Different thoughts about thinking differently

Archive for the ‘writing’ Category

Unabridged – how to write drunk and edit sober

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Over at Thoughtwrestling (the blog I created with some friends several weeks ago), I published a post about the classic Hemmingway quote:  write drink; edit sober.  Just for fun, in the spirit of writing drunk and editing sober, I’m publishing the first draft of the post, which is about 500 words longer.  I’ve only made very light edits to the piece in this version, just for spelling and grammar.  I thought it might be interesting to compare the two pieces.  Again, you can see the final version here.

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How to write drunk and edit sober without a quart or two-four

Writers are supposed to write drunk, then edit sober, according to the late Ernest Hemmingway. You’d think that Hemmingway would know a lot about writing and drinking, so it seems like pretty safe advice.

But what exactly does the phrase mean? And should it be taken literally?

At the risk of possibly insulting your intelligence, I’m going to take a minute to explain my take on Hemmingway’s quote. I’m going to try to come up with some healthier alternatives to prematurely pickling your liver and otherwise messing with your health for the sake of putting words on a computer screen. After all, if too many of you take his advice literally, we’ll run out of readers. Really fast.

Write drunk

If you want to follow Hemmingway’s advice literally, I’m pretty sure that you know how to procure and imbibe alcoholic beverages. That would set the stage for writing drunk, no question.

There’s two main reasons why I strongly discourage you from following the Old Man’s advice:

  • It’s bad for your health, any way you look at it (drinking to the point of inebriation, I mean)
  • It costs money that you could be using to support this website by purchasing products and services (we haven’t created any yet, but let’s stay positive, OK?)

So instead of literally writing drunk (i.e. after excessive consumption of booze), let’s think about this for a moment. What is it about alcohol that provides a possibly beneficial effect to the creator?

  • Is it the blurred vision? (Hint: no)
  • Is it the slurred speech? (Hint: no)
  • Is it the potential loss of balance? (well, maybe if you really need a muscle relaxant… I mean, no.)
  • Is it the likely loss of consciousness at an inopportune time? (I don’t know about you, but I can’t write when I’m unconscious: I need to see the computer screen)

Or, is it…

The removal of inhibitions?

DING DING DING!

Yes, that’s correct, the only possible beneficial effect of writing while drunk is temporarily luring your internal Editor into the wrong side of town where no one can hear her and you can go mad doing whatever you like.

Big deal, you say. I don’t listen to editors anyway.

BS, I respond. You listen to an editor every time you start typing something and then think “Oh, that’s stupid” and start pressing the delete key until the offending characters are gone. That editor just happens to be in your own body and it is the personification of your doubts, insecurities and vestigial reptile brain that wants to run away from trouble. Or internal conflict.

The human mind is a fascinating machine. You have a conscious mind of which you are fully aware. That’s what you’re using to read this article and interpret these funny symbols that we call characters. It provides a straightforward translation and interpretation of what I’m writing.

There’s a lot of people who believe, however, that there’s a subconscious part of our minds which goes on thinking and feeling about things in secret. Mostly in secret. We sort of know it’s there but we only get snatches and glimpses of what it’s doing and sometimes in very bizarre ways. Dreams (and we all know how weird dreams can be) may be coming from our subconscious mind. There’s a lot of fertile, creative, and interesting stuff going on there.

If we remove at least some of our inhibitions, it could allow the writer to tap into that rich, hidden world and produce some really amazing things.

So, if we can safely remove our inhibitions, we might find some really cool stuff.

This is similar in concept to the first steps of brainstorming, where you come up with tons and tons of ideas without stopping to evaluate them. If you work on brainstorming and idea generation enough, you come to appreciate that it can take some time until the really awesome ideas surface. If you do morning pages long enough, you’ll come to discover thoughts and ideas appearing, seemingly at random, which can sometimes turn out to be very good indeed.
But if your inhibitions stay intact and the inner Editor starts henpecking you, it’s quite possible that the really cool stuff may never emerge.

So let it come out with as little hinderance as possible. Either learn to ignore that little contrary voice in your head that tells you that everything is crap or else outrun it. If you can write as fast as you can, without stopping to think about what you are doing, you can bypass your inhibitions and let your subconsciousness take the steering wheel for awhile.
This is important because the best ideas come from unexpected places or random combinations that don’t make logical sense at first but that lead to very interesting and important thinking.

Getting shit-faced is one of the simpler ways of removing your inhibitions but, again, I can’t recommend it. Ignore the editor, turn down her volume (similar to what Anne Lamott writes about), or outrun her: those are far safer options.

Edit sober

There’s a downside to letting the subconscious mind spew out ideas: many of them will be half-baked, ill formed, incomplete, illogical, or downright silly. You won’t understand some of them. Some of them won’t flow logically in whatever piece you are writing.

But there will likely be at least one or two really brilliant ideas, concepts, or phrases that will be perfect for what you are writing.

After you’ve had time to sober up (or at least get away from your writing for awhile) you’re going to be refreshed and more objective. When you can think clearly, you can properly evaluate what you’ve written to see if it makes sense and if it fits into the piece that you are writing.

Now’s the time to get the scalpel and start cutting. Get rid of the fluff, the fat, and the nonsensical. Keep the good bits, mold them to fit, and keep building.

Let’s face it: many of us are lousy self-editors because it’s virtually impossible to be objective during the act of creating. It’s better to just let it all come out when you write and worry about how good it is later. You know what? It’s more fun, too.

And if you can accomplish both tasks without getting wasted and slowly killing yourself, then that’s just awesome.

One final note: just to give you an idea of how this works, as I’m typing this article, it’s currently around 1181 words. After I left it for awhile and then reviewed it, the final count was 750 words.

Write drunk; edit sober. This way, though, you can do it without having to buy that quart of whisky or a two-four (or flat) of your preferred beer. You can save your pennies, because when the day comes when we start offering our fabulous and uncanny products and services at Thoughtwrestling.com, you’ll have the money on hand in order to satisfy that urge. The one that we’re going to create. Someday. You’ll see.

[Closing note:  consciously or not, I think I've used some of the writing style of Naomi Dunford at Ittybiz.]

The struggles of writing and publishing using the Free Model

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

I was saddened to read J.C. Hutchins’s recent post where he gave his community an update on his work.  Regretfully, for his fans (and the other folks who have been enjoying his stuff), he’s decided to give up his “free” (read:  unpaid) podcasting work for the foreseeable future and is now focusing on paying writing.  He also says that his publisher has chosen not to publish the sequels to his first novel 7th Son:  Descent.  The three 7th Son novels have been available in podcast form for several years (and they’re great stuff).

(Note:  J.C. has also written Personal Effects:  Dark Arts with Jordan Weisman.)

I don’t know J. C. other than a few chats and jokes shared on Twitter, although he did contribute to a great group project on doing great work that I published here on Broadcasting Brain a number of weeks ago.  However, he strikes me as a nice guy, in addition to being talented and one heck of a hard worker.  I don’t fault him one iota for working on things that will advance his writing career and provide  him with income.  The guy’s more than paid his dues and he’s managed to put together an amazing quantity of free content out there on the Web.  Kudos to him for assessing the situation and making the decision that is right for him.

It is sad, however, that his faith in the process that he’s used has been shaken, as per the following excerpt from his blog post:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to make a living wage telling stories. That day has not yet come, and I fear that it won’t, unless some serious decisions are made. I’ve made these decisions, and I apologize for how this will affect you.

Creating podcast fiction does does not generate direct revenue for me. Based on anecdotal and statistical data, very few people are willing to pay for general podcast content, much less podcast fiction. Since my goal is to make a living wage with my words, the current monetization models — including in-show advertisements — will not deliver this. Dedicating time and effort to my non-fiction podcast projects will deliver equally underwhelming monetary results.

It is also apparent to me that using the Free model to promote a tangible product, such as I did with 7th Son: Descent and Personal Effects: Dark Art, does not deliver sustainable sales results. I have friends — some of whom are my best friends, the most talented people I’ve had the privilege to know and work with –  who have absolute faith in this model. I treasure their trailblazing efforts and enthusiasm. My faith, however, has been fundamentally rattled.

Put simply: The new media model viably supports only the most blessed and talented of authors. The time, effort and money I invest in entertaining you for free pulls my attention and talent away from projects that can generate revenue. While podcasting, podcast fiction, and — most importantly — your support and evangelism has positively impacted my life and career in ways I’ll never be able to fully express, I cannot continue to release free audiofiction if I wish to make a living wage with my words.

The sad thing is that J. C. recorded an entertaining and damned interesting thriller of an interview with Mitch Joel a couple of months ago where he seemed to be feeling more upbeat about, although a bit stressed by, the potential of the  Free Model.

None of us know the whole story, include all of the blood, sweat, and tears that Hutchins poured into these projects and none of us really know why 7th Son:  Descent didn’t meet the publisher’s expectations.  On the surface, you could point to one probable challenge that the publisher faced:  the entire trilogy has been available for free in several formats for a number of years, so how do you entice the average consumer to pay money for a copy? At the same time, however, there’s probably a large number of people who wouldn’t have know that and might not have been able to find it or figure out how to obtain access to the free versions.

I truly believe that Hutchins will eventually attain his goals, although it looks likely that he’ll have to come up with brand new, original material to do that.  I think he’s come too far and gained too much exposure for it to all end now and he still seems to have an excellent relationship with his publisher.  Nonetheless, if nothing else, this experience provides an interesting case study for the Free Model.

Here’s hoping that J.C. keeps getting the fast pitches and that he keeps swinging for the fences – I think this baseball metaphor still holds true.

EDIT (March 1, 2010)Indiana Jim’s podcast #37 has a lot of great analysis and thinking about podcasters/podcast novelists working to become professional writers, citing both J.C. Hutchins and Scott Sigler (assist to J.C. for helping to score this goal).

Someone interviewed me for a change and some disclosure

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

I was pleased to be interviewed by Gail Seymour at her Paying Hobby blog.  She uses the same type of E-Mail interview that I’ve used many times here at Broadcasting Brain, but she formats the results in a more article-like structure which looks quite good.  She interviewed me from the perspective of a paying hobby.

There are a few things related to this interview that I’d just like to touch upon for a moment, just so there’s no misunderstandings:

  • I do not get compensated directly for blogging at Broadcasting Brain.  I do not write paid or sponsored posts on this blog.
  • I do use Amazon.com affiliate links for book reviews, but only if I truly believe that the book is worth someone else’s hard-earned cash to buy.  I disclose how I get the books that I review.
  • I have used advertising on this blog, but the amount of money that I’ve “made” by doing that would barely pay for two months of hosting time.

So, the paying hobby aspect that she interviewed me about does not have to do with this blog.  It has to do with the following source of income:  writing articles on user generated content websites.

I have a number of articles on the following websites, as are listed in the Other Writing page of this blog:

Bizcovering

Socyberty

WebUpon

My Helium articles

I don’t normally talk about my articles on those Web sites because they have a different purpose that the writing on this blog.  This blog is, I guess, the place where I’m trying to build authority and make a difference in the world by pointing out valuable resources and trying to create my own content to help other people.  In Schawbel-speak, this would be my personal branding hub.

My articles on the other websites are there to generate income, pure and simple. The income from those websites will pay for my hosting and domain registration fees, plus the occasional extra.  I do not consider them to be great writing, on average.  In fact, they’re hack work, but they serve a purpose.  I generally try to keep the two types of content separated, although I will occasionally link out to one of these articles on these other websites if it will fit within the context of the blog post I’m writing.  In that sense, I may make a tiny bit of income from a blog post, but we’re talking a few pennies at best.

I am doing more article writing on those sites these days, but I intend to maintain the same kind of separation that I’ve had in place for the past few years.

I don’t know if this post was necessary, but I feel  better after writing it.

Any questions?

A strange tale of Google Alerts and the past which comes knocking at your email box

Friday, February 19th, 2010

I found a link in my GMail this morning which is kind of a blast from my past.  WAAAAY back in the mid 1990s I tried my hand at electronic zine writing and signed myself up for John Labovitz’s e-zine list.  I wrote about three small pieces and then abandoned the project.  So it just seems funny that I would get an E-Mail about that today.

If you take a look at this and scroll down to the  section called The “Bobby” Chronicles you’ll see my entry.

Sad thing is, I don’t think I have a copy of that stuff anymore.  Which was a shame because it was actually pretty fun to write.

The continuum between instruction manuals and flowery prose

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

An essay on disquiet is a great essay about… disquiet.

It’s not what some people would consider to be good writing these days, especially for writing available on the Web, published in a blog.

Here’s my precis of the essay:

Popular opinion is sometimes wrong.  The Internet has made it easier for errors to be exposed, but popular opinion is still hard to change.  Popular opinion suggests, as does this article, that 21st century life is chaotic, busy, and full of movement.  Thus, it’s even hard for professional or motivated readers to find the time and necessary silence to read.  However, the real issue is stillness of the mind, not the body or the senses.  This is not a new problem – people have always had to deal with their mental noise.  If reading is important to us, we need to make it a priority and do it.  Don’t blame the Internet; it’s  just another distraction.

Some of you may argue that Freed’s essay is flowery, long winded, and a waste of time.  Other readers may wish that more people wrote like Freed.

Freed used nine more paragraphs and many more words than I did, but we’re delivering the same essential message. Heck, you could reduce my precis to one sentence and get the gist of it.

There’s still a need for longer form writing, something that blogging often fails to do. Blogging and other forms of electronic publishing often provide information dumps without context or supportive argument in order to keep the post short, sweet, and tight.  That’s great for, say, an instruction manual, but poor if you’re trying to make more complicated arguments or, better yet, trying to help people to think and behave differently.

Freed’s essay takes communication to a different extreme where there’s a lot of thought and care put into selecting words and arranging them to meet style and taste.  I think there’s a continuum of expression between instruction manuals (or recipes) and the wordiest, most rambling prose that can be used by writers.  I still believe that the old rule of omitting needless words holds true.  Sometimes it’s not about the individual words, though – it’s about how they work together in ways that build a larger picture, even if the details occasionally look a bit bloated.  The medium should be irrelevant, though, whether it’s on paper, silkscreen, or a computer monitor.

Related: Copyblogger.com recently published a blog post about long blog posts, written in their trademark crisp and direct style, which provides another take on this topic.

Old school writing (by hand)

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

So, if you’re wondering why I’m not posting here as often as I once did:

Most of my recent writing is going into a little hardcover journal that I bought a few months ago.  I’m tracking some of the minutia of my life in this book, including some habit changes that I’ve been working on.  I seem to go through paper journal writing phases in my life.  If memory serves, it’s been about ten years since I last maintained this kind of journal with any kind of regular activity.

Why a paper journal?  Easy:  it’s portable and private.  It’s not that I’m writing a lot of confidential stuff in this journal (well, OK, maybe some), but what I’m writing is mainly personal and of limited relevance to anyone else.  Writing by hand (and this is cursive writing, not printing, for the most part) seems to activate certain mental pathways that typing doesn’t, which is important.  Plus I don’t have to fire up my computer to do this.

So, while getting a D on the revered social media “transparency” exam, I’ll take a B+ for meeting my own needs.  Or does the “transparency” stuff actually only apply to organizations and not to people?

Between this new journal writing habit, and a series of other routine, thinking, and schedule changes, my focus on blogging, or any other kind of writing, is at a two year low.  I do have things that I’m still interested in writing about, but right now I’m not trying to live up to some kind of daily posting schedule as I have in the past.

I do want to take a moment to tip my hat to the many folks out there who do seem to be able to keep up the daily posting routine with a high level of quality and professionalism.  Where there’s a will (and some talent) there’s a way, no doubt.

Onward.

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