Capture the Moment

I'm on a road trip and covered more than 600 miles yesterday. New images presented themselves moment by moment, but most of them escaped me. They were lost because I generalized their uniqueness away. This roadside rest is just like the last one; all McDonalds are alike. No big deal. Closer observation, however, reveals the truth: each situation is filled with the potential for fresh, odd or unusual insights or images.

About 200 miles into my trip, I made a Starbucks/bathroom break. When I came out of the restroom and headed to the counter, I saw a woman bent over to pick up newspaper from a low shelf.

“Wow, look at the size of her ass,” I thought. As she stood up, I read the message on the back of her T-shirt: “I finished the 32-ounce steak challenge at the Two-Notch Steak House.” Now there is truth in advertising.

I delight in tucking away such moments in my writer's journal. I don’t know when or how I will use that image, but trust me, I will.

Are You Going to Finish That?

Frederick Pohl, the 90-year-old science fiction writer and editor, wrote under a dozen pen names in addition to his own name. He authored more than 30 science fiction novels, five non-fiction books, and countless short stories, articles and essays. He was Isaac Asimov's literary agent and lifelong friend.

He won both the Hugo and Nebula awards (the major, annual awards for the science fiction genre) and edited both Galaxy and If magazines. Obviously, Pohl knows a few things about writing and publishing.

Pohl offers three rules for anyone who wishes to write.

1. Write every day. Yes, that means that you must write 365 days a year. No excuses.

2. Write 600 words a day. If it takes you 45 minutes, fine. You are done for the day. If it takes you 18 hours, fine. That's how long your writing required that day.

3. Finish every piece you start. That way, you never fail as a writer since a writer's only real failure is the abandoned piece.

A finished story, book or article may or may not find a publisher. As such, it may become a disappointment, but it can never be a failure. You completed the piece, and that is its own success.

To Publish or Not to Publish

As a writer your options are endless. Too often, we fixate on the goal of finding a commercial publisher for our work. Your goals may dovetail nicely with those of a commercial publisher. When that’s true, traditional publishing is an ideal way to get your work out into the world. In other situations, different approaches will serve your interests and goals better.

Some writers write for themselves only. A person who keeps a journal or diary may not want to share their work with anyone else. A journal is a good place to solve problems privately. If you keep a work diary, you may use it to figure out how to improve your performance. This is not something you would want to publish. As a potter, I keep an artist’s notebook overflowing with sketches, drawings, glaze formulas and reminders about firing particular kilns. As valuable as this notebook is to me, there is no reason I would want to publish it.

Some writers have a small personal audience for their work. A family history or a collection of personal essays fits this category. This kind of writing benefits your family and friends but may not have a larger audience. A private printing of 100 or fewer copies using a print-on-demand service or a short-run book printer makes sense in such cases. Personally, I find this type of writing and publishing very satisfying.

If you work as a teacher, workshop leader or consultant, you may write materials to support your work. It may make sense to print and market these materials yourself. If your professional activities bring you into contact with a large number of people who could benefit from you writings, you may want publish your work on a larger scale.

If you sell a large number of books on your own, you may attract the attention of a commercial publisher. Alternatively, you may wish to become of commercial publisher yourself. In either case, you have increased the visibility and profitability of your writing.

Not Waiting for the Muse

The romantic approach to writing suggests that you need inspiration to do good work. Some ancient writers thought the gods inspired their work, and they picked a a name for the god of creative inspiration -- Muse. When the Muse visited, an artist’s creativity was unleashed and great works of art sprang forth almost unbidden. When the Muse refused to visit, creative efforts bore no fruit. These notions persist among some writers even today. If they do not feel inspired, they do not make an effort to create. They seem to think that there is no solution for the problem but to wait for the arrival of the Muse.

I'm not a believer in the Muse. True, some writers are more inspired than others, and many writer has unexplained bursts of creativity and productivity. However, a writer hoping to develop a career cannot wait for the arrival of a favorable mood to do the work that needs doing.

A professional is someone who performs well even when he or she doesn’t feel like working. The most prolific writers work under all kinds of conditions and in all kinds of moods. The quality or quantity of the work may not be universally high, but the output is there.

Set yourself a writing schedule or quota and to stick to it. You should schedule either a certain number of hours of work a day (or week) or a certain number of words. Goals increase output in almost every arena, and it certainly works with writing. Admittedly, this is a bootcamp approach to writing, but if you follow this advice, you will write more poems, articles and books than you would depending on the Muse.

The Right to Write

You have a right to write. You need no one’s permission to put words on a page. You need no one’s permission to put print your words and bind them into a book between beautiful hard covers. If the read the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, you can see that this is one of the rights guaranteed by the most powerful government on earth.

Yet many of us don’t feel worthy to write. This is a hangover from ancient times when the only writers were priests or government officials. Since writing was most often the work of priests, writing and books were sacred. Only the elite could read or write.

Later, the high cost of printing limited the ability of most people to see their words in print. Under these conditions, publishers printed only two types of writing: 1) government or church documents, and 2) books that that would sell a very large number of copies. Again, the elite - the economic elite in this case - controlled access to printing and publication.

In the 21st century, reading, writing and publishing are democratic freedoms. A person can use a computer with Internet access in a public library to publish a blog that may attract thousands upon thousands of readers. The cost of publishing such a blog is essentially zero.

So, feel free. Writing is your perfect right.

The Knickerbocker Rule

I am endlessly curious about the work habits of other writers, and I suspect that you are as well. We hope to discover the magic of writing effortlessly and eloquently. Seeking the hidden key to writing success, we want to know when, where and how the renowned writer works. How many days a week or hours a day does she write?

Do the anointed ones write long-hand, use a typewriter or compose at a keyboard? Perhaps, just perhaps, we could forge our own success by emulating them. If Marcel Proust could get Remembrance of Things Past from the taste of madeleines, maybe we should have a nibble ourselves. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., claimed that he needed a "carton of Pall Malls and a fit of coughing" to undertake a significant writing project. I think I'll pass on that approach.

The truth, however, is that writers share little in common in terms of work habits. Well, maybe there is one: The Knickerbocker Rule. Richard Rhodes reported that his former boss, Conrad Knickerbocker, used to say, "Rhodes, you apply ass to chair."

Where the Profits Are

The more specialized and narrowly focused a book, the fewer readers it will attract. The small market for most books dismays writers. However, falling publishing costs create profit opportunities from ever smaller print runs. The emergence of digital books and print-on-demand books promises profits from every book sold. That’s a promise that will be hard to keep, but the trend line is not in doubt.

Mass marketing counts on hits. In the movie business, studios need to sell millions and millions of tickets to make a profit from a big-budget Hollywood movie. With high production and marketing costs, studios lose money on anything but the biggest box office hits.

Niche marketing works on a different logic. If you can keep production and marketing costs low, you can earn a profit from much lower sales volumes. It takes a smaller budget to reach a well-defined target market, and the Internet makes it less expensive to find your niche. If you reduce production costs proportionately, profits show up at a much lower sales volume.

Internet marketing gurus call this selling to the long tail of the distribution. Without getting into the statistics, let’s say that you can do very well by selling less of more. Each item produces relatively few sales, but you make up for this by offering your customers a very large number of different items for sale. Books, particularly digital books, fit this model very well. The inventory carrying cost for a digital book is minimal. Therefore, sales of a modest number of copies per year turn a profit.