I Resolve to Continue
Posted on | December 29, 2011 | 1 Comment
The day in which we choose to celebrate the new year, here in the west, is almost completely arbitrary. There are no actual events in the heavens or on the earth that it commemorates, nothing celestial or secular. It is not an equinox or a solstice. Not the first day of spring or winter. It doesn’t even sit exactly in the middle of any one season, but happens somewhere in the first part of the first third of one of them. No great religious, philosophic or political leader was born on that day, unless you count someone like an important leader. (Okay, there were also some Popes and artists born on that day, but well after we had decided it was the beginning of the new year.) It’s not even the day the swallows come back to Capistrano.
The closest I can come to an explanation of how it was chosen was that it was the Eastern Orthodox Feast of Circumcision. According to the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Christ was circumcised eight days after his birth and named Jesus on that day. This, of course, assumes He was actually born on December 25th, an assumption about which there is much debate among both Christian and secular scholars, since there is very little indication whatsoever in the Bible as to the actual date. Many place it some time in September, when shepherds actually did “abide in the field”, before it got too cold to do so. It also should be noted that, on different calendars, the Feast of Circumcision was celebrated anywhere form what is now January 1st to the what is now January 14th.
That all being said, we do hold the beginning of the new year on January 1st. It has become a symbol of the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, and symbols are important to the existence of societies. We often use this symbolic time to reflect on the previous 365 days and make “resolutions” about what we will change in the upcoming 365. I stopped making these resolutions years ago because 1) they seemed sort of silly and 2) I know of no one in my personal circle of acquaintances who ever kept one much past January 15th.
I do think that taking stock of what has transpired can be a powerful exercise, however, and any time is a good time to do it. In taking stock, it might be effective to see what didn’t work and find ways to do less of that and see what did work, and find ways to do more of that. That is why, this year, I will make a New Year’s Resolution: I resolve to continue what works. The fact the beginning of the new year is sort of stuck in there on a completely inauspicious day in a completely inauspicious time of year might even be a benefit for that kind of resolution. One day just leads from the previous into the next, and I will continue to do what I do to fill my days with the contemplation, tasks and creativity that enhances my life and the lives of those around me.
So, this year, on January 1st, I wish you all a happy and prosperous Feast of Circumcision and may the coming 365 days be filled with joy and productivity.
The Myth of Objectivity
Posted on | October 10, 2011 | No Comments
At the urging of my father, I just read a piece by the late Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompson written in 1994 on the funeral of Richard Nixon. (You can find it HERE.) I think I had seen and read the piece before, but had a fairly strong reaction to it this time.
I have read some Thompson, most notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I doubt that history will much remember him as Thompson describes him. He will probably be considered a flawed, perhaps even tragic – in the classical sense – hero, and has already been compared to some of the tragic heroes of the Greeks and Shakespeare. He died being thought of as the elder statesman who “Brought China to the table”, after all. He will no more be thought of by history as an evil man as Johnson will be and I think there are parallels.
As my father suggested, it was a very well written piece. It was also filled with the personality of the writer, which many think of as simply bad journalism. Even though this is more of an editorial or opinion piece, most of his writing had the same thought process in evidence. It is part of why Thompson was called “Gonzo”. I used to distrust journalism with a personal bias. I naively thought that the solemn duty of the journalist was to stay out of the written work, to just present the facts. Now I distrust any that doesn’t have and admit to it. The bit I missed from “just present the facts” is “as he sees them.”
We can’t write without ourselves being in the piece, it is a physical impossibility, and it is imperative to acknowledge that. It is why any journalism that calls itself “fair and balanced” can’t be. There is always a slant. The slant isn’t necessarily a political one (even in today’s hyper-political climate), but the thoughts, opinions and experience of the writer will always influence the statement of fact in a piece.
We are filtering beings, we humans, we learn of necessity to filter out so we can cope with the amount of input we get in our lives. We learn to do this early and on a very deep, absolutely subconscious level. Sometimes we are aware of the filtering, usually not. But as we grow, make decisions, form opinions, learn about our environment, both close in and widely ranging, these thing contribute to the filtering we do until there is nothing that we can think or even see that hasn’t passed through that filter in some way. It can not be objective because, on a very deep level, we can not.
There is nothing wrong or scary about this. We just need to realize it so that, when we read what others have written or even what we ourselves write, we know that the facts laid out have been sifted through. Filtering, by definition, leaves things behind and when we know this, we can also know that no piece of writing, no statement of fact, no fiction or journalistic effort can be truly objective.
Once we know that, we can form our own opinions based on our own filters.
The Myth of Reasonable Goals
Posted on | September 24, 2011 | No Comments
We’ve heard it all our lives: “Set goals, but set reasonable goals.” The thinking is, if you set illogical goals or outrageous goals and you don’t meet them, you’ll be disappointed and will stop moving forward.
Perhaps if you have been stuck for a very long time and need simply to knock yourself off of dead center, reasonable goals can be powerful. Accomplishing anything in that state will be good for you. In any other circumstance, however, I say that advice is Poppycock!
Set outrageous goals. Set goals that stretch your imagination almost to the breaking point. Set goals that fill you with fear and excitement. Dread and excitement.
When I was younger and perusing my acting career, I took this old advice to heart and set very reasonable, realistic goals. Instead of saying, “I will be on a television show by the end of the summer” I set goals like, “I will send out 10 pictures and resumes this week.” I accomplished those goals with little or not effort. I patted myself on the back, knowing that the industry would swoop down and hire me. How could they not! I’d reached my goals!
Do you think people like Michael J. Fox or Carroll O’Connor set puny little goals like that? Do you think they would have starred on very popular, society changing television shows if they had? I rather doubt it. I stopped trying and blamed it on the industry. Shame on me.
As a writer, don’t be satisfied with “I will write 10 pages this week.” Gone With the Wind, Dune and even Love Story didn’t get written with goals like that. Hamlet certainly didn’t. I suspect that those authors had goals something like, “I will finish a novel by Christmas.” Don’t write the novel to become a New York Times Best Selling author, but by God, have the goal to be a New York Times Best Selling Author. Anything short of that isn’t worthy of you. Aspire to Hamlet.
“But what if I don’t make my goals, Geoff? Won’t I be devastated?”
Perhaps. But if you had a goal of a finished novel by Christmas and only got 3/4 done, that would be a lot more accomplished than if you had a goal of 10 pages a week and finished the first chapter or two. Or worse, given it all up because it was a futile exercise. Shoot for the fucking stars. If you miss the stars, you at least get to see a lot of very cool stuff along the way.
Marianne Williamson said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
Don’t be reasonable. Nothing great was ever accomplished by being reasonable. Don’t set average goals. Nothing great was ever accomplished by being average. Set a goal to be great. Set a goal to stand out. Then set goals that scare the pants off of you. Set goals that engage your imagination. Set goals that will piss off your friends and family.
Then do everything in your power to reach them.
Do Marketing and Art Go Together?
Posted on | May 20, 2011 | 4 Comments
Image via Wikipedia
I recently had a conversation with a friend about 1) how awful marketing and marketers were and 2) how sad it was that artists had to rely on it and them. To be fair, what he really said was that he was concerned that those who promote and market the product of creative artists gain the wealth and those who produce it are cast aside, etc.
I do understand that concern. I understand it both intellectually and viscerally. It is exactly the crux of why Steve I started studying marketing. We control our “product”, and make most of the money from it. We published our novel ourselves and marketed it to be a best seller.
Many artists don’t have the inclination to take the reins like we have been able to (or even the realization that they can), which is why I continue to study marketing and why I support my friends when they are getting the word out about their own passion projects. If more artists would learn what some of the marketers like Pat O’Bryan, Armand Morin, Connie Ragen Green, etc. are teaching, more wonderful art would reach more people.
Far from being anathema to art, I think marketing is vital to art. There are obvious examples. I’m not a huge fan of most of Picasso’s painting, but he was both a master artist and a master marketer. So was Martha Graham, George Gershwin, the Beatles and Leonard Bernstein. The list goes on and on. There are and were artists whose art became known despite an abhorrence of, or, at the very least, a disregard for marketing (Van Gogh comes to mind, and J. D. Salinger) but that seems an exception. How many have we never known because they didn’t make us know them?
Many, if not most artists feel that marketing is somehow beneath them, somehow would cheapen the art itself. I understand this. I lived it for many years. But having no one but my file cabinet and my mother ever see my stories caused me to reexamine that whole notion. It dawned on me that building a better mousetrap (or at least writing a story about one) wasn’t sufficient motivation for the world to beat a path to my door, no matter what Mr. Emerson said. The world had to know the mousetrap existed, first, then that I built or wrote about it, and finally where I lived. And it was my job to let it know all that.
Anything worth being known is worth letting people know about. The best (perhaps the only) way to do that is to market it, which, at it’s basic core, means to bring it to market. Yes, an artist must spend his time and energy developing his art and his craft. He must also either find the time to develop his ability to market that art or find someone who will do it for him and share in the proceeds.
You Do Have Something to Say
Posted on | April 1, 2011 | No Comments
Image by churl via Flickr
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who who said she said she loved writing but didn’t write much because she didn’t think she had anything to say. It is a comment I have heard often and it makes me sad. I take extreme exception to that comment whenever I hear it.
You do have something to say. Everyone does. Everyone has a story. Everyone has several. Everyone has had experiences that would communicate with or intrigue or enlighten or motivate or piss off other people. Any one of those responses (plus a million others I could list if I wanted) are more than valid and more than reason enough to write.
So you haven’t gotten to the point where you have the “answers”, yet, and you know that what people want are the answers. Well, a philosopher once said, “understanding is the booby-prize”. My personal take on that is that the question is much more powerful than the answer. When you are “living in the question”, your life is a journey. If you think you’ve found the answer, you’re journey is at an end. The journey is what is exciting and interesting, not the destination.
So bring people along on your journey. Write about what questions you are examining in your life, about what trials life has set before you to conquer. Write about the lessons you have learned along the way, yes, but also about the new questions that come up as you move forward. Write about the defeats, the triumphs, the confusions, the tentativeness, the certainty that you experience on a day-to-day basis. Write about those moments when what you were certain of suddenly becomes less certain, when it becomes a new question.
Our journeys are what make us human, not the destination. (It could be argued that the ultimate destination is death, so if you’re waiting to write until you “get there”, it may be entirely too late by then.) Our journeys also are what make us interesting. We all love to read about other people’s journeys. We would love to read about yours.
You do have something to write about. When you think you don’t, breathe in, close your eyes for a moment and thank that thought, then open them back up again and start writing. If you can’t think of anything else to write about, write about not having anything to write about. The journey is everything.
Perfectionisists Unite
Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 4 Comments
I mean no irony when I say I am a recovering perfectionist. Anyone who has ever slogged through any of my first drafts (and often second and third drafts) will be surprised to hear that. I have never applied that bit of psychological dogma to spelling, (or housekeeping) but it is, or at least has been, a constant cause of frustration and awe.
I’ve talked a lot about perfection. There is a big difference between the pursuit of perfection and of excellence. You can be excellent in whatever you pursue, but you can’t be perfect. To attempt it is a losing battle, and, if you’ll believe many Native American cultures, an affront to God.
The Perfect Dessert
There are even those who say that perfection is death, that you will only be perfect in the moment of your death, but even that seems a stretch. What if I die in some ignoble way? Hit by a diaper delivery truck, say, or from complications resulting from a hangnail or choking on a Twinkie? I can hear the comments now. “Well, that’s just perfect.”
So how do you avoid the attempt of reaching perfection? Don’t try to do it perfectly. Take it in small steps. As you sit down to describe something tell yourself, “for this time, just for the next five minutes, I have permission to be sloppy”. Give yourself that permission. It will free you up. It will actually feel good. Revel in your sloppiness, your glorious imperfections, as you write. You may even be surprised at what you produce once you’re not so concerned with its perfection. You might also not be surprised, or you might be surprised at how supremely imperfect it actually seems. If you aren’t trying for perfection, this is okay, and you can continue. You stop using perfection as an excuse to not get things done.
Another trick to try is to realize that you will never make the perfect choice. There is never a perfect choice, there is only the one you chose. When confronted with two or more things, just choose. Yes, do your due diligence. Do what ever thought and research and preliminary work you need to, but know that, once the decision has been made, the only correct answer to “Why did you choose that?” is, “Because I did.” It’s not the perfect choice. It is simply the one you made. And that is powerful and freeing.
Yes, I know. I have contradicted this often when writing and directing. I have demanded perfection or as near as was possible from myself and those around me. I will probably do it again. Hey, I’m a human. Nobody’s perfect.
Don’t Wait for Inspiration
Posted on | February 9, 2011 | 2 Comments
Image via Wikipedia
I’ve talked a lot in these posts about what I think inspiration actually is, so I won’t go into that now, but I know a lot of writers (and painters and musicians and even people who have to write for their job!) who feel they have to wait to be inspired before they sit down to work. They wait for that “still, small voice” that will guide them to the keyboard (or easel or instrument) and make them produce their latest work of staggering genius.
Please. Don’t wait to be inspired. First of all, if you are moving through life at a normal modern pace, if that small voice actually does speak to you, chances are you’ll miss it or mistake it for indigestion. But, more seriously, when you sit down to write (or paint or… okay, you get the picture) the inspiration will naturally flow.
The more consistently you do it, the more in the habit you will be of expressing yourself, and the more in the habit you are of expressing yourself the more your subconscious will give you to express. It happens backwards from the way people expect it to. Inspiration doesn’t have you produce, producing “inspires” inspiration.
Be in the habit of writing, every day, or as close to every day as you can, and those flashes of insight will have a vehicle and a way to get your notice. They will trust that you will listen to them and they will show up more and more often. Don’t sit down to write something brilliant. Just sit down to write. The more you do, the more chance there is of something brilliant happening.
So go write!
Steve and I gave a free teleseminar recently
on using writing to increase sales in your business.
Listen to the Replay!
A Tribute to Cat
Posted on | January 29, 2011 | 12 Comments
Today’s post isn’t about writing, it is, rather, something I wrote.
It was almost 20 years ago when a friend said I needed a pet and convinced me to go to the annual radio station sponsored adoption fair at the local pet store. I am a dog person, but was then living in a place much too small for a dog and was home much too infrequently for a dog. I hadn’t really planned on getting a cat, but went to the fair, nonetheless. As I walked through the aisles of insufferably cute puppies and kittens, keeping my heart hardened against all their charms, I passed one cat, alone in her cage. She was past kitten-hood, but not quite adult. She was sleek, elegant, quiet. A slim, white beauty. She stood as I walked by, and watched me.
We went home together. Yes, it seems, I’m easy.
Young Cat
She explored the whole place, her tail straight up in the air behind her like a flag. She investigated every corner, closet, crevice and cupboard. I sat her down and had a long talk with her, explaining that I was a dog person, but would love her as much as possible as long as she tried at least a little bit to be dog like. She learned to fetch, chase her tail and open doors. Of course, after a short while, when she knew she had me, she stopped all that nonsense and remained forever after all cat.
I named her Caitlin, after Dylan Thomas’ wife. I was very aware that Caitlin Thomas usually went by the name Cat, which I found amusing. That’s all we ever called Cat. She was white with a tabby hat and ears, tabby markings on one foot, a tabby tail, a tabby “Hitler” moustache and a small tabby spot on her bum. She was ever the elegant lady. Aloof, quiet, standing in the corner grooming herself, delicately eating her meals in the morning and evening. Nothing like her bustling, bumbling, bull-in-a-Chia-shop owner. She sat with her little feet curled up under her body and her tail wrapped closely around herself. She slept in a small, curled up ball.
I used to watch television with my arms crossed against my chest, and she early decided to climb up and sleep on those crossed arms, a habit she never lost, although the last few years she found it harder and harder to climb up there. At night she slept on my chest if I lay on my back, or on my ribs if I slept on my side. We developed a sort of communication. When I needed to turn in my sleep, I would wake just enough to note where she was, and make sure she move to her new perch as I settled in back to sleep. When I was too restless, she would move to the crook of my bended knees. If I was really restless, she would move to the couch in the living room.
Cat was a huntress and would present me with birds, lizards, mice and rats, sometimes dead, sometimes half eaten, sometimes still alive. The first few mice were lovingly laid at my feet. Then she watched, very puzzled, as I gathered the corpse up in a paper towel and deposited it in the trash bin outside. I could almost hear her shouting, “But I brought that for YOU!”
The live rat took me three days to capture.
She grew out of it, thank goodness, as she got older.
Although she was smooth and elegant, she loved to climb up to my dresser and push things off of it. I tried to persuade her against this habit with little success until the night she got up there and pushed one of my sculptures off, shattering it into tiny, irreparable shards. I was so angry a neighbor had to tell me to shut up. My shouting must have made an impression on her, she never got up there again.
Cat being coy
When she was young, I was gone a lot. I would leave in the morning for work, go to rehearsals or performances after work, then often for a drink or bite to eat after that. Sometimes, I’d be gone all weekend, and would have a neighbor bring her food. The first few times I was gone for more then a day, she would sit on the other side of the room with her back to me upon my return, often glancing over her shoulder to make sure I was noticing that I was being ignored. Then I could almost see her little gears turning as she realized that Dad was gone a lot and when he was there, she spent a lot of time being mad at him. After that, when I came back she would be all over me with affection, until she’d had her fill and could be, again, her aloof self.
She loved being near me while I worked at the computer. Sometimes she would sit on the desk itself. She learned early to avoid the keyboard, a sure way to keep Dad from yelling. Early on, she would jump up and sleep on the monitor, or sit there watching me type like Snoopy being a vulture. Until, of course, I got a flat-screen. The first time she tried to jump up there made me laugh, I have to admit. After that it was either the printer or the top of the CPU, but she was always nearby.
Her favorite toys were my elastic hair bands. She would paw at them and chase them around the living room floor for hours. I have found many of the things under the couch or behind the cabinets or refrigerator on a big cleaning day. (Yes, those are rare.)
When she was young, she was extremely quiet. You could almost not hear her purr and she almost never voiced a meow. As she got older, she began to get progressively more clingy. In her very old age, she found her voice, and would often wail painfully if she thought she couldn’t see me.
She hated riding in a car, but never minded the move from my small guest house to the big house, then the one from there to the apartment. She had some trauma in her later years. I’d always been able to keep fleas to a minimum until she was about 17 or 18 and she became infested, and miserably so. It almost drove her mad. She would try to get away from the torment by climbing to the highest point she could find, the top of the book cases, the refrigerator, cabinets. I tried everything I could think of, sprays, powders, baths, drops, collars and nothing worked until I bought a batch of Frontline Plus. Within two days, she was calm and has never had one of those evil bugs since. I felt so guilty about her almost two years of torment that could have so easily been alleviated.
The last year or so, Cat was in considerable distress. She had become deaf, I think, and if she didn’t see me, she would cry out in a pitiful wail. I would have to go over to her and get into her field of vision and she would jump, give one last whimper, then calm down. She also started to get very finicky in her eating, to the point where she would go days with little or no food. I kept changing brands and she would like something for a while, then reject it, giving me that “You’ve got to be kidding” look after a cursory sniff.
I think her smeller also started to go in the last few months. I would feed her and she’d just stare at the bowl until I physically placed it right under her nose. She would sniff once or twice then realize it was actual food and begin to eat. And her joints started to stiffen. She had to concentrate in order to sit. Being thin with aching joints, she began spending much of her time in front of the furnace.
Cat escaping Steve's clutches
Until we moved to the apartment, she always had access to the outside. In the small house, I kept the bathroom window open and she would jump up there to sun on the little awning just outside it or to prowl around the small property. At the big house, I kept the bedroom sliding door slightly ajar and she would slip out to prowl the back yard. She never went far and I never worried about her. When we moved to the apartment, I kept her in for the most part, as we live right on Washington Boulevard, a major street and quite busy. She would often watch out the screen door or, if I was out on the porch reading, venture out to jump in the grass or curl up at my feet.
A month or so ago she slipped out somehow. She usually spent so much time asleep on top of the CPU under my desk that I didn’t even notice she was gone for some time. I searched everywhere, thinking she may have been trapped in the closet or a cabinet. Then I wondered if she’d gone out when I’d gone to get mail, so I went around the neighborhood with no luck. I opened the door and kept it open, sleeping on the couch in case someone besides Cat decided to come in. At around three in the morning, I woke to see a tail go by the end of the couch. It was, of course, Cat. I closed the door and went to bed. She had never been gone that long.
A few weeks ago, on January 13th, I left the door open for some reason. Again, a few hours later, I noticed that Cat was gone and searched everywhere, inside and out. That night, I again slept on the couch with the door open. I did that for three or four nights, and asked all the neighbors to keep an eye out for her. She never came home.
After it became clear that she wasn’t coming back, I felt awful that I couldn’t be there to cradle her in her last moments.
This may sound odd and unnecessarily romantic, but I think we had some slight psychic bond. I had known for some time that Cat was on the way out, “Shutting down” as my writing partner Steve put it. That afternoon I have a dim memory of thinking “I wonder if Cat wants to go outside.” Perhaps she was telling me to let her out. Perhaps she needed to find a quiet space where she could die alone. I’ve heard of animals doing that, going out to die alone. I only sort of remember actually opening the screen door an leaving it ajar.
I had several very bad days filled with tears. For a week or so, getting anything done felt like moving through cold molasses and took a huge act of will. It has been over two weeks, now, and I fear she has, indeed, gone, although I do keep a small thought that she simply found another home with good food and a nice warm furnace to curl up in front of to sooth her aching hips. I still expect to see her on top of the CPU under the desk, or on the couch or my chair when I need to sit there, but sadly, those thoughts are already fading. For days, I kept thinking I saw her in the corner of my eye. I haven’t for the last week.
I miss her, though. I miss the comfort and companionship. I miss the play, although she didn’t play often, she was much too serious for anything quite so frivolous. I miss her warmth. I even miss some of the more annoying things like waking me up at seven in the morning when I wanted to sleep in. After some twenty years together, she had become a part of me.
The Death of Books, Newspapers, Apple Pie and Everything?
Posted on | January 14, 2011 | 2 Comments
Image by goXunuReviews via Flickr
Everyone is talking about the death of books and of traditional publishing and publishers. We watched newspapers struggle in the wake of information readily available on the Internet, now we’re seeing publishing houses scramble in the wake of Amazon’s print-on-demand and Author’s Centers services, etc.
I had a conversation about this with a friend of mine and thought I’d share some of what we discussed with you. My friend had been in the newspaper biz and lost his job, perhaps because of the downsizing of his paper, perhaps for other reasons, and the whole thought of the possible disappearance of major publishers startles him.
I have been saddened by the diminishing of so many newspapers, especially in the area of arts coverage. One of the reasons I started one of my sites, a theatre review site, was because the LA Times had stopped reviewing small theatre in LA and the small theatres were dying. But being sad about it is one thing. I also realize that I get most of my news from the Internet. As in all the other disciplines, there are papers that are thriving because they’ve embraced the new way of disseminating information rather than resisting it.
I actually can’t imagine big-time publishers all going away. The ones who don’t embrace the new way of things may go, but I personally would love to have a huge house behind me who believes in me and pushes my stuff. I am also enough of a realist (that has come late in my life, unfortunately) to know that, unless I’m Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, (or even Joe Vitale) even if they do publish me, I will have to do all the work to get the word out. (Steve and I did that with our first book, and got to #10 on Barnes & Noble!)
I don’t think Amazon, or any of the other such on-line services, are trying to do away with the big publishers. It would be suicide for them. What they are doing is slowly and methodically creating ways for writers to take control of their own work. Even if that work is published by one of the big guys. This, as far as I can see, is a very good thing. I haven’t yet opened my Author Central account, but I’m looking into it, and if we can get our last book reignited a bit there before we put out the next volume, all’s well in Geoff-and-Steve-land.
And I really don’t think physical books are going away. I personally love them too much. I have walls of books in almost every room in my house. I can’t see a wall of Kindles. Wouldn’t have the same effect at all.
The old ways of doing things will have to adjust to the new, that’s all. It happened to music (is still happening to music!) and the labels are finally catching up. It is also happening to movies. Again, I don’t think most of the labels or the studios will go away, but the model will have to change for them, too. I personally resisted the whole eBook thing, but I’ve published a few of my own (not yet on Amazon, but that’s coming soon) and I don’t own a Kindle because I love the look and feel and heft and smell of a real book. But I’d be an idiot if I didn’t have my next novel available ALSO (not exclusively) on Kindle.
Digital delivery isn’t killing books any more than photography killed paintings or television killed movies or radio killed records or MTV killed radio or Disco killed music. It all just evolves.
You’ve Got to Read
Posted on | January 9, 2011 | 1 Comment
Image by Penarc via Wikipedia
I was staying at my mother’s cabin in Idaho while working on the first draft of one of my novels, Guardian Mosaic. (No, it’s not out, yet. Hopefully this year.) I was also doing a lot of reading, plowing through Orson Scott Card’s massive five volume Homecoming Saga
In fact, I think that any writer should read. They should read as much and as often as is physically possible. The easy thing to say would be you need it for the study of your craft, but I think it’s not that at all. If you read with a mind toward “what is this person doing? How is this writer achieving his desired impact?” you lose the joy of the thing. Instead, I say, read to fill your imagination, your subconscious, your muse if you will, with possibilities. Read to ingest the craft of others, not to study it. Read for the pleasure of it, and for what it can teach you. That last may sound like a contradiction, but I don’t mean what it can teach you about writing, I mean what it can teach you about life and humanity and good and evil and history and anything else that’s worth knowing.
And don’t just read in the vein of what you write. A fiction writer should read fiction, but also books on persuasion and on copy writing. Read a Dan Kennedy book, for instance. Business writers should read science fiction books. Academic writers should read romances. Copy writers should read Dan Kennedy, but should also read murder mysteries and historical fiction. Everything you write should tell a story, somehow, and the more types of story-telling you have acquainted yourself with, the more styles you have delved into, the more genres and types of books you have let wash over you, the more you will instinctively know how to communicate what you desire to communicate.
Read. Your writing will thank you for it.
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