Blogging is Such Sweet Sorrow

Tomorrow night I’m having dinner with a local author to provide her a little insight on the world of blogging and social media. Her latest memoir is coming out this summer and her publisher wants her to have a “social media platform.” She’s never blogged, never made a friend on Facebook, never read a tweet. What is she to do?

navigating the waters of social media can be rough (all photos taken yesterday with my Evo at Great Falls National Park in Virginia)

I thought of calling this post “To Blog or Not to Blog” but that Bard quote has been remixed so many times, and frankly, I thought the one above was pretty apropos. Because blogging — and all social media outreach — is sweet sorrow. It can be invigorating and it can be stultifying. It can help a writer — or a musician, or a painter, or an actor — develop her skills and grow an audience, and it can consume her time and creative energy.

I also know this is a topic of some interest to my readers. Last week I tweeted, and then included in my Creativity Tweets of the Week, a post by author Justine Musk on whether blogging for writers is a waste of time, and that prompted a lot of conversation with some of my fellow tweeps and bloggers. I plan to provide my friend that nugget of wisdom, and others (like this one and this one) to my friend, with my own observations in addition.

Let me note that while I only launched this blog in October of last year, I have been blogging regularly on various blogs since 2004, and as a former editor reminded me the other day, from 1994 to 1996 I posted short humor pieces weekly to a web site I had launched, long before the term “blog” entered the lexicon. (Now I feel tired.)

blogging is easier than what this guy's doing, however (and far less dangerous)

When I dine with my writer friend tomorrow night, I’m going to focus on blogging. She’s a writer, does daily pages, has written books and essays; I think it’s a bit easier for her to imagine writing for a blog than engaging in Facebook or Twitter. But I agree with Justine Musk’s description of these services as “microblogging,” and the lessons below apply across all social media use. So here’s my dinner presentation:

1. Don’t blog if your heart isn’t into it. If you find after a few months of work that you’d rather carry Andy Dick’s love child than write another post, follow your heart (and stop blogging, but don’t hook up with Andy Dick). Last fall I spoke at the Future of Music Conference, and a musician panelist there said she was on Facebook because her record label made her. She had a few thousand “friends,” but she hated it. Hated having to post updates. Hated having to respond to fans’ comments. Hated spending time on the site instead of writing music. The audience was made up mostly of musicians who live and breathe social media, and they began beating the stuffing out of her in real time via Twitter on the conference’s hashtag. But I thought “No, she needs to get off Facebook now. Her fans will recognize if she isn’t willing to be ‘friends’ with them. She should focus on her music and l eave social media to those who can produce value from it.”
2. Provide value to your readers. This point was articulated clearly by savvy bloggers at the recent AWP Conference. If you keep blogging about you, your book, your cat, your book, your husband, and oh yeah, your book, people aren’t going to come back. My friend Colleen Doran — who I met on my road trip across the U.S. interviewing creatives — gets huge traffic to her blog, so much it’s actually created an ancillary revenue stream for her through ads and donations. Colleen, a comic book illustrator and author, offers a lot of value. Every day she posts a new story-and-illustration page from her past work. She also writes short, humorous posts. Some offer advice, others links to interesting resources or odd stories, still others a contest. Now Colleen puts a lot of time into this blog, but she lives alone on a farm and works twenty hours a day. We can’t all be Colleen.
3. Engage in conversation with your readers. Our 2.0 world is about conversation. When I blogged on public policy issues, many commenters who disagreed with my posts would ruthlessly attack me, generally preferring name-calling to substantive debate. It helped lead me to start an online campaign, iCivility, to promote civil discourse, and made me not want to engage in 2.0 conversation. But the people who visit creatives’ blogs are fantastic. They are smart, engaging, friendly, supportive. So engage with them, but in an egalitarian way. You’ll find enjoyment, learn things, and build a network of support.
4. Avoid the hard sell. A blog is a great way to let folks know of new developments in your writing — a contract, a publication date, a reading, a book-signing. But if you keep pounding your book over visitors’ heads with post after post of excerpts or promotional quotes, they won’t come back. It’s only the SuperBowl where some watch just for the commercials. But an engaging blog with a responsive author — #2 and #3 above — can lead to book reviews, guest blog invites, speaking engagements, professional opportunities, and, yes, new readers. I discovered a great blog via Twitter — Rebecca Rasmussen’s The Bird Sisters — and I now retweet many of Rebecca’s tweets and blog posts. Why? Because she has insightful posts on issues I’m interested in — writing and art — and they are of interest to my Twitter followers as well. I’m now enthralled enough with Rebecca’s writing that I plan to read her first novel, The Bird Sisters, when it comes out April 12th, even though it’s not the genre I usually read.
5. Manage your time. Oh my, do I need to remind myself of this. A lot. If I’ve learned anything after nearly eight years of blogging, it’s that it’s easy to fall down the blog rabbit hole and lose sight of your other work. After all, blogging is like an illicit drug in that you get an immediate high when you hit “publish” and then a follow-up rush every time you get a new comment. There are very few parts of a creative’s professional life that offer that kind of instant response. But a creative needs time to create, and do the other things necessary to propel his career. One example I could cite is author Erin Ergenbright, who when I visited her on my road trip was going through a creative awakening, which she linked to a brief hiatus from the online world. She had decided to foster her creativity by consciously limiting her time on her web site, on Facebook and in her email inbox.

once you learn how to navigate social media, the waters become far calmer (and metaphors cheesier)

Again, everything I’ve written here about blogging applies equally to microblogging social-media tools. I hope my thoughts are of value to my friend, but I know they will be very familiar to many of you.

So I’d love to hear your wisdom. Will blogging lead to a “winter of her discontent,” or is it “such stuff as dreams are made on”? Is there “method in the madness” of social media, or just a bunch of “pomp and circumstance”? Please share, and feel free to avoid the rather shopworn approach of appropriating Shakespeare to make your point.

Creativity Tweets of the Week 02/25/11

The winds of change are sweeping through the Middle East. That wind dissipates on the shore of The Artist’s Road, however. Our Friday tradition of providing a roundup of our best weekly tweets on creativity, inspiration and writing long predates the reigns of here-today/gone-tomorrow despots named Mubarak or Gadhafi (or Gaddafi or Khadafi or Qaddafi or any other multi-point winner in a game of Scrabble in which the proper noun rule is waived). To all of you protesters gathering outside the Road’s Alexandria, VA, compound, we say “Pound sand! It’s another Creativity Tweets of the Week!”

CREATIVITY

“Nine Ways of Being for Amplified Creativity,” Gregg Fraley, creativity and innovation: I come across a lot of lists on this topic, but Gregg’s has a bit of variety, including #7, “Don’t compare yourself to others.”

Your blogger wanders the forbidding sand dunes at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area -- is that an oasis up ahead?

“Brian Eno’s Creative Intelligence,”  Orna Ross: The key takeaway from the English musician and record producer (including seven albums by U2) is to never lock yourself into one answer; embrace improvisation.

“there is no script — improvisation and creative living,”  Amanda Hirsch, guest post on ScoutieGirl: I think Brian Eno (above) would like this post.

“Creativity can hinder the corporate climb,”  Knowledge@Wharton: I frequently tweet and post links here on how to foster creativity in the workplace. Maybe I shouldn’t. A new study has this disturbing finding: “Those individuals who expressed more creative ideas were viewed as having less, not more, leadership potential.” Creatives, you have another challenge in front of you.

INSPIRATION

“How Your Tolerance for Risk Impacts Your Potential for Success,”  Srinirao, The Skool of Life: There is of course a difference between calculated risk and placing your mortgage on a roulette table’s #36. But here’s a key point from this post: “Your tolerance for risk will  have a profound impact on how far you can push the limits of what’s possible in your life.”

“How to: Have a Work/Life Balance,”  Melanie Spring, Sisarina: No blog post can really deliver what that headline promises, but this contains some useful suggestions on how to structure your work (the focus is nonprofit executives but the lessons are universal). This issue of balance was on my mind this week — I had to miss a DC TweetUp Melanie organized Wednesday night because of a previous commitment to my kids.

WRITING

“should you be blogging to help your writing career (or is it a big waste of time)?“  Justine Lee Musk, Tribal Writer: A critical question, with a different answer for every writer. Timely for me, because I’m working now to develop a social media strategy for an author who has a memoir coming out in August and is being pressured to start a blog. My bottom line? If you can do it well, then absolutely do it, but own that commitment to quality and value.

It is an oasis! (Of course, the blogger's rental car is only a hundred or so yards away in the parking lot.)

“Getting Your Work Out In the World: The Mechanics,”  Charlotte Rains Dixon, WordStrumpet: Five great suggestions on how to be a professional when submitting your work. Her #3, “follow directions,” is gold; I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard agents and editors share anecdotes of, say, the romance novelist who queries an agent whose website says “no romance novels.”

“I will not apologize for being a prose writer first,”  Tamara Kaye Sellman, Writer’s Rainbow: Was Tamara guilty of treachery when she put aside poetry to focus on her prose? Some poets thought so.

“10 Signs of a Typical Writer’s Day,”  Elspeth Antonelli, It’s a Mystery: This humorous post will ring true to any writer, and it also features cold coffee and unforgiving pets.

Did you notice a recurring theme in this week’s list? Some of the blog-post headlines were apparently ghostwritten by capitalization hater e.e. cummings. Glad to see the late poet is getting some work.

Write There: Style is Not a Mystery

Today we’re featuring a guest post from Milli Thornton, writing coach and author of “Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers” (a copy of which is on my bookshelf ).

There are oodles of books and courses out there designed to help writers with style and voice. But sometimes trying to learn these things from an expert can be counter-intuitive.

Part of your style means doing it the way that feels good to you.

Sounds simplistic, right? But often the simple lessons in life are the ones we need to keep relearning.

If you have total acceptance for your own style, you might not even remember what it felt like to not know. But if you’re still wondering what your own style is, consider this: it might be right there (write there!) under your nose in black and white.

Style = The School of Learning

Recognizing your own personal style is not about being formulaic or resting on your laurels. As writers, we should always be seeking to learn more about our craft. The school of learning is never closed!

Recognizing your own personal style is about realizing you already know how to express your creativity in your own unique way.

Gaining more experience by practicing your craft (write, write, write), or learning the how-to’s (by attending writing workshops or studying books written by the experts) is simply the vehicle.

YOU are the driver. And, deep down inside, you know what you came here to do. The trick is to be able to recognize it.

OK, here’s the practical part. Open one of your writing notebooks—or that “My Writing” folder on your computer—and take a trip down memory lane. Read a selection of your writing, both recent and older.

As you read, pay attention to any recurring themes you might notice. Especially be on the lookout for things you’re uncertain (or ashamed) of that may actually be part of your own unique style.

Style’s All About Doing

Style is about more than just figuring out which genre(s) you feel most comfortable in. It’s about the DOING part, too.

Experiment. Mix it up. Try new things. Try things you think you won’t even be good at. That’s how I discovered I wanted to be a screenwriter. I held a belief that screenwriting was only for certain kinds of writers, and that I lacked any natural aptitude for it—but when I tried it I fell in love.

Doing is also where your platform comes in.

For instance, do you have a driving need to get your message out NOW? Perhaps online articles are the way to go for you . . . rather than the much longer process of having a book published (and one can lead to another, if you remain open to the possibilities).

Or you might have the makings of a renegade non-fiction author who self-publishes and then gets her book out to the people in a workshop setting. (Take it from me, it can be done—even if you’re very shy.)

You may just want to write for your own pleasure, or leave a legacy for your grandkids. Nobody says you have to compete with the levels of sophistication that the media and the Internet present as the ultimate.

Look at your writing with the eyes of acceptance. What feels the most right for you? And, just as importantly, what doesn’t feel right for you?

P.S. Don’t wait for the world to believe in you. Believe in yourself first. It’s faster and more efficient.

Milli Thornton is the author of Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers. She is owner of the Fear of Writing Online Course, where her mission is to put the fun back into writing. Milli blogs at the Fear of Writing Blog, and coaches writers individually at Writer’s Muse Coaching Service.

Creatives With Multiple Talents

Comedian Patton Oswalt is skilled. Through years of effort he has risen to the heights of his profession, playing roles in numerous films, having his own TV specials, selling out theaters. But his childhood dream was not comedy — he wanted to be a novelist, and even attempted to write two post-apocalyptic novels as a teenager.

He started doing stand-up as a young man in D.C. as a way to flex his writing muscles. But that eventually changed, he writes in his new book Zombie Spaceship Wasteland:

Once I started doing stand-up comedy, I couldn’t get enough. The idea of writing a book, becoming a journalist and then, hopefully, a novelist, couldn’t withstand my sudden ambition to craft a perfect dick joke. Five thousand words a day seemed silly when I could bring a room full of drunks together with fifteen perfectly chosen words.

Of course, as I’m reading this book I’m thinking to myself, “Ah, but you are a writer, Patton. I’m reading a book by you right now, and it’s brilliant.” And it is. Taking the growing genre of memoir in new directions, this book of essays has standard reflections on childhood (mostly high school), but also includes a short graphic novel-style piece about two vampires, a sampling of disturbing greeting cards, and an epic poem to an orc warrior. It also contains a moving recollection from his childhood, where his good friend is suffering because the friend’s father is having an affair with a neighbor, but the narrator (the young Patton) is unaware.

It doesn’t seem fair, we often say, when we discover that someone so talented in one area is also a master of another. For me, it’s bad enough that George Clooney is so gorgeous he’d probably be able to persuade me to switch teams if he wanted (my wife knows of my man-crush, no worries), but it turns out he’s also a skilled actor, director, screenwriter and producer. Creativity expert Douglas Eby wrote about this phenomenon recently, and linked to an article he wrote about another multi-talented Hollywood star, Amber Benson of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame.

Your blog writer's high school in Glendale, Arizona, where in contemplating his future his dilemma was less "multipotentiality" and more "multiconfusion"

Eby notes K-12 educations specialist Tamara Fisher calls this phenomenon “multipotentiality.” It’s an issue for educators, particularly guidance counselors, as the multi-talented student wonders what to pursue professionally. I love and excel at calculus, Greek philosophy and English literature, Ms. Fisher. What now?

Creatives and those who frequent creative communities will not find multipotentiality unusual. In fact, it might seem so common they’ll wonder why there’s a word for it.

Recently I met two students in a low-residency MFA in Writing program who are about to graduate. They told me about a talent show their class held at their last on-campus residency. One of them said he had performed on the violin. The other told me he has acting experience but didn’t want to do a one-man show, so he performed magic tricks. I said it was interesting that all of these writing students had another talent they could perform. The violin player looked at me as if I had just expressed bafflement that an orange was the color orange. “All creative people have multiple talents, don’t they?”

They do, scientists tell us, even if they don’t realize it. After all, if you’ve never picked up a musical instrument, you may not realize you have a predisposition to excel at it. But the creative brain knows how to both master a skill and think in ways others would find counter-intuitive to breathe new life into that skill.

This is useful to society far beyond the arts. One obsession of mine is the so-called “Theory of Everything,” in which scientists hope to find answers to the mysteries of the universe and thus improve society in unimaginable ways. I devour books written by scientists about the cross-disciplinary work of researchers looking for commonalities in the universe, such as the fact that the way birds form flight patterns echoes the way neutrinos travel and the way a jaguar’s muscles flex in full pursuit of prey. I usually have to start skimming at some point because my scientific education is lacking and they lose me in jargon, but just as I can find delight in reading a comedian write beautiful prose, I can enjoy reading a physicist exploring anatomy.

Guidance counselors are expected to find a student’s “path” and set him or her down that path. But as Oswalt’s book shows, one should never mentally close off other paths.

Do you have a personal experience with the “dilemma” of multipotentiality? Have you observed it in your family, in your social circle, in yourself? I’d love to hear from you.

Creativity Tweets of the Week — 02/18/11

Better late than never, right? So here’s my Valentine’s Day gift to you, my latest round-up of great links on creativity, inspiration, art, and writing — the Creativity Tweets of the Week! (I’m sorry, the flower store was done sold out, holiday rush, you know.) Below enjoy 18 great resources, some of the links I sent out this week via Twitter.

The author showing his love for his blog readers - photo taken by his son in spring 2010 in San Fransisco's Union Square

CREATIVITY

• “15 Foundations for Facilitating Creativity at Work,” Michelle James, The Fertile Unknown: Learn from the incomparable Michelle how to foster creativity in your workplace. I like #4, “Fail gracefully.” I’ve got plenty of experience with the first part, still working on the second part.
• “Is Creativity the Number 1 Skill for 21st Century?” Mark Batey, Phd, Psychology Today:  My short answer, as someone who blogs under the handle @on_creativity? YES! (And I suspect Michelle, above, agrees.) Enjoy Dr. Batey’s far more scientific verdict on the subject.
• “Fertilize Confusion to Thrive During Creative & Life Challenges,” Jeffrey Davis, Psychology Today: I love to tweet Jeffrey’s insightful posts. The takeaway of this post is “confusion can be converted into creative innovation and personal break-through.” You can also hear Jeffrey interviewed on this subject by creative coach Tara Sophia Mohr on February 23rd.
• “Getting in the Mood to Create,” Lisa Riley, The Art of Mind: One key takeaway — break up your isolation by spending time around other creatives. I need to do this more. (On that note, if any DC-area writers are reading this, I’m looking to form or join a writer’s group, contact me if interested!)
• “How Can You Manage Creativity?” Dr. Chris E. Stout, HR Resource: As with Michelle’s tips above, strategies to bring out the creativity in your employees.
• “Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Score High in Creativity,” U. of Michigan, via R&D blog: I found this fascinating because my teenage daughter has ADD, and is a fantastic visual artist and budding creative writer. I would think the H in ADHD would make sitting still long enough to produce creative works challenging, however.

INSPIRATION

• “5 Tips for Squashing Self-Doubt Demons,” Tawna Fenske, Don’t Pet Me I’m Writing: The first point is critical — recognize toxic thoughts — but I probably could have done without the simile of crushing a sheep’s testicle.
• “8 Essential Steps for Starting Your Freelance Biz,” Lexi Rodrigo, Freelance Folder: She had me at #1: “Know yourself.”
  

ART

• “Why Does Art Cost So Much? Part Three — The Price of Presentation,” Amy Buchheit, Fantastic Voyage: All three parts of this series are important for artists and lovers of art, and it’s written by one of the fascinating creatives I interviewed on my U.S. cross-country road trip. Go Amy!
• “Fish Stew and the Self-Taught Artist,” Keith Bond, Fine Art Views:  A great post about how teachers can offer guidance and wisdom, they can also direct students down their own personal creative paths. Ultimately, we’re all self-taught artists.
  

WRITING

• “11 Tips to Help Make Writing Easier,” Becki Sams, The Writer’s Blog: Along with having perhaps the most descriptive blog name in the blogosphere, Becki offers writers lots of tips. See also “How to Use Your Blog to Market Your Writing.”
• 

  Another Union Square heart photo, this one taken on the same trip by the author's daughter, who did not want her dad in the picture

  “The Answer to Your Burning Question: ‘How Do I Make a Living as a Writer?‘ Carol Tice, guest blog on Courage to Create: Warning: You’re not going to find every answer you need here, but if it were possible to do that, Carol wouldn’t have anything to write about on her blog, titled, appropriately, “Make a Living Writing.” Lots of good lessons in this post, though, namely how you must overcome your fear. (I know that fear well now as a newly launched full-time freelancer, even though I’ve been writing professionally for more than twenty years.)

• “Cheap Therapy,” Milli Thornton, Fear of Writing: Talk aloud with your muse (and I’d add, let family members know you’re not going crazy).
• “8 Signs Your Writing is Stuck in a Rut — and Why,” K. M. Weiland, Wordplay: As a daily reporter this wasn’t an issue for me; I had to file something, even if it was the equivalent of the gum on the bottom of my shoe, and move on. But as a creative writer I get this problem, and welcome solutions.
• “Charles Dickens — Three Principles of Writing,” Jamie Grove, How Not to Write: Learn from the author of “A Tale of Two Cities,” who decries idiots believing that writing is as easy as making pancakes.
• “Becoming A Writer,” Orna Ross: She gives it to you straight — why are you so obsessed with getting an agent and getting published when you haven’t even done a few laps actually writing?
• “Patience,” Vahini Naidoo, Let the Words Flow: I put this directly below Orna’s link on purpose, as it’s a perfect complement.
• “Yearly Wrap-Ups (of AWP Washington 2011),” Caleb J. Ross, AWP blog: Were you unable to attend this national conference for writers and writing instructors but wish you had? Did you attend and realize that you couldn’t come close to experiencing everything it had to offer, like I did? Caleb’s collection of blog posts by AWP attendees is for you.

One tip I learned at AWP is that if you’re querying a publication pitching an article, make it a list article, i.e., “9 Ways to Dress Your Dog.” Five of today’s links follow that pattern, which I think works when encouraging click-throughs and retweets as well. Perhaps I should have named this blog post “18 Ways to Kick-Start Your Creativity.” Oh well, live and learn.

Scott Turow and the Theft of Creativity

“If the piracy of intellectual property is allowed to continue to grow… we will not hear new voices, authors in mid-career will be stalled, and our cultural conversation will become stifled.”

So said bestselling author Scott Turow in testimony this morning before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. (His written testimony is here.) I went to the hearing to learn how Congress plans to target the proliferation of offshore web sites profiting from the illegal access to creative works, from Mr. Turow’s novels to music, movies, video games, photographs and any other creative work that can be converted into ones and zeroes. My visit came a few days after a trip to see the original U.S. Constitution, but I’ll save that anecdote for the end of this post.

U.S. Capitol courtesy of U.S. Library of Congress

How are these criminal web sites in China, Russia, Belarus and other countries making money? As Mr. Turow and others noted, they are facilitated by legitimate companies — Internet service providers, domain name registrars and registers, online ad brokers, financial transaction firms, and search engines — conducting business with them.

Mr. Turow, himself a practicing attorney and former federal prosecutor, shared an experience with his latest novel, Innocent. Within the first week of publication, he said, he and his publisher found himself playing “whack-a-mole” with hundreds of pirate sites.

“I came here today with my iPad,” Mr. Turow said, holding it up to the committee. “I enjoy the benefits of the digital revolution. But it brings enormous peril, particularly for authors.”

“My concern is not to protect the interests of bestselling authors,” said Mr. Turow, speaking as president of The Author’s Guild. “My concerns instead are for the sake of our literary culture. “

He argued that if the ability of editors to work with new authors is diminished, if the ability of publishers to act as “venture capitalists” by providing advances to authors so they can write books and survive during the long publishing cycle, we all will suffer. Citing his experience as a federal prosecutor pursuing drug lords, he said success occurred when they learned to “follow the trail of money” involving banks and other financial firms facilitating criminal activity.

Mr. Turow focused on the traditional publishing market, but piracy harms self-published authors as well. The principle of copyright as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution is that you as the creator get to decide what to do with your creative output. You can give it away. You can give away some in order to help sell others, a very common approach among many of my self-published author friends. (And often an effective one.) The problems with piracy are that (1) someone decides that they will “share” your work without your input, and (2) very often they profit from your labor, without you profiting yourself.

A witness from Rosetta Stone, CEO Tom Adams, said his company combats more than 1,000 web sites pretending to be selling its software. Customers find these sites through search engines such as Google, assume they’re legitimate, buy faulty counterfeit software with their Visa or MasterCard, then call Rosetta Stone to complain after suffering with shoddy software. Rosetta Stone “is under attack by pirates and counterfeiters… The amount of criminal activity is astounding.”

Witnesses from GoDaddy.com, Verizon and Visa all acknowledged the problem of illegal theft online is massive and growing. All three are working with copyright owners to stop cooperating with so-called “rogue” web sites. But they also acknowledged that it would be easier to act if they could do so with some legal liability protection, by responding to court orders pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Late last year the Senate Judiciary Committee passed 19-0 bipartisan legislation sponsored by the chairman, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), that would authorize the Justice Department to take exactly that action. The Congress ended before more action could be taken, but Leahy and numerous others promised a new bill is on its way, and encouraged everyone interested to offer their thoughts.

Hopefully someone from Google watched the Senate’s live stream of the hearing and will share their thoughts with Senator Leahy and his committee colleagues. Google declined an invitation to testify, a move that seemed to anger Senator Coburn, Republican from Oklahoma, and others on the committee. Of course, the search engine giant pretty much ignores complaints by individual creatives suffering massive piracy, including independent filmmaker Ellen Seidler and comic book author/illustrator Colleen Doran. Google not only promotes these illegal sites in search results, it also sells many of the ads on these sites.

But my goal here is not to take shots at Google. That’s too easy. I seek to point out that there is tremendous unanimity across political parties in Washington that something has to be done to protect the rights and interests of creatives and their distribution partners. Both Chairman Leahy and the Republican Ranking Member of the Committee, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), praised the bipartisan consensus on this issue. “When people get along [in D.C.], it’s not very well noticed by the press,” Senator Grassley said, but of course things that are exceedingly rare are hard to spot by anybody.

“Let me be clear,” Chairman Leahy said. “The problem of online infringement is real, it’s substantial, it harms our economy, it costs us jobs, with losses of billions of dollars a year, and thousands of lost jobs… It’s a staggering number, and it’s growing.”

“The Internet needs to be free and open,” Chairman Leahy added, “but not lawless.” The good news from the hearing is that the testimony from other witnesses concurred with that view. The GoDaddy.com witness, General Counsel Christine Jones, repeatedly said that if a company like hers doesn’t cooperate with law enforcement and copyright owners, “there should be consequences.” She acknowledged that there are some out there on the interwebs who celebrate cyberspace as a refuge from rules and regulations, but made clear that position is not her personal view nor that of her company.

The day before the hearing, Mr. Turow joined with Paul Aiken and James Shapiro in an editorial in The New York Times titled “Would the Bard Have Survived the Web?” They wrote that Shakespeare and his peers were able to pursue their craft because of a clever innovation in East London — walls around theaters permitting a charge of a penny to go see a play. “Almost overnight, a wave of brilliant dramatists emerged, including Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. These talents and many comparable and lesser lights had found the opportunity, the conditions and the money to pursue their craft.”

U.S. Constitution courtesy of U.S. Archives (page 2, featuring the Progress Clause)

In today’s world, the authors wrote, some Internet users, web entrepreneurs and “a handful of law professors” believe that the rights of creators are a “relic.” “It’s a seductive thought,” they wrote, “but it ignores centuries of scientific and technological progress based on the principle that a creative person should have some assurance of being rewarded for his innovative work.”

I am a creative. I write, give some of it away (like on this blog), and try to sell some of it. As a full-time freelance writer, my words are my sole source of income. I would be over the moon to ever achieve a level of sales anywhere close to the talented Mr. Turow. But I love the fact that society and the law respects my efforts sufficiently to give me rights to my own creativity.

On Saturday my wife and I went into downtown D.C. We had a pre-Valentine’s lunch at a fun restaurant called Cuba Libre (loved their “Batata con Camarones”), then walked south a few blocks to the National Archives. After about an hour in line, we stood in front of the U.S. Constitution. Fortunately, unlike the Declaration of Independence, its ink has not faded into obscurity. I was able to read clearly this line from Article 1, Section 8, the section empowering Congress…

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

It’s been more than 220 years since that line was woven into the fabric of our lawful society. The principle behind it dates much further back, to the dawn of the printing press in the 1400s. We are now in an exciting 21st Century digtal world, but the principle remains as true today as it ever has.

As a creative I am grateful.

An Artist With Spunk

“You’ve got spunk,” Lou Grant told Mary Richards upon first meeting her. “I hate spunk.”

Unlike the fictional TV news boss from The Mary Tyler Moore show, I love spunk. And comic book illustrator and writer Colleen Doran — author of the graphic novel series “A Distant Soil” and illustrator for The Sandman, Spider-Man and other popular series — could be listed under “spunk” in the dictionary.

I interviewed Colleen last summer on her remote farm in central Virginia during my cross-country U.S. road trip. Her video, pasted below, is a must-watch. I am not exaggerating, you must watch it, to see Colleen’s humor, her passion, and her smarts.

Before meeting Colleen I was struck by her artistic and writing talent, which I saw on her web site and her A Distant Soil site, and in a copy of the first volume of A Distant Soil owned by my teenage daughter. (My daughter, an aspiring artist herself, accompanied me on this part of the road trip, and thus was able to meet one of her favorite artists.) But I had no idea we were about to meet one of the most passionate artists I’ve ever come across.

Colleen has been a fighter her whole career. She fought her way into a male-dominated industry in her teens. She fought when her first publisher tried to, pardon the French, screw her out of A Distant Soil, her own creation. And she’s fighting now, fighting online pirates who are profiting from her own hard work without her permission or compensation. She’s taken that fight to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where a bipartisan group of U.S. senators are pursuing legislation to address her concerns. They’ll hear testimony from author Scott Turow at a hearing Wednesday to learn how important the issue is to individual creatives.

There’s no debating that Colleen’s got spunk. And that spunk has propelled her to artistic and commercial success.

Now you can take the opportunity to spend about five minutes with Colleen. I know you’ll enjoy it.

Creativity Tweets of the Week — 02/11/11

Wake up the kids and bring in the dog (you can let the cat keep sleeping, because she’ll ignore you regardless)! It’s time for yet another Creativity Tweets of the Week! Below are 11 useful links on creativity and writing that I sent to out into the Twittersphere this week.

CREATIVITY

• “Taking Breaks Found to Improve Attention,” Rick Nauert, PhD, PsychCentral: A useful post for anyone engaging in creative activity — don’t worry about a limited amount of attention, worry if your attention is fixed too long on one sensory input. Shake it up!
• “Intention: Clarity,” Andrea of ABCcreativity: A useful post for creatives on the importance of setting, and sticking with, intentions.
• “Fear of Finishing,” Tricia Sutton, guest post on Fear of Writing: A humorous and inspiring post for any creative, this novelist shares her fear of finishing a creative project, a fear of both failure and success.

WRITING

• “How to Get Published (The Definitive Post),” Rachelle Gardner, literary agent: I think the title says it all.
• “It’s Time to Finish Your Book: 9 Productivity Tips for Writers,” Joanna Penn, guest post on Write to Done: It wouldn’t be a Creativity Tweets of the Week without a link to a numbered list. This one starts out strong, with #1 being “Know yourself.”
• “Explain, Exemplify. Transition: Cut it Out!” Rebecca Rasmussen, guest post on Write For Me: Rebecca shares examples of editing she has performed on her upcoming debut novel (it was a tough slog, she had to cut 100 pages from a 345-page manuscript), so learn from her experience!
• “Writing Process: The Three Ps of Glumping,” Charlotte Rains Dixon: A hint as to what “glumping” is — the post is on the process of getting that first, rough draft onto paper (or screen).

• 

  Atop the Shenandoah Mountains (2004)

  “Writing Craft: Show Don’t Tell,” Cheryl Reifsnyder, Cheryl’s Musings: Five examples of this classic writing mantra.

• “Writing With Metaphor and Simile but not too much Hyperbole,” Anne O’Connell, Writing… just because!: Read this post and you’ll never, ever produce over-the-top writing again. Oh wait, that was hyperbole, wasn’t it? Sorry, it’s still a good read.
• “Three Places Where You Should Tell Instead of Show,” K.M. Weiland, Wordplay: This post makes a nice counterpoint to Cheryl’s above, don’t you think?
• “How to Avoid Becoming Another Boring Writer’s Blog,” Jody Hedlund: All I can say is, ouch! I hesitated to include this link out of fear all of you would read it and decide I don’t measure up, but it’s such a good post I can’t leave it out. Enjoy!

Let me know your thoughts on these links and this weekly blog feature, and have a creative week!

Guest Post: Do the Work, Dispel the Myth of Creative Inspiration

Today we’re featuring a guest post from accomplished visual artist Amy Buchheit. Amy was one of the creatives I interviewed on my cross-country U.S. road trip last year; a profile of her and a short video was posted recently to this blog. Enjoy her post below:

When Patrick asked me to write a guest blog, I had no idea what I was going to write about.  “Any topic you want” is a pretty broad scope!  I went to my Facebook page and asked my friends, family and fans what they would like to hear about.  The one request I received was to write about creative inspiration.

I’ll admit, I avoided writing for days.  Why?  Because inspiration hadn’t struck.  The topic seemed too big to tackle in one guest blog … until I thought about where inspiration comes from.  That was easy to explain – it comes from being in action.  In other words, it comes from work.

"Wasp in the Lotus", digital photography, copyright 2010 Amy Buchheit. All Rights Reserved.

I’ll admit there are times when inspiration seems to strike at random.  I am grateful for those moments, where an idea seems to float down from the sky on golden sunbeams, or appears in a sudden burst like a beautiful firework display.  But if I look to what occurred in the hours and days before, I realize that I had been in action.  That, rather than some divine revelation, had been the source of the inspiration.

One thing is sure:  If I waited to work until I was inspired, I would never do it.  Frank Tibolt said, “We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”  I find this to be one of the most accurate descriptions of the creative process I have heard to date.

For example, here is what a day in the studio looks like:  I pull out cleaning rags, put water in a container for my brushes and make sure the spray bottle has distilled water in it.  I light scented candles in my Nightmare Before Christmas candelabra and put CDs in the player or put on a Pandora Quick Mix.  I prepare my Stay-wet palate by soaking the sponge and paper, placing them inside their container, selecting paint colors and squirting or scooping out appropriate amounts.  When needed I pull out reference photos and/or sketches I will use to guide my work.  Then and only then do I set brush to canvas.

"All the World's a Stage". Digital photography, copyright 2010 Amy Buchheit All Rights Reserved.

If I am lucky, inspiration comes early on.  Time seems to disappear and I am guided as if by some unseen force.  Some would say that God is there while others would claim the Universe is providing.  Whatever label we give it, it is a blessing.  It makes the work far easier and much more pleasurable.  And, it is still work.

When I’m not so lucky, I can work all day without that creative spark.  I do the exact same rituals to start my day, and work just as I would on days where inspiration strikes.  I do everything “right” … and yet, the results can go so wrong!  Those days, I remind myself to be grateful for the ability to do the work, even when it doesn’t come out the way my ego wants it to.

I can’t speak to exactly what creative inspiration is.  People have used God and Universe, among other things, to explain it throughout the centuries.  Over the years I have discovered what is behind inspiration, though.  I have learned to trust that if I put myself in front of the canvas, those smooth, delicious, inspired moments will come if I let them.  But first, I have to do the work.

Amy Buchheit is a painter and photographer living in Vancouver, Washington.  As a Signature Member of the International Society of Acrylic Painters, her work has been shown on local, regional, national and international levels for more than a decade.  Amy is “committed that the viewer connects with [her] work on a deep, healing level, taking something valuable away in the process.”

7 Steps to Writing Success

I was one of thousands of writers who descended on Washington, D.C., last week to soak up the wisdom of skilled – and successful – creative writers at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) 2011 Conference and Bookfair. I attended about a dozen sessions and had many phenomenal conversations with many compelling creatives.

I’ve synthesized the key points I heard throughout the conference into 7 key points, which are summarized below. Apologies to all of those great speakers whose wisdom I’m conveying without direct attribution. I’ll give you all credit in forthcoming blogs, when I break out these points in greater detail. In the meantime, enjoy, and please share your own thoughts.

1. Write for yourself.This can sound like a cliché, but it’s critical. Imagining an audience and then writing purely to that audience will often lead to disappointment. But what does that mean, “write for yourself?” It means a successful writer writes first to please herself. If you don’t crave spending time with your words, you can’t expect others to feel differently. Of course, no agent or editor is going to be interested in a piece that is so navel-gazing that it’s inaccessible to others. But you can embrace the revision process to take the words
   

   A modestly recognizable residence in Washington, D.C.

   that speak to you and find ways to craft them to speak to a larger audience. And don’t limit yourself in this process; there are plenty of people who your words may touch who may not be part of whatever audience you imagine.

2. Build an online community. Yes, yes, you’re supposed to blog, be on Facebook, tweet. When, you ask, am I supposed to actually write? It’s an excellent question. But despite the solitary nature of writing, it has always been beneficial to have a larger network of fellow creatives, whether in school or in a salon. You can form and grow a virtual salon through social media. Once you stop thinking of social media as a platform to market your work and instead as a way to put value out into the universe and receive value in return, you’ll start to see the benefits. Those could come in terms of support and encouragement, but they could also come in the form of professional opportunities.
3. Build your platform. This in some ways is more important for nonfiction writers – an amazing novel will excite the publishing industry regardless of its source – but this ties in with the previous point regarding an online community. A “platform” can be seen as the potential to increase exposure for your own work. Agents and editors agree that writers are now expected to proactively market themselves. A writer who has a platform – defined here as connections, important to fiction and nonfiction writers – is a writer who will be more likely to get that first contract, and future ones.
4. Don’t neglect research.This is true with the writing itself – your novel’s story may be fiction but your details of place and time must be as “true” as possible – but here I’m referring to your outreach into the publishing world. Does that
   

   Some art across the street from the residence pictured above, popular with pigeons

   literary journal say on its web site that it’s not looking for poetry? Then why are you submitting a haiku collection? Does that agent focus on young adult fiction? Then why are you querying her about a nonfiction book chronicling your years as a groupie for Phish? If you do your homework before reaching out – take a moment to discover if that agent named “Robin” is male or female, to start – you’ll already have edged out the many writers who haven’t taken those basic steps.

5. Be open to the wisdom of others. Remember the first point, where you’re writing to yourself? By definition that writing is going to be personal, a sharing of your heart. So does it feel good when an agent tells you he won’t circulate your novel until you change the ending? Or when an editor tells you that entire subplot with the minor character’s pancreatic cancer has to go? No. You probably won’t even like the removal of a semicolon on page 47. But you know what? Others don’t know your heart, but they may very well know a thing about writing, and about maximizing audience. If an editor sends you revisions and recommends taking a few days to scream and throw things before responding, take her up on it. One key to remember is that these agents and editors are your allies. It is in their best interest to ensure your writing be as good as it can be. Work with them.
6. Be patient. Your novel is done. You managed to get an agent, and she got you a contract with a great publisher. Now you’re told your book is scheduled for publication in two years. What? The solitary writer, who chooses how to spend each day, can be forgiven forgetting that there are many other people out there following their own timetables. Yes, you spent two weeks polishing that query letter, and it will only take the agent a few minutes to read it. So why the wait? Well, perhaps if you end up signing with that agent, you’d like him to spend some time working for you, putting you ahead of a blind query letter. That delay in publication? Maybe it’s to allow time to edit the manuscript to perfection, to find the perfect cover art, to build buzz through galleys. If you are a writer down to your soul, you will be writing as long as you can express a coherent thought. So expand your time scale a bit, and know that with patience the high points you dream of will come.
7. Keep creating. When that high point does come – when you secure that agent, when you sign that contract, when that book hits the streets – what then? It’s natural to have a letdown, to feel a loss, an emptiness. The longer you spent with that writing, the more profound the loss may feel. Start by being kind to yourself. Do you love movies and haven’t seen one in a year? Go to the multiplex. But also keep writing. The writing may end up trite. You may spend three months and find you’re in a dead end. But writing is like exercise. Step away too long and it’s that much harder when you start up again.

Is there something you feel was left out? Do you take issue with any of these points? I want to hear your thoughts. You can also check out Caleb J. Ross’ AWP blog, full of great insights (he’s channeled a lot in #2 above).

(Photos above taken by me a couple of weeks ago with my Evo while killing time waiting for a lunch.)