Three Thoughts

The Eclipse

Who among us, given a sextant and a supercomputer, could accurately predict the arrival of the next solar eclipse?

Yeah, me neither. They (those scientist / astronomer types) started predicting eclipses 300 years ago. I have one question: “how?”

But the sight of millions of people moving to the path of totality made me think it’s never a bad idea to give your characters a chance to center us in their universe. Do they see the cosmos? Think about it? Do they see themselves in the continuum of time? Of evolution?

Or are they all now, now, now? Would they make an effort to travel cross-country to take in an eclipse or ignore it altogether and keep on with their own busy agenda? What is their relationship with awe? With wonder? With science?

Show us where they are on the scale of empathy with the bigger world around them; help us dial them in. 

Be the Go-To Writer

Are you the go-to writer for your family?

Your friends? The various organizations you belong to?

Why not?

It’s good practice in putting words together. It’s good practice in storytelling.

I won’t sit here and claim that drafting a taut suspense thriller and writing a profile of the Hobbyist of the Year for Model Train Monthly are the same thing.

I won’t sit here and claim that writing a breezy romance and your uncle’s obituary are the same thing.

I won’t say that writing an avant garde short story and drafting a news release for your favorite non-profit are the same thing.

But it’s all storytelling. And you get to put words together. It’s practice. And all practice counts.

No Grumbling Allowed

In early March, I attended the Tucson Festival of Books as a guest author. (One of 300 guest authors!)

One word: Mind-blowing. The organization, the logistics, the attention to detail.

Over 100,000 readers in attendance. Panels and talks galore.

I sat on a panel with 200 people in the audience—and nearly 200 more were trying to get in. (Not to hear me, but the Really Well Known author sitting next to me.)

The next day I taught a workshop and I had 11 writers in attendance.  A truly wonderful bunch. We had a great conversation.

One of the writers asked me if she could Zoom with me after I got home. I agreed. About a week later, we talked through some issues about her work in progress and then she told me I was the first writer she had ever heard who said he enjoyed every aspect of the business. She told me how refreshing it was to hear someone say that.

Here’s my simple, naïve, incredibly basic point of view: we’re in this business by choice. What we do is make art. No matter if we go traditional or indie/self-pub, we have approximately one million choices to make, beginning with the words we put on the page to how we want to go about managing our careers.

From networking with fellow writers to attending conferences. From working with editors to diving in on rewrites. From deciding whether to record a podcast or handle a request for writing a blog post. From scheduling a bookstore visit in a distant town to deciding whether to apply for retreat that will allow us to disappear weeks in order to write, write, write.

We aren’t digging ditches. We aren’t re-roofing houses in the hot sun. We aren’t rising pre-dawn on a cold January morning in Montana to milk the cows.

We’re telling stories. Yes, I know it would be a great world if we were all bestsellers. If every review was a rave. If every agent responded to our queries within five minutes.

But we get to fire up imaginations and see what comes out on the page followed by a whole lot of fun engaging with the world of publishing—other people who care about stories.

What’s to grumble about?

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Photo by Arnaud Mariat on Unsplash