On Writing, Ideas, and Making a Difference
You hit SAVE, take another sip of the cup of coffee you’ve got sitting on your desk, and close the Word document that contains your just-completed magnum opus. You feel confident, smug even, because — let’s face it — there’s nothing quite like finishing a manuscript.
There’s only one problem: You’re in love with it. Even worse, you’re in love with yourself.
Most people struggle with confidence about something. Maybe it’s the way they look or how they communicate. It could even be about how much money they have — or don’t have.
Although some have validity, most of our insecurities are unfounded and ridiculous. We just need to find a way move forward.
It’s been more than two months since his passing at the age of 68 due to heart failure, and I’m still a few shades removed from shocked with a heavy heart in tow.
I didn’t know William, but I know and love and mourn his voice — what could have been, and what should still be.
Everybody has something they wish they were. A mom wishes she was more patient with her kids. The retired athlete wishes he was back in the game. The actor who never made it to Tinsel Town lives vicariously through movies.
A lot of people, unfortunately, wait around to be picked. To be affirmed in their callings. To hold out hope for someone to come along and tell them they are what they wished they were.
When it came to thinking of myself as a writer, I was the same. But until I started believing it about myself, I couldn’t act like one. So I made a decision that changed everything.
In any craft, there are professionals and amateurs. We know this. We can sense it, intuitively.
In every industry, there are are experts — the rock stars, the celebrities, the talent — and there’s everyone else. There are those who take their work seriously and create excellence in whatever they do. Then there is the rest of the crowd.
Everybody wants to be the former. Nobody wants to be the mediocre majority. But the truth is it’s hard to be awesome.
The last time I wrote anything was my freshman year in college for a history class. I was headed to medical school, a life dedicated to science. Writing was of no interest to me. In fact, I hated it.
Fourteen years later, I finally put pen to paper again, and it changed my life.
Six years after it started, people are still asking the question: “What is Twitter… really?”
The answer may, in fact, shock you.
So what is it?
A cocktail party, of course. It’s an excuse to have a conversation.
As you may or may not know, I’ve been working on an eBook about writing. It’s a 17,000-word guide to becoming a writer, building a platform, and getting your work recognized by readers. To date, it’s the most important thing I’ve written.
And I want to tell you how you can get a free copy…
We live in a world of instant gratification. But this isn’t always a good thing.
Think about it. There’s Twitter, text messages, and email (remember what it was like waiting for an actual piece of paper to arrive in your mailbox?).
When you post an update on Facebook, you get that little red notification sign as soon as someone leaves a comment. If you want to know something, you don’t call your Mom or dust off an encyclopedia; instead, you simply type your request into a search box.
During my decade-long career as a print and broadcast reporter, I had the opportunity to work in several different newsrooms where decisions were made about how and what gets coverage on any given day.
Every day in those newsrooms, editors, reporters, producers and assignment desk personnel gathered in the morning to decide what we believed to be relevant for our respective audiences and stakeholders.
Through those meetings, I took part in literally hundreds of different editorial discussions to evaluate the “newsworthiness” of stories. As a result of those decisions, I wrote thousands of pages of news copy over the years to meet multiple deadlines each and every day.
As part of that newsroom experience, I learned five lessons about writing that might be useful to others.
