Imagination@Work

In Praise of Amateur Writers

We live in a professional world; a world that distinguishes "real" from "amateur." There are professional ballplayers and semi-pro players. Professional astronomers and self-taught stargazers. There are also professional and amateur writers.

Often we redefine the terms: Professional means real; amateur means unsuccessful dreamer. Recently I had to send off yet another short bio of myself. You know the kind that sums up your existence in sixty words or less. I've done a ton of these over the years but over the last four years I've been able to add the line, " . . . is a full time writer . . ." It took a long time to get to this point, and truth is, I have no idea how long I'll be able to use the phrase.

When I write those words, I always feel a sense of pride. I don't know why. I'm not a better writer because I do it full time. My sales are no better because I spend my days linking one word to another. Truth is, many quality authors hold eight to five jobs. Does that make their work any less important or significant? Not at all.

Over the last few weeks I've been reading short stories of science fiction all written by people who hold down day jobs and I've been impressed by the quality of the stories. I've spoken to scores of writers like those and each one sees himself or herself as a writer even though they spend more hours in an office, teaching, at a bank, or driving nails into 2x4s than they do writing.

We do not become writers because we get paid for it. We are writers because we put words on a page. Every "successful" writer was once an amateur. Dean Koontz taught school, as did Stephen King; Jack Cavanaugh was a pastor; Grisham practiced law. On my shelf are books written by airline pilots, ER doctors, insurance brokers (Tom Clancy), housewives, nurses, engineers, and just about every other profession.

Publication has always been my goal, but it's not the only goal. Writing has its own rewards and those rewards are unique to every wordsmith. Fiction writers know what it's like to live in a world of their own creation; nonfiction writers know what it means to communicate information that might otherwise languish in the backwaters of ignorance.

Amateur or professional a writer is one who writes. Period.

Al Gansky

Yummy Words

Some weeks back I bought an Amazon Kindle, the new digital reader. I'm hooked. Wait! You can relax, this isn't another blog post about the Kindle. However, I do bring it up for a reason. The Kindle comes with a dictionary. If I see a word I don't know, a simple scroll of a wheel and a tap of a button will bring up a definition for every major word in the chosen sentence.

I have a better than average vocabulary. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement. I wish my vocabulary were better, as should every writer. Let's face it, our stock and trade is content and story. Whether we write for magazines, publish novels, pen devotions of nonfiction books, we live and breathe by stringing words together. Writers love words. I get a thrill from learning new terms or gaining deeper insight into words I already know. (I remember what fun it was to learned that a cupboard is a "cup board" and that necklace comes from "neck lace." I know, pretty simple if not obvious, but I had never taken note of those compound words.

I've just finished reading two novels and both sent me to the dictionary a few times. I didn't mind (especially since it only took the click of a button) and the act made me a better writer. Many years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr. came out with a series of novels featuring spy/adventurer Blackford Oaks. Buckley is known for many things: conservative politics, debate skills, editing a magazine, and much more. But when I think of him, I think of his vocabulary. I read every Blackford Oaks novel with an American Heritage Dictionary by my side. At times, looking up words unknown to me proved tedious but it was worth it.

Robert Frost said, "Life is tons of discipline. Your first discipline is your vocabulary; then your grammar and your punctuation. Then, in your exuberance and bounding energy you say you're going to add to that. And your delight is in that power." (Anyone else feel the urge to edit those sentences or is it just me?)

Words are the material we use to build cathedrals of thought, ideas, and understanding. Words are the pistons that drive our creativity. Words are our meat and drink. Many can settle for an average vocabulary but it's a crime for writer's to do so. Take the time to learn new words and use them in your craft.

ON AN UNRELATED NOTE: Today is the birthday of Earle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970), self-taught attorney, defender of the poor farm laborer, and creator of Perry Mason. He wrote 80 Perry Mason novels and 15 nonfiction books. Since there's not much money in defending farm laborers, he began writing for money. It appears he did all right at it. He commented, "I srite to make money, and I write to give the reader sheer fun."

Al Gansky

Book Trailer

My new friend Cecil Stokes has created a book trailer for one of my recent releases ANGEL. Cecil is a documentary film maker and and very creative guy. We began talking about book trailers at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer's conference. In the weeks that followed he has started a new division at his company Tent Makers Entertainment. His work is outstanding. Here's what he did for me.

Let me know what you think.

My Apologies

For some reason, Typepad is not working well for me on this site. No matter how I format the blog post, Typepad changes it, squishes paragraphs together, changes font sizes, etc. I'm sorry for the appearance of the blogs below. Please know that I am working on it.

Al Gansky

Twitterpated

For a little over a month now, I’ve been toying with Twitter. Not familiar with the term? Well, Twitter is an Internet service that allows users to keep in contact with others. In a sense, it’s a mini-blog. Users chose whom they want to follow and their friends, family, coworkers may chose to follow them. For example, Michael Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers. The “tweets” about what he is doing at work and at home (for example, I know the air condition is down at the Thomas Nelson building). I follow other writers, speakers, and the like.

Now here’s the kicker. Twitter only allows a post of 140 characters or less at a time. You have to get your idea across within those limits. 140 characters isn’t much but it amazes me to see how much can be said in such a limited space.

Over the years, I’ve observed that human’s like to press the envelope of restriction. Tell people they have only 140 keystrokes to make a statement and someone will step up to prove they can do more than imagined. Enter Matthew Richtel New York Times reporter and novelist. Matt has decided to write a story using Twitter. That means the story goes out to his followers crammed into 140 character bite-sized segments. It’s like reading two lines of a novel at a time.

Dumb idea. Just plain stupid. Can’t be done. Breaks all the rules. No one will care. So why do I look forward to every installment? He got my attention with the outlandish idea and locked it away with an intriguing mystery.

What kind of story is it? When I learned what he was doing, I went to his Twitter page and read his backlog entries. At first everything looks normal: posts about interviews and newspaper stuff, then the posts get weird. On June 9^th everything changed with this post:

“It should not be snowing. Not now. In June. It's beautiful here. An outer contrast to such internal fear.”

It appears someone “stole” Richtel’s text-messaging cell phone and has been using it to post to Twitter. Each segment of the story is a Twitter post. This is an idea well worth stealing.

One of my great interests in life is creativity. I love reading about those who have a truly unique idea and does something with it. Richtel has done just that. One moment you’re rooting the character on; the next you start believing the guy is an evil man. Which is he?

As writers we often have to work within the guidelines given us. It’s part of the business, but it doesn’t mean we surrender our creativity. Matt Richtel has proven that point.

Alton Gansky

Happy Birthday Professor Strunk

Today is the birthday of William Strunk, Jr., college professor and grammarian. You might recognize the name. Most writers do. Professor Strunk (b. 1869) taught English at Cornell University and wrote a tiny book on grammar meant to ease the burden on professors and students struggling with the rights and wrongs of writing prose. The book was all of 43 pages long. Elements of Style might not have been large in size but it was huge in impact. That was in 1918.

In 1959 a one time student of Professor Strunk revised and published the book again. That student was E.B. White who would go on to make his own name in the literary field as an essayist and columnist of The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine and as author of such books as Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web.

I first saw Elements of Style while walking through a mall with my wife. I was still a young man and beginning to rediscover my love of writing. Standing outside a bookstore in the mall I met a woman doing a book signing. She was the first working writer I had met. She chatted with my wife and I and I asked some questions. When she heard that I had a longing writing she reached into her purse and pulled out a well-worn copy of Elements of Style and waved it at me.

“You must have this,” she said. “I carry it everywhere. When I’m in line at the grocery store, I read a few lines. I’ve had this for years.” I could tell.

Of course, I bought a copy I still have decades after meeting her.

The book is longer now because White added material, but it is still the smallest grammar/writing book I am aware of. Ask any working writer if they have “Strunk and White” and you’ll see them smile and say, “Yes.”

William Strunk said, "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."

Both Strunk and White are gone now, but their work lives on after them—and there is another lesson in that.

Alton Gansky

Blessed with deadlines

I balance freelance writing with creative writing. Truth is, the freelance work support my fiction-writing habit. As most freelance writers do, I try to separate my deadlines evenly over the weeks and months. But every once in awhile, something goes awry. It can be any number of things: I fall behind; material is delivered to me late; travel; speaking; a full moon--anything can derail the best intentions.

I don't complain. Having deadlines is a good thing. It means I'm working. It also means that I have to do some prioritizing. I've been writing this blog for some time and my ability to post has been a tad cyclic. I say all that to say this: This blog is going into hibernation for awhile while I clean my desk of pressing work and reevaluate how I'm spending my time. If you're a subscriber, you know you receive a notice every time I post. Keep an eye out for that.

So long for now.

Al Gansky

Golf and Writing

James Scott Bell recently sent a note to a writers group that I found especially interesting and beneficial. I wanted to share it with you. --AG

I don't know if you're a golf fan, but the U.S. Open, recently concluded, was one of the most dramatic and inspiring tournaments ever.

Tiger Woods, with an injured left knee, scrambles to force an 18-hole playoff. (In the Open, they don't do sudden death after 72 holes. They play 18 MORE the next day. And then if the golfers are still even, they play sudden death).

The guy he's playing is a longtime journeyman named Rocco Mediate, 45 years old, who would be the oldest Open champion ever if he were to win.

Mediate stays with Tiger all through the 18-hole playoff. In fact, he battles back from an early deficit to take the lead, and Tiger has to scramble just to tie, so there's a sudden death playoff. And that's where Tiger finally wins.

Mediate was courageous and dogged and admirable throughout. "I never quit. I never quit," he said. "I've been beaten down a few times and came back, and I got what I wanted. I got a chance to beat the best player in the world. And I came up just a touch short." He also said of the fans, "They wanted a show. We gave it to them."

There are very few Tigers in anything. In the literary world, you have your Stephen Kings. But most writers are like Rocco, and if you write like him, if you "never quit," you may get a chance at a championship. You may come up "just a touch short," but you'll have given the readers a show. That's not a bad thing to strive for.

James Scott Bell is a novelist and attorney living in Los Angeles. His latest book TRY DARKNESS is published by Center Street (Hachette) and is available this July.

How to be somewhere you're not

Thanks to Michael Hyatt who mentioned this over Twitter. 3D technology has arrived. Take a look at some of the samples at this site. The left column offers other examples. Amazing. I'm speaking a dozen times or more next year, this would save a lot on airfare. How many different ways could this technology be used?

Click here to see people who aren't really there.

Creative and Touching

Creativity comes with responsibility. At least it does for some of us. Robin Lee Hatcher shared a video on her blog that is worth passing on. As a writer of novels, I know the power of the "What if?" question. The subject of this video is, "What if the whole world were reduced to 100 people?" Take a look.