New Headshot, and a Great Book for Writers

My official new headshot is now in full effect (many thanks to Paul Giunta, who also got some stunning shots of my family for me). I took some time to update all my social media pages last night, but still have this nagging feeling that I’m forgetting something. I’m sure it’ll turn up eventually. 

While I was at it, I finally transferred my shelfari bookshelf to this new site. You can see it at the bottom of the sidebar over there on the right. This is one of my favorite widgets. It not only helps me keep track of what I’ve read, but lets me share the list with friends.

Which leads me to the most recent addition to my bookshelf, “The Writer’s Portable Mentor.” This book is awesome, particularly for anyone who has been writing for any length of time. I have pretty much stopped reading books about the craft of writing, as I generally find them sophomoric and repetitive, but this book assumes you know where to put a comma and instead gets into the more artistic nuances of writing. I’ve found it applicable to my business writing, and revolutionary for my fiction. For me, it is like a refresher course on the best writing class I ever took (which, incidentally, was Janet Fitch’s fiction seminar at USC).

If you are serious about writing, this book is a great way to remind yourself of the finer details of the craft. You should add it to your Christmas list.

TTFN

Don’t Rush Me

I have a deadline on Friday for a feature article I’ve been working on since the first week of October. It’s coming along well, and I feel quite calm about my approaching deadline, but two weeks ago I was freaking out.

This is something I’m learning about myself as a writer. I need a lot of time for the final stages of writing anything well. That is, for polishing my work, I have to be able to read it through, tweak a little, walk away, come back a few hours later, tweak a little more. In these final days I may literally change two words each time I read it, and since it’s 20 pages long, it takes a lot of time.

Then I send it to trusted eyes to read it for fresh perspective, and I start over, incorporating a little bit, changing the work ever so slightly, with each pass. This just seems to be how I work.

With that in mind it makes sense that I was panicked about my deadline two weeks ago, but feel fine now. Two weeks ago I knew I needed to start entering into this polishing stage, and I only had it half written.

To friends and family it’s hard to explain why I can’t run off to the beach/park/movies because a piece that isn’t due for weeks is only half done. But that’s just how I work.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to recognize this pattern. I never have been one for last minute dashes. In college I was terrible at cramming, and if I’m going to pull an all nighter there better be loud music and fair amount of whiskey involved. I’m a planner. It’s boring but true. I like things (or at least my writing) to unfold predictably.

It might be a little dull, but it does allow me to make my deadlines, and I’ve always felt like that’s an important part of building a career as a writer. When I’m a big time, famous, hot shit scribe maybe I’ll be able to blow off deadlines without a care, but then again, knowing me, I never will.

10 Years or 10,000 Hours

My father-in-law was telling me recently about an article he read that discussed something called the theory of mastery, or something close to that. The basic idea is that to truly mater a craft or skill (be it writing or basketball), you have to practice it for 10 years or 10,000 hours.

I’ve been writing now for about five years. I’m talking (almost) every day, in one format or another, writing. Some days I write for hours, some days I only get thirty minutes in, but I am very diligent about getting my fingers on this keyboard. So just for fun, let’s see how far down the road to mastery I am:

To be conservative, let’s say I write 300 days a year. After 5 years that’s 1500 days. Now let’s say I write an average of three hours a day. I think that’s low, but let’s run with it. So I’ve practiced writing for about 4,500 hours. Of course that’s only since deciding to be a professional writer. I’m not counting any writing I did before five years ago, and there was a fair amount.

So I’m about half way to mastery, both in years and hours practiced. That sounds about right. I certainly am holding my own as a professional, but when it comes to my fiction, especially my novel, I still feel like I have so much to learn. I wonder if I will feel different in 2016 when I am finally a master. I might have to through a party and make everyone call me “master” for the night. And a hat. I will definitely need a funny hat.

And the Winner Is…

PT McNiff! Congrats. I’ll email you about how to get that sweet $20 Amazon gift card headed your way. Thanks to everyone who played.

So now it’s November. I’m actually really swamped with work right now. I’m wrapping up this feature article – the one about dual HIV status couples (one partner is HIV positive, one is negative). It’s coming along really well, but I could use a few more photos. My page-a-day goal on the Northern California book kind of hit a wall the last four days because I had family in town for the weekend. As soon as I finish the feature piece I hope to dedicate some time to catching up on the days I missed there.

Then there’s the blogging and the work that needs to be done to keep my business growing. I’ve been working on a new business card for promoting the Innovative Business Content website. I set up this QR code and I want to have it printed on the back of the card, so people can go directly to my portfolio with their smart phones. I think QRCs are super cool, and suspect that their potential has only just begun to be realized.

If you have a smart phone, and haven’t tried this yet you should. Get your phone, download one of the many free QRC scanners and then hold it up to your computer screen for a second to scan this funny looking black box. In just one quick second you’ll have my website in front of you on your phone.

Okay, so it’s not so exciting when you’re sitting at your computer, but when you’re out and about and you see one of these it’s like a little treasure box. What’s inside? You have to scan it to see. It’s fun.

Anyhow, enough procrastination. Back to work.

New Headshot

I am super excited for tomorrow morning.

My friend, and amazing photographer, Paul Giunta is coming over early to take some family photos for us. As of right now – this is the best family photo we have. I think we can do better.

While he’s here, we’re going to try to get a good solo shot of me to use as my new writer’s headshot. The one I’m using now (check out my bio page, or any of my social media) was taken when I was pregnant. If you look close you can tell that I’m leaning over to camouflage the belly. It’s been a fine filler, but I want a really great headshot. Something I would be proud to put on the cover of a book.

I guess I need to get busy looking at some examples. I’m sure it’ll be a lot easier to get something fantastic if I can tell Paul what I think fantastic is.

ps- don’t forget that anyone who leaves a comment between now and the end of the month will be automatically entered to win a $20 gift card to Amazon (my way of celebrating the redesign of the site). I’m sure you can think of something to say…

More Support for Giving It Away

I was in San Francisco this weekend to help my mom out with her exhibition at the Ceramics Annual of America. It was a beautiful show, with many talented artists, and I noticed a lot of the visitors taking photos of the work on display. I asked my mom if it bothered her when people took photos of her work. She said that some artists get really upset about it, but that she personally doesn’t mind at all.

Her reasoning is this: the work she does is so uniquely hers, that there’s really no way anyone could copy her. She can’t even duplicate her own work. There’s no way the photos that are taken are good enough to be of commercial quality, so really, the images are for personal use. There is an off chance that someone might post a photo of her work online, but really that’s just publicity.

So there’s another artist’s vote for giving it away. While I’m sure there are exceptions, it seems that most agree, the benefits of exposure far outweigh the risks of piracy.