There’s nothing quite like the ephemeral feeling of being alive, ahead, of the universe and realizing you can either wait for the world to catch up to you, or you can continue pressing forward, alone, into the future, and hope that leaps in technology and thinking and education will circle around and meet you in understanding tomorrow, today.
Sheryl Sandberg sure knows how to make a headline. First, she wanted young women to “LEAN IN” and now she wants us to all stop using the word “Bossy” to describe the behavior of some young women because that word somehow destroys their inner need to tell people what to do.
Continue reading → Little Miss Bossy Pants and the Incongruity of Expectation
Robert Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry. He was an earthy icon and, in some eyes, an American shame, for the man could love only himself and not his children or his wife. I’m not sure if that’s a crime against himself, or his promises, but there is no denying the man was an original and he knew how to write and he knew what he was.
Marred by the mistake of genius, Robert Frost cared only for his poetry, and his legacy, and that’s why the new fascination with protecting Frost’s legacy on the page is so intriguing.
I am often asked by friends and associates what they should write. They want to know how to get people to read their blog, buy their book, get more followers on Twitter or more Page LIKEs on Facebook or lots of plusses on Google+.
My answer to that inquiry is always the same: “Just Write Something!” — and everything else will eventually fall.
That advice jumps in the face of two common writing canards: “Write What You Know” and its doppelgänger, “Write What You Don’t Know.” The first school of thought allegedly makes you an expert on your own selfie life; the second avenue of percussion quickly resounds into a research project where the self often goes missing.
Continue reading → Weaving the Social Mesh: Write What You Want to Know
The bane of any hopeful professional author — one who writes for money to feed a family and a future fortunate — is the old “Work for Hire” kludge-as-cudgel and it is wielded against unwitting amateur authors, and even published, working, authors, by publishing houses as a “proper payment system” that is both fair to each side and an early warning windfall for the writer. Unfortunately, none of that is true.
Publishers love to force writers into Work for Hire contracts because the benefit is all on their side of the dyad, and while initial risks are shared, the goal of good fortune tomorrow is not.
I warned of this impending trend way back on September 7, 2007 in my article: “Work For Hire is a Bad Idea” —
If you get royalties you are in partnership with your publisher. If you are “Work For Hire” you’re used up when you’re done writing.
Publishers live to exploit that hungry author desire for fast money now — and in the process of the “Work For Hire” hiring — the author not only loses a potential profit bonanza, but also sells out their self-respect, self-worth, and fellow authors.
Continue reading → The New Writer’s Ruse: The Bemused Will Not Work for Hire
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