh...who?" (which is another form of "yes, and...").

OUR 'NO' MINDSET

For some reason, probably to do with evolution in some way, most of us seem to be primed to say 'no.' Of course we have to be able to do that, but often that leads to a dead end, whereas saying 'yes' and adding something often leads somewhere interesting.

ONE TIME 'YES, AND' PAID OFF IN LIFE

Some years ago I was in a class and chatted with a young woman who asked what I did. I told her I was a writer. She asked whether she could read something I'd written. 

Some people are very worried that if they show their scripts, the ideas or the scripts themselves might steal the material. You can say 'no,' and thereby guarantee your material will not be stolen, but you'll also guarantee that nothing good will come of showing the script, either.

In this case, I said, "Yes...and I'll bring in a copy next week." (These days I'd just email it to her, but this was in the dark ages.)

I gave her a copy of a spec comedy script I'd written. The next week she said she loved it and that her boss wanted to meet me.

I had no idea what kind of job she had, but it turned out that she worked for a producer. She read my script at her desk on her lunch hour and he heard her laughing. He asked her what was so funny. She told him it was a script by a fellow student and he asked to read it. He liked it, too, and wanted to meet me in case any comedy assignments came up at his company.

I wish I could say it led to a million-dollar assignment; it didn't but it was still useful to talk to him and find out about his company--this was in the days before I had an agent or any other way to get to people like him.

I like that story because it proves that you never know what seemingly random event might lead to something useful. 

WHAT ARE YOU SAYING 'NO' TO?

Naturally we have to prioritize because we can't do everything. But often saying yes and adding something doesn't take a lot of time.

It might be worth thinking about whether this year you'd like to try saying 'yes, and...' to more things and seeing what happens.

That could be in your career or your personal life.

DO YOU SAY 'YES, AND' OFTEN ENOUGH...TO YOURSELF?

It may be that the person you say no to most often is....yourself.

For instance, maybe you think, "Hmm, I wonder whether I could learn a new language this year." 

It's easy to say, no, I'm too old, or I don't have time, or I probably don't have a knack for languages, or, or, or... dead end!

What if you said, "Yes, and I'm going to try it out by..." using an app like Duolingo, or taking a sample evening class, or finding lessons online, etc.

If you don't like it, you can still say no, but at least you'll have given yourself a chance.

Can you think of something that it could be useful or fun to say 'yes, and' to? Feel free to share (or to keep it a secret).

 

 

The diet that fights depression

The first large study of the role of diet in depression shows that what you eat can improve or hinder your chances of going into remission.

The study consisted of one group that was given help from a clinical dietician and one given help with social support.

At the end of three months, one-third of the dietary group were in remission from depression, compared to 8% of the other group.

Members of the dietary group were encouraged to eat vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, fish, lean red meat, olive oil, and nuts.

They were encouraged to avoid refined cereals, candies, fried food, fast food, processed meat, and sugary drinks.

The ones who stuck closest to these recommendations benefitted the most.

 

The study appears in the journal BMC Medicine (http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0791-y)

Whatever your writing is, let it be that (a lesson I learned the hard way)

I created a surreal sitcom for which I wrote a spec script not so long ago. A friend got it to a writer/producer who said he thought it was very funny, but he couldn't identify enough with the characters and I should change it to make it more like a current comedy series about the challenges of a working class single parent.

There was a time when I probably would have scrambled to try to do that, but I won't, and here's why:

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

What I mean is that while it's always possible to improve a piece of writing, it's a waste of time to change it to try to make it something that it isn't. Usually, the result is a compromise that won't please anybody. And I have the stories to prove it...

AN EXPERIENCE I CAN (ALMOST) LAUGH ABOUT NOW

Once upon a time I wrote a romantic comedy TV movie that the wonderful producer Stan Margulies wanted to make (he produced the original "Roots' mini-series).

We took it to one network and they said they wanted to do it with a particular actress. The next week, it came out that this actress had a drug problem, and the network backed out.

Stan and I took it to another network. They said they loved it, they wanted only one change: "Someone should be trying to kill the young woman."

What?! 

We pointed out that it's a romantic comedy. "Oh yeah, don't lose that," the network exec said. "Just add the thriller element."

Stan and I had a lunch of pasta and lots of wine. LOTS of wine. We talked ourselves into trying it. I hated every minute of writing that version.

I hated every minute of writing that version.

We took it back to the network exec. He loved it. However, his boss, who made the final decision, didn't, and the network didn't make it.

We'll never know whether the top guy would have gone ahead with the original if we'd been able to get it to him directly, but I learned a lesson. 

IF IT FAILS, LET IT FAIL FOR THE RIGHT REASON

In the sitcom, naturally I want my characters to be plausible within the world I've created, but the series is about the strangeness of everyday life, as reflected in fantasies and events that, while grounded in the greater reality, are not commonplace everyday events.

Giving the characters the kind of emotional reality that might attach to a single parent struggling to make ends meet would be incompatible with the basic idea of the series.

The series may or may not be any good, but if it fails I want it to fail on its own terms. 

It calls to mind a quote that has been attributed to various people, including Luther Price:

"Be what you is, not what you ain't; 'cause if you ain't what you is, you is what you ain't."

I share this in case it's helpful when you get advice about your writing. 

Ask yourself whether the change would make it a better version of what it is, or would it force it to try to be something it ain't.

If it's the latter, forget it, no matter how much wine you've had.

(Come to think of it, this might be a good practice regardless of what the advice is about.)

 

Beware fake ransomware, and tips for being safer online

Probably you've read about ransomware, malware that encrypts all of the data on your computer, followed by demands for payment to restore your files.

An article in the Guardian estimated that 40% of businesses have been affected by it.

Paying up is no guarantee that you'll actually get your files back and may make you the target of further attacks. Law enforcement has been relatively ineffective in catching the attackers, who often are thousands of miles away.

PANIC!

The other day I thought it was my turn. A window popped up saying that unless I called the phone number in the window, all my data would be destroyed. I wasn't able to close that window nor to close the browser.

FAKE RANSOMEWARE--AND THE SOLUTION

Panic, especially since I thought I was protected by using a program called Bitdefender (which I recommend).

However, before doing anything, I looked up ransomware on my iPad and discovered that in some cases the demand is a fake and the information on the computer has not been affected. It's just a pop-up window and while you can't close it in the normal way, if you use the "force quit" command to close the browser and then open it again but without restoring the tabs you had open, you're back in business.

That, fortunately, is exactly what happened.

I have been using both Safari and Chrome; it seems to me that lately a lot of unwanted material is coming up when I use Chrome. I don't know whether others have had the same experience. 

HACKED TWICE THIS YEAR

My sites have been the target of hackers twice in the past year. The first time, they took over my sites and posted weird images and a "tag" similar to the signage favoured by gangs. I don't think they targeted me specifically, my sites just happened to be among the many they took over.

I changed servers and had an expert increase the security settings, but several of the sites were hacked again, this time by criminals who used them to create home pages that looked like the home pages of banks and credit card companies and tried to get people to give up their banking details. 

I've had the expert install even more security, but it seems that it's difficult, if not impossible, to be totally safe. Such attacks mean the sites are unavailable, and restoring them can be expensive. There's also a feeling of violation not unlike coming home and finding that someone has broken in. 

TIP 1: CHECK THE ORIGIN OF EMAILS

By the way, if you get any emails that might not be genuine, check the full address from which the message was sent. Often a message that supposedly is from your bank turns out to have originated from an address like "odie1barclays." A fake message I got recently about a book not being delivered was from somebody at "Amazn.com".

The more sophisticated con artists are more clever than that, but quite a few depend on us being too busy to make even rudimentary checks.

TIP 2: USE AN ALTERNATIVE BROWSER FOR IMPROVED PRIVACY

If you don't like the idea of your browser tracking your every move, consider DuckDuckGo. Unlike most others, they don't keep a record of your internet activity. You can find out more at DuckDuckGo.com.

TIP 3: DO ONLINE AND OFFLINE BACK-UPS

Of course you should be backing up all of your files, and to be extra secure it makes sense to back up onto the cloud and also onto a storage device. 

External hard drives have become very small and cheap now or you can still back up onto DVDs. However, to be totally safe you'd need to disconnect the drives when not actually backing up. Otherwise, apparently hackers can target connected external drives as well. 

THE NEW REALITY

It seems that whether it's the US presidential election or our modest little websites, the internet is another front that requires us to be alert. I'm not an expert on any of this, just sharing what's happened to me in case you might find something useful in it. If in doubt, do a detailed internet search for fuller information and advice.

 

The danger of focusing on "what if's"

As writers, it's natural for us to focus on "what if's":

• what if nobody wants to buy what we write?
• what if it's not good enough?
• what if I should have been writing that other thing instead?
• what if I don't figure out the ending? 

I'm sure you can think of some more!

Of course sometimes we come up with "what if's" that are more fun: "What if it's a best-seller? What if it makes me a LOT of money? What if it turns out as well as I hope it will?"

If we spend too much time on either (or both) what if's, it can hold us back, according to professors and co-authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans in this video.

 

Millions of dollars...for failing

If you write a book and it flops, wouldn't be great to get paid anyway?

Unfortunately that's not the way it works for authors, but it worked just fine for Ron Boire, the former CEO of floundering book chain Barnes & Noble. 

He was fired in August of this year after less than a year in the post. During his tenure Barnes & Noble failed to thrive, so it's understandable that they wanted to replace him. 

His reward for going away was $4.8 million.

Nice work if you can get it.

Summary books: parasites or time savers?

What do you think about summary books? I've noticed more and more of them popping up on Amazon lately. 

For instance, consider the book, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, by Amy Cuddy, 352 pages, £8.99 in the UK (about $12) and, unusually, more for the Kindle version (£9.99). Its ranking is 2,237 in books.

One summary version is by "Ant Hive Media," 30 pages. The price is £4.89 (about $6). Its ranking is 95,072.

The other is by "Instaread"and says it includes analysis, but still comes in at only 34 pages, for £5.23 for the paperback. Its ranking is 342,857.

I guess summary books could be useful for someone wanting to save time, but I can't help feeling they're feeding on somebody else's the hard. Shouldn't a percentage of the proceeds go to the original author?

 

 

 

 

How much exercise do writers (and other sedentary types) need?

Writers and many other spend much of our days sitting down. We know we need exercise in order to stay healthy, but how much?

Science Daily reports a study from the University of Cambridge that suggests the magic number is 60 minutes of moderate exercise:

"In total, the researchers analysed 16 studies, which included data from more than one million men and women. The team grouped individuals into four quartiles depending on their level of moderate intensity physical activity, ranging from less than 5 minutes per day in the bottom group to over 60 minutes in the top. Moderate intensity exercise was defined as equating to walking at 3.5 miles/hour or cycling at 10 miles/hour, for example.

The researchers found that 60 to 75 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per day were sufficient to eliminate the increased risk of early death associated with sitting for over eight hours per day. However, as many as three out of four people in the study failed to reach this level of daily activity."

The article doesn't reveal how much of the exercise is continuous, as opposed to spread out over the course of the day. For most people, one full hour of exercise may be challenging, but four times fifteen minutes (walking to and from work and shopping, going up and down stairs, as well as using a real or exercise bike, etc.) should be doable. 

 

Samuel Beckett on failing (improved)

If life gives you lemons (improved)

Would you agree to give away your firstborn? (Probably)

A study confirms what we already know: hardly anybody actually reads those lengthy terms and conditions you have to agree to before you can download an app or join a social media or other site. 

Here's how MediaPost summarized the results:

For the study, "The Biggest Lie on the Internet," researchers gave 543 communications undergraduates the opportunity to test "Namedrop," a fictional social networking service.

Participants had to officially agree to the site's terms in order to join, but didn't have to click through to read the 8,000-word privacy policy or 4,300-word terms of service first. The vast majority of undergrads -- 74% -- simply checked a box saying they agreed to the terms without reading them.

The ones who "read" privacy policy and terms of service typically spent less than one minute doing so.

It's alarming, but spending fifteen minutes trying to decipher the fine print doesn't seem very realistic.

Maybe some entrepreneur could create a site on which there's a list of apps and sites and a summary of the terms and conditions and warnings about any suspicious demands. You'd make a micro-payment of ten cents or pence for that report, then you could agree with peace of mind. Entrepreneur, a little thank you of one penny per sale will be sufficient thank you for this idea.

the truth about failing

Some days writing (or life) feels like this...

"LOST IN SPACE" -gif by Geoff Keough (https://dribbble.com/gdk221)

AND OTHER DAYS, LIKE THIS:

JAM - gif by Pedro Piccinini https://dribbble.com/shots/2741806-Jam