You know you want to write a book. I can help.
International Standard Book Number. ISBN. It seems to confuse folks no end.
[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/947375 by Zsuzsanna Kilian http://www.sxc.hu/profile/nkzs” width=”200″ height=”240″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2958]I get it. Numbers, to most of us in the western world, are about ownership. If someone has your social security number you could be in trouble. Credit card number? Lock it up. Driver’s license? Well, it feels important.
No. Wrong. It’s nothing like that.
Here are a few things I believe about being an author in 2013:
That’s the short version of the list.
And none of that is why I do what I do.
[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1077691 by Zsuzsanna Kilian http://www.sxc.hu/profile/nkzs” width=”200″ height=”200″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2945]You do know that you’re the boss, right?
They’re your words.
Nobody gets to see them until you say they do.
The next eyes to see your words will be the eyes watching as you write.
Sure, it’s still scary like Hitchcock.
But it’s not scary like a loony wielding a framing hammer, like you think it is.
[image: image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/796527 by Dominic Morel http://www.sxc.hu/profile/cx_ed” width=”173″ height=”200″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2823]The double-fudge-loaded cheesecake derails your healthy eating habits.
Disturbed sleep derails your writing habit.
Surprises in your schedule derail family time.
Unexpected behavior from others derails your best intentions to be the best possible version of yourself.
Time goes into stealth mode and derails your blogging routine.
Some of those seem trivial. Others are major events. Each of us would rate each of them a little differently.
Beginners ask about things some of us take for granted. It’s useful to review the questions and answers to be sure we haven’t missed something which seems self-evident to others.
[image: Sergiy Kalyuzhny]I had a long online chat with Sergiy Kalyuzhny, Master at Marlow Navigation, Ukraine. He’s writing a non-fiction account of an event we haven’t fully discussed yet (though I sure hope Sergiy lets me help with the book so I can read about it.)
Since I’m posting late today, as penance, I’ll share the whole thing instead of splitting it into a half-dozen posts.
Palomino Blackwing 602.
Can you imagine a pencil so glorious it has a first, middle, and last name? For $2 each, I guess they should.
To put that price into perspective, for those of you who think hey that’s half as much as a cup of coffee, the dozen yellow Dixon Ticonderoga pencils you shoved into your kid’s backpack at the start of the school year cost fourteen cents each. That dozen cost less than a single Blackwing 602.
Perhaps apocryphal: the three words that sell are free, sex, and win. Theoretically, if the headline of your ad was Win Free Sex, you’d strike it rich.
[image: photo http://www.sxc.hu/photo/573750 by bharath pasupuleti http://www.sxc.hu/profile/boycute” width=”200″ height=”434″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-2783]Obviously not.
While no rational person would go to that extreme to sell something they believed in, do you sometimes allow business considerations to affect your art? … more … “Should Your Book Title Be Good Marketing?”
With all respect to those who loved him, I couldn’t find anything to hold onto in the works of Jack Kerouac. Perhaps it was because I dipped into On the Road after I’d read Blue Highways and expected Kerouac to write like William Least Heat-Moon.
I realized that I just wanted to read more Blue Highways.
Over the decades, as people seem to be reading less and less, Heat-Moon’s books have become longer and longer. He spends over six hundred packed pages discussing the land of Chase County, Kansas. Five hundred recounting crossing the United States by boat. Yes, it can be done. Over four thousand miles by water and less than one hundred by land.
His books seem to be written from the voice of his own needs. … more … “William Least Heat-Moon: My Own Kerouac”
The unsuspecting patron takes a giant bite of his McBlazing Wrap. Whips crack. Flames spurt. Explosions.
The McDonald’s commercial is implying that this meal is hot. I can assure you, though, that while I might find it well seasoned, I wouldn’t be reaching for the sugar water to douse the burning sensation in my mouth. Because I spent half of my childhood eating in Mexico, my notion of spicy is quite different from most of the folks who frequent McDonald’s. And, in fact, from most of the folks who live around here. A friend across the state line once remarked, “Minnesotans think ketchup is hot”.
[image: image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/426172 by Charlie Balch http://www.sxc.hu/profile/nighthawk7″ width=”440″ height=”154″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-2779]
Why does McDonald’s pretend their meal is so spicy?