Writing: A Medium of Quiet

I write most mornings.  Today I'm in Connecticut on the shore at South Norwalk.  I'm waking up in my best friend's mom's house, like I did many mornings in junior high school and high school.  We lived in Greenwich then and their house was right on the water by Byram Shore Road. We could walk or swim before school in the early summer months on warm days like today.  Of course the water was freezing, but we were young and foolish.

I'm here for the Book Expo in NYC, a busy noisy place I also used to live in, but now, I crave this quiet sunrise and slightly dewy porch furniture waiting for a new day to start. No hustle and bustle need apply.

No noise here, just so much quiet and as I finish my book, I was thinking about the privacy and quiet neighborhood of a book. It's a place you go to find the thoughtful quiet, reflective musings of another person. I can share the delicate noise of one bird on the porch and the peaceful silence of this shore at sunrise with you in a book and it's hard to find that peace many places these days.

Despite the many ways you can write now (blogging, tweeting, facebooking), a book still has a solid weighty feel like no other.

No surprise there. For goodness' sake, a book is made of trees, like any good neighborhood. The medium has a luxurious quiet and whispers a story person to person, which we share, writer and reader, because as the writer I get up early and carve out the time to take you to the places I see and imagine.

Her house stood in Hurricane Sandy while many to the right and left of her house did not, because it was built in the 1960's by a contractor who already knew how rough Mother Nature could get.  He'd shored it up on a higher level with a rocky undercarriage to keep it out of harm's way, never knowing in 2012 his house would have the last laugh on this street, as his house stood up to the proverbial test of time. That's my idea of a good story with a happy ending.

How to Keep On Keeping On

Found it!  Cleared my desk and found the three most important pages from APE, Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch's book on self-publishing.  I printed them out last summer and they surfaced again just when I needed them most.  When it comes to writing books, they are so right on here:

How to Continue:
-- Control your doubts,
-- Remember the value you're adding to peoples' lives.
-- Ask for help.
-- Don't hide under a bushel.
-- Write every day.
-- Embrace the pain.
-- Don't let successful writers awe you. 

How to Finish:
-- Edit on paper.

Paper!  Wow!  I remember that stuff and it works so well!

And didn't Guy also recommend drinking tea and eating gobs of toast with tangerine marmalade on tough mornings when it's hard to get started?  Let me take a look at the book again, I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

Are You Good At Bouncing Back?

After reading Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha's The Start-up of You where they point out that our lives, resumés and certainly our LinkedIn profiles will show lots of ups and downs in this global and turbulent economy, I've been thinking about resiliency. By the way, it's a great book. Even if you aren't the least bit entrepreneurial, we're looking at a world of work where you better be good at bouncing back. I'm saying it twice. You better be good at bouncing back and quickly. You must be resilient.

When you get down, do you know how to get up again quickly?  One thing I learned from sales was getting back up quickly after being rejected. Seriously, sales is all about being rejected and the most successful salespeople have proven strategies for bouncing back. And bouncing back FAST. I was taught that nine "no's" usually meant the tenth time might be a "yes" -- so after I've been rejected about eight times, I can get excited and happy as I think, "Yes, yes, yes! I'm closer and closer! I'm almost there!" I really do think that way.

Studies have shown a most fascinating metric of success -- the shorter the time it takes people to recover from a failure or disappointment and get back in the game the better -- and it is predictive of overall lifetime success. In sales, you have to have strategies for bouncing back, or you'll never make it.

Sometimes, you just get down and feel a little hopeless. Everybody does. I have a mental list of things to do that get me back on track, and I think we all need to make that list and revise it every few years. It's more important than revising your resume. We need to build out a foundation of resiliency, like a foundation for a house we plan to build. The foundation of resiliency for me is reading, exercise (dancing in particular), being with friends, being in nature, faith and more than anything, having a very supportive partner.

I know so many people who are not happy in their relationships and since I've "been there, done that" and did get divorced, I know it matters a lot to have a good partner. I bet you didn't think I was going to talk about divorce (or break up) but honestly, maybe it's time to downsize your partner. If they don't make your life and home a place to rest, relax, restore yourself and bounce back, you need a new partner. It makes a world of difference. Make a list of ways to bounce back today and if your partner isn't on the list, well ... you know where I'm going. Time for them to appear on someone else's list.

People Going Gorillas for APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch

I know a few million of you have probably already bought and read APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch which came out last night at midnight Pacific Coast Time, but for the rest of you, what's taking you so long? Just kidding, a little, but this is a book that so many people will find

FUN
FUNNY
INFORMATIVE
INSPIRATIONAL
INSPIRING
THOUGHTFUL
VIGOROUS
VISIONARY and
WONDERFUL!

Full disclosure, I know Guy and Shawn and worked with them on the last book, What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us, so I am a friend. Guy gives me cred in the acknowledgements section of this new book for just about forcing him to write it, so I am biased. But this book has so much more to offer than I thought it would in the beginning, I'm seriously impressed. It's so useful and practical, as well as amusing and inspiring, which you can count on from any Kawasaki book. As I wrote in a review of the book on Amazon, I can't think of anyone who shouldn't read this book. If you're a reader it's a must own. If you're a writer, it's essential. If you're a publisher, you can't live without it. And of course, entrepreneurs will love it.

Crossing i's and dotting t's -- I mean ...

Ever think about all the work that went into getting these books on a shelf?!   I do!   That's all I've been thinking about lately.

Exciting times here with my Kickstarter book project.  Again, thanks so much to all my supporters.  I've been meeting with editors and proofreaders to line them up -- a bit like finding a good midwife for a baby due in a few months.  They make it or break it honestly!  And as the title suggests, I can write the thing but I need someone else to cross the t's and dot the i's thank you very much.

Picture Credit:  CalTech Library