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August 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Turn card over

My father was born in Ostrolenko, Poland. That fact authorizes me to tell Polish jokes.

How do you keep a Polack busy? (“Polack” means simply “Polish man.” There is nothing derogatory about the word.)

Give him a card that has printed, on both sides, “Turn card over.”

I am that Polack.

My geekishness is often expressed as a fascination with things that are of absolutely no interest to most of the population–especially things that exhibit a measure of complexity. I am attracted to complexity, per se. I love its richness; I have a feeling that, just around the corner, I will find the answer to some important question.

Usually I don’t.

But that doesn’t deter me; complexity continues to fascinate me.

Here’s one way it manifests: I love to explore programs that claim to manage your information and show it to you in different ways. Here are a few examples:

  • Personal Brain, from TheBrain.com. I actually use this as my diary, journal, and general repository of knowledge.
  • Evernote, from Evernote.com. I use this, too; it syncs with my iPhone, and lets me capture and store a huge variety of text, graphics, and more. And it attempts to read any text in the graphics; so if I snap a picture of a business card with my iPhone, Evernote will OCR (optical character recognition) the text, so that I can find the name of the person using its powerful search facility.
  • Voodoopad. A wiki on your (Mac) desktop. Amazingly powerful and simple. I haven’t integrated it into my workflow, but hope springs eternal.
  • Tinderbox. The ultimate time sink. (Mac only.) Incredibly robust and powerful outliner, graphical mapper, database, and so much more.

I am forever searching for the system that will allow me to store anything, link anything to anything else, extract email addresses for mailing, keep track of people and events, web clippings, etc. You get the idea.

Each tool excels at some things, and sucks (I hate the word, but cannot resist it any longer) at others.

And when I downloaded the latest version of VoodooPad today, I realized: Turn card over. I’m doing it again.

I haven’t found a 12-step program for people who are determined to find The One System yet, but if it doesn’t show up soon, I’ll have to start one.

Ask me how this relates to writing books.

Filed Under: book love, book writing, planning, steps to write a book, write a book Tagged With: , ,
August 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Big

Big writing using GPS logger

This is not my message, although I found a lot to love about Ayn Rand. It’s the message of Nick Newcomen, who believes we’d all be better off if we adopted Rand’s philosophy. (Read about how he did this here.)

I was trying out Google Reader’s new “Play” facility, which seems to pick a bunch of random stuff that may be of interest to you–and I have no idea by what criteria–and show it to you in a really friendly interface that lets you “star” things you like to look at later, or put a smiley face on some things to share with friends. This page showed up.

It made me think of the phrase, “writ large,” which, according to idioms.thefreedictionary.com, is slightly formal, and means “expressed in a bigger or more obvious way. She believed that cultures are just personalities writ large. The genius of the story is that it’s about ordinary life writ large.

Mr. Newcomen went a long way, literally, to send this suggestion to the world. I’m not sure how much of an effect it’s having, but there are several aspects of it that should give other message-bearers, such as aspiring authors, something to think about:

  • The message is brief and unambiguous. It wouldn’t have worked as well for “Fyodor Dostoyevsky.”
  • It’s an unambiguous command; there is no mistaking its meaning.
  • It is dramatic, without damaging the environment.
  • Whatever you may think of Ayn Rand, there is no doubt that Mr. Newcomen is well-intentioned.

Now, Mr. Newcomen may make a few bucks if people buy Ayn Rand books through the links on the page. I hope he does. It will take lots of book sales at Amzon’s commission rates to cover the expenses of his trip. But it’s a safe bet that this was not planned as a commercial venture.

I am left impressed with the man’s earnestness, gentleness, and intelligence. If he also offered me a newsletter or other way to stay in touch with him, and sign up for it.

These are good outcomes to which a non-fiction book writer, wanting to promote her or his services, might aspire as well.

Filed Under: book love, book writing, inspiration, people & ideas Tagged With: , , ,
August 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Randy Ingermanson on the future of publishing

I love Randy’s writing. He is my favorite writing teacher for fiction. He invented something he called, “The Snowflake MethodRandy Ingermanson,” and even has software to back it up. It matches my structured approach to non-fiction.

I found his recent thoughts on the future of publishing on his blog. I agree with all of them, and many pertain to non-fiction as well as to fiction. Here’s a teaser and a link:

The Future of Publishing

The world of publishing is currently going through massive turmoil. Some people believe that the rise of e-books is going to be the biggest single change in publishing since Gutenberg’s invention of movable type.

I’m not a prophet nor a seer nor clairvoyant. But I do have my eyes open, and in this column, I give you my best predictions for the coming years. They may be right. They may be wrong. Either way, one thing seems certain: Huge changes are coming.

I offer these predictions to suggest ways you might plan for your future. I’m using them to plan for mine.

Prediction #1: E-books Will Surpass P-books Soon

I define a “p-book” to be a book printed on paper. Click here for more

Filed Under: book love, book writing, fiction, people & ideas, planning, write a book Tagged With: , , , ,
August 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Presented at SF Coach meeting last night

I spoke to the San Francisco Coach Federation monthly meeting last night, at the beautiful Handlery Hotel on Geary in San Francisco. It was a well-organized meeting, and well-attended–I think there were more than 25 in the room. I shared how I came up with my BookProgram method for writing good books quickly.

SF Coach

SF Coach meeting at Handlery in SF

There were lots of excellent questions. People seemed to “get” the idea that structure must precede content, and that content is actually the easy part of writing a book. I spoke about “the diamond is your friend,” mangling a baseball metaphor, but to good effect.

Several people said they’d like to talk about their book with me, so I sent them–and I send you–to http://joelorr.setster.com to make an appointment with me for a free strategy call. (By the way, if you’re tired of having to exchange 4 emails in order to set a phone appointment, I recommend checking Setster.com out. It publishes your calendar, sync’d from Outlook, Gmail, or whatever, showing just blocked periods for your appointments. People can choose from your available slots; you get an email and a text message, and can approve or deny the appointment.)

If you’d like to hear what I said, just click here, fill in the form, and I’ll give you immediate access to the recording. (Click on “continue shopping” after the cart thanks you, and you’ll go directly to the page with the recording.)

Would you like me to speak to your group? Click here to make an appointment to discuss it with me.

Filed Under: book love, book writing, publishing, steps to write a book, write a book Tagged With: , , ,
August 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Our first Meetup

I just got back from our first Meetup meeting. Nine people showed up.

I explained why people need to write a book, and how easy and fast it can be when you choose to structure before writing. We talked about why “the diamond is your friend,” and what that means to the process of writing a book.

Each attendee had a different and fascinating story of why they want to write a book, and what they felt is holding them back.

If you’d like to find out more about it, click on the link above. The next meeting will be in 2 weeks, in Mountain View, CA.

Filed Under: book writing
August 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

History of the book

Steve Levin pointed me to a wonderful article on digital publishing in the Wall Street Journal. It is a great overview of the publishing and self-publishing worlds, where they clash and overlap, and what an aspiring author should know about them. Thanks, Steve!

Filed Under: book writing
August 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Accountability

Most people are responsible. They make commitments and keep them, even when it is not convenient or pleasant to do so. We often say that someone who does that “has character.”

“Character is doing the right thing even when nobody is looking,” said JC Watts.

What has this to do with writing your book? Well, many ostensibly aspiring authors say that they want to write a book. They say they want to get it done by some date or some event. They even say they’ve committed to doing it.

But then they don’t.

The problem with allowing yourself to break commitments, especially commitments to yourself, is that it gets easier, the more you do it. Eventually you allow yourself to break commitments to others. As the cliche says, it’s a slippery slope.

You’d be much better off not to make a commitment, then to make one and ignore it. I’m focusing on book-writing, but this holds for everything in life.

One thing you can do to help you stick to commitments you make to yourself: Make them public. Let everyone know that your outline is going to be done by a certain date. That your book will be ready for editing by a certain date. And so on.

Another thing you can do: Work with a coach. A coach is a perfect accountability partner. The fact that you are paying them will help you keep your commitment, because you don’t want to have wasted your investment in the coaching.

If you are already working with a coach, your book belongs on the list of goals that the coach helps you prioritize. If you’re not working with a coach, and feel stuck in your business or your life, find one; just use your search engine and enter “coach” plus your area of interest.

If you want to focus on your book, get a book coach. (I’m a book coach; click here to set up a free strategy call with me.)

Filed Under: book love, book writing, write a book Tagged With: , ,
July 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Intimacy

That’s the answer given more than two decades ago by Nicholas Negroponte (founder of MIT’s Media Lab and of the “One Laptop per Child” project) to the question, “What’s the next step beyond personal computing?” It came to mind when I read this piece from the New York Times this morning:

Intimate theater

Intimate theater

I attended such a performance in Manhattan in the early seventies, and loved it. Physical touch is important to me, and I experienced the event as being warmly and lovingly embraced, with safety and even propriety.

Not everyone likes to be physically touched. But every reader likes to be touched emotionally by what they read–even if the way into their emotions is through facts and logic.

When I write, I like to think about what my reader would experience as intimacy. Here are some of my thoughts:

  • The reader wants to feel as if the text is addressing them personally, not as part of a mob.
  • The author should come across as human and vulnerable, but without detailed discussions of hemorrhoids or other manifestations of TMI (too much information). Of course, what is and is not TMI will vary by audience.
  • For me, typos and misspellings are jarring. I’ve learned that this is not a universal sentiment, but I nonetheless work hard to eliminate them.
  • I avoid phrases such as “Some of you…,” which address a group of people rather than an individual reader.
  • I experience smart-ass “humor” and cynical statements as turn-offs; your taste may vary.

I strive for intimacy in my writing—appropriate intimacy. What’s appropriate? Clearly, that’s up to you. Lately, I’ve noticed that movie trailers open with a rating caution: “The following preview has been approved for appropriate audiences.” Huh?

You are the author of your book. You choose your audience, by design or default. It’s up to you to decide what’s appropriate. Be bold.

Filed Under: book love, book writing, people & ideas, steps to write a book Tagged With: , , ,
July 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Just my type

Fiddling with type is not a fruitful pursuit for most authors. Unless your expertise is page design or typography, this domain—full of subtlety, nuance, and beauty—will distract you from your writing.

I think it’s a left-brain/right-brain issue. If you are drawn to the niceties of fonts, it’s because your right brain has itches that need scratching. By all means, honor them—but not during writing time. Treat your attraction to typefaces as a hobby, a passion to be pursued in time you’ve allotted for it.

I’ve spent hours on type and typefaces with the feeling that it’s the stuff of books. And it really is—but for designers, not authors.

Having issued that dire warning, let me now share a couple of resources I ran across this morning. First, Typetester, a site that makes it really easy to compare fonts:

Next, the current issue of the Big Brand System biweekly newsletter has fascinating information, including why you should avoid Verdana on your website. (Sign up for this free missive here.)

Filed Under: book love, book writing, planning, steps to write a book Tagged With: , , ,
July 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Introducing Mindy Gibbins-Klein: “The Book Midwife™”

When I became a coach, I joined a BNI chapter in Palo Alto. And when I decided to focus on helping people write books, I was struggling to come up with a memorable “elevator pitch” that would encapsulate what I offered. One Wednesday morning, the words just popped out of my mouth, unpremeditated: “I’m Joel Orr, book midwife. You have a book inside you, and it wants to come out; I’m here to help it be born.”

Mindy Gibbins-Klein

I loved the image, and so did my BNI friends. It was sticky and evocative. And having attended a live birth in my youth, it resonated with my feelings on helping an actual human being into the world (as I had on January 5, 1975).

I began to use the “book midwife” term to promote myself–by inserting it in my email signature. Shortly thereafter, I received a warm and polite note from Mindy Gibbins-Klein. She’s been “The Book Midwife” since 2002, and has actually registered the trademark for it in both the UK and the US. She asked that I not refer to myself in that way, and I responded that I would stop doing so.

What I did not immediately understand was that calling myself a “book midwife”–quotes, no caps, no “the”–might also weaken her claim to her intellectual property, because it could lead to the phrase becoming generic. Now I know better.

As a coach of aspiring authors, I am very sensitive to such issues, and fully support Mindy’s position on this matter.

So I thought it would be appropriate for me to state publicly: If it’s “The Book Midwife” you’re looking for, that would be Mindy. From what I’ve learned about her products and services, they are first-rate. I encourage you to go to her site and sign up for her inspirational emails.

Filed Under: book writing, people & ideas, write a book Tagged With: , ,
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