Writing Writers: 2010

Writing and Marketing - the Dilemma

If you want people to buy your work, you need to let them know about it. And you have to balance that with how successful marketing can seem a bit vulgar sometimes.

Like the ads on TV - we don't like them but we know that deep down, TV wouldn't exist without ads. It couldn't. Nor could magazines or newspapers - or, more especially, the Internet.

(Sorry to burst your bubble on this but if you think the Net is in any way free, you're kidding yourself. For a start, how much do you pay AOL for access per month? And how exactly do Yahoo, Google and Microsoft survive as the big three - it ain't charity, Bub, I can tell you that much.)

We'd like to think, as writers, we can be quiet, reserved, indeed anonymous - and people will somehow hear about us and buy our books - by word of mouth perhaps. By luck or by other people's promotional skills. Alas those days are over - if they ever existed in the first place!

Publishers are just as concerned about marketing as they are with publishing nowadays - (often the marketing department is bigger than the acquisitions department) - and they need to know that writers have the capacity and the willingness to go out there and promote their own work. To understand that success is a competition of sorts - you just can't hide your light under a bushel any more if you want to be taken seriously by the public - or the writing industry.

Something to bear in mind when promoting yourself, perhaps.

Besides which, I've never understood why it's okay for Coca Cola and Nike to get in your face and come across as big corporate bullies - but somehow it's unseemly for writers to be anything less than demure. Unless you're Jack Canfield or Bryce Courtney of course - both writers that everyone loves now because they, like an increasing number of successful writers, refuse to compromise over the need for self publicity.

And anyway - the way I see it is that I'm not really promoting me - just my writing - which is not really me, the person, but me, the writer - two close but not entirely the same individuals - does that make sense?

I'm shy as a person, afraid of criticism and easily hurt but when I put writing proposals together or movie treatments or anything I use to 'sell' my writing - I know I can seem super confident to the point of being almost 'brash'. But that's not really me - it just helps my career. A lot.

I try to teach this aspect of writing to others - because I know it can help writers get around this problem of having to seem self confident, worldy and wise in the ever more competitive marketplace that writing has become - when all you really want to do is sit at home and write.

I think Robyn and I show that this can work. You can be both.

Like all those (apparently) insecure Hollywood actors who look good in the media but secretly crave solitude and only do all the media stuff because it's what enables them to do what they love.

It goes with the territory. Even as a writer.

To ignore the need to publicize yourself is to cut off your nose to spite your face I think. In order to make money, you need to get yourself - or at least your writing - out there, or you simply won't be able to afford to keep doing it!

It's a very modern dilemma.

Anyway, again I apologize for my apparent brashness sometimes - I'm perhaps really only trying to set a good example for you, my writer friend.

Thanks for letting me speak to you.

The Answer to Writing, the Universe and Everything

Scientists studying nature are getting inceasingly good at working out how things work. From the Big Bang Theory to DNA. From the evolution of species to how chocolate can make us happy.

We now have a pretty good idea how life works from the smallest chemical action to the largest atomic reaction. It seems as though one day we will know how everything in our Universe works... but there is one crucial element missing.

The why.

We know that sunlight makes plants photosynthesize carbon dioxide into oxygen. We know that when an electrical spark is applied to gasoline it explodes. We know that when water boils it turns to steam. We know these things and a host of others because we can prove them - every time. But do we know why they happen?

Scientists say that these reactions are 'coded' into the makeup of the elements. That these reactions are inevitable, given the right circumstances. We know that during the Big Bang, for instance, certain elements came together, making it happen, but we still don't know why they came together in the first place.

It's too easy to say God does these things, smile, and act as though that's the end of the argument.

But I think there may be another factor - a fifth dimension - at work here - one that I have recently labelled 'Intentionality'.

What is Intentionality?

Basically, I think there may be a set of independent universal forces that direct matter and biological organisms, including humans - co-existing within our Universe.

There is already some evidence that in Nature growth and change develop in pre-assigned paths of 30 or 60 degrees, though the reasons for this are unclear. It's curious that the ancient Chinese divination system called the I Ching makes similar assumptions about the mechanics of change. Could it be that Nature, including ourselves, respond to an external force called Intention?

It might be like a kind of 'mist' that pervades all matter - and if so there may also be a set of mathematical principles that direct the Intentionality Dimension.

What Does This Fifth Dimension Look Like?

It's difficult to picture what another dimension might look like but I will make an attempt here:

Imagine a line drawn on a piece of paper going from north to south- that's one dimension, seen from above. Then another line drawn across it east to west - that's the second dimension. Now envisage a circle drawn around the two lines and imagine this in three dimensions - as a sphere dangling in space. Now think of the sphere as travelling in a straight line that represents time, the fourth dimension. The fifth dimension (intentionality) is the space through which the sphere is travelling through time.

This fifth dimension is a kind of 'ether' in which there are an infinity of impulses for and against, good and bad, order and chaos, right and wrong. At some point, I'm suggesting, we may be able to identify and record these 'impulses' into a coherent system, or at least a systematic group of 'influences' over the other four dimensions.

At that point we may realize that the real reason why the Universe exists at all is because the 'overriding impulse' of all of the five dimensions combined is towards order, right and goodness.

What Has This Got to Do With Writing?

Quite a lot actually - so bear with me!

There's an ancient Hermetic maxim that says "As above, so below." It was the ancients' way of positing that what happens in the heavens is reflected on Earth. It's a pretty cool idea that they probably didn't really understand when they said it - they might just have meant that the stars dictate our destiny.

(Okay this is a vast simplification of everything I've ever learnt about ancient lore, religion and magic - I guess I'm just trying to keep it simple!)

As Above, So Below

Curiously, as we enter the 21st century, we are discovering this maxim is largely true - in the sense that the smallest chemical and subatomic reactions actually mirror what happens in the largest of any and all of the actions and reactions in the Universe.

And, given this reality, I believe our minds may work in exactly the same way as the Universe. We are in effect, each of us, a microcosm of the Universe, capable of achieving anything we choose to set our minds to - because we, as human beings, have unlimited access to the dimension of Intentionality.

Our thoughts and our perceptions may make up the bulk of our version of the real world. But our intentions are what guide us. Man is the only living creature which can consciously change his mind. An animal will react and change its actions instinctively. But only we, as rational human beings, can do what is right or wrong or neither based on considered thought. We are the only living organisms that control our intentions. We can react and change and grow when we tap into our own Intentionality dimension. And, I believe, because we are intrinsically connected with the five dimensions of the Universe -we can influence the Universe with our thoughts.

Are You In Control?

Think of a river - as time. You drop in a stone and the effects -the ripples - extend outwards. Now imagine that where the stone hits the water is your sense of now. The stone is your intention.

You can either watch the results of your intention or you can analyse its effects. Your goals and dreams are not just idle whims. No, because of their interaction with the fifth dimension, they can actually change the Universe. They radiate outwards and alter the present and the future -and the perhaps the past for that matter.

One of the problems in us believing we're just normal human beings is that we're not aware of just how much we are influencing the Universe. And too many of us stop pursuing our dreams because we think we're not getting anywhere. But we stop because we haven't yet received any feedback from the Universe. Many of us might find that if we'd just hung in there a little longer, the feedback may appear.

I've tentatively called this the Acquired Response Marker or ARM. If we accept that this ARM is reaching out to us from the Universe to help us recognise that we are getting somewhere, we might not give up so soon!

Am I Crazy?

Now it could be I'm just being woolly headed or have lost the plot in some way. Maybe I've spent so long at home studying and thinking, I'm going gaga. But I don't think so. There's just something about the idea that there may be an Intentionality Dimension that appeals to me. It seems like a key - a concept that seems to fit.

It would explain so much.

What about psychic ability? Now I'm a sceptic but I do wonder how psychics are sometimes capable of knowing the future and being able to tap into events in the past or in a part of the world they have no obvious contact with.

What's to say they're not tapping into Intentionality - which would have completely different rules about what's accessible and what isn't. The dead - ghosts or the future - may be able to communicate with people receptive to another dimension filled with 'intention' rather than what we normally think of as physical reality.

I could go on (I've been thinking about this a lot) but I'll stop here before I start to sound Jacko.

As Far As Writing Goes

You already know I believe that writing success has a lot to do with setting goals and visualization - but imagine that there was a verifiable physical reality - a new dimension - that was real and measureable. And that when you work towards your dreams there was an actual physical response happening in the Universe - wouldn't that direct, concrete feedback make you more determined to change your life? I think it would.

And I'm tending towards the idea that if all of us thought that 'thinking could make it so', and that if we all believed it, then it might change us as a species, and help us create a far better world, perhaps overnight!

Just a thought.

More Quotes

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Douglas Adams

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” J.D. Salinger

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” Toni Morrison

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Ernest Hemingway

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” Madeleine L'Engle

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Stephen King

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” Virginia Woolf

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” Anais Nin

Stop Waiting for Permission to Write

The best piece of writing advice I ever received? It was from a professor of journalism in my hometown of Makhanda, Eastern Cape. He looked the 18-year-old me dead in the eye one fine September day and said, ‘What are you waiting for to begin your writing career, a letter of permission?’

His words stung. I’d gone to see the professor to beg for guidance, worried that I’d made the wrong choice in starting out with a business degree the previous year. What would it take for a small-town girl like me to build a career in something I was much more passionate about: the written word?

‘Now this may sound strange coming from me,’ the professor continued, looking at my crestfallen face and softening his voice slightly, ‘but you don’t need a degree in journalism to write, and you don’t need someone to say you’re good at it. You know what you actually need to do, if you really want to become a writer?’

This was an award-winning author of multiple books, a proven expert on the topic, currently sitting across from me. I was desperate for someone to shine a light so I could find my way. So that I could magically transform into what I’d always wanted to be.

‘Yes, sir, please tell me.’

He leaned back against the antique chair, closing his eyes briefly while he thought.

This better be good.

‘You just need …’ his eyes snapped open again, ‘to start writing.’

It seemed a simplistic answer, and I left his office feeling even more lost. I’d wanted to hear about the quick fix, not the hard graft. But now, more than 20 years later, I can finally grasp the full meaning of his words.

He meant that I should stop waiting. Stop twisting myself into knots wondering if I could. Stop looking for external validation. I should stop thinking about writing and actually do it. I should write because it was how I would process the world. I should write as if there was no one reading (often, that was the case at first). I should write because the more I wrote, the better I would get. Writing is a muscle, one that twitches in a writer’s body like an annoying tic, but it is also a muscle that gets stronger with time.

I wrote terribly at first, but I carried on. I wrote on days I didn’t have time or didn’t feel like it. I wrote because something inside me said that I had to.

And eventually, through the process of writing all those words and sentences, those paragraphs and stories – over days and weeks and months and years – small yet wonderful things started to happen. I published my first article on a website, gasping when I saw my name blink on the screen. I rushed to the shops on a Sunday to find my byline within the pages of a newspaper. And then one day, an editor at a publishing house read my pitch for a non-fiction book and said: ‘YES, we want this. We want your words, because we believe that people will pay to read them.’

I finally looked up then and saw that through the active process of doing, I had indeed become a writer. I had tapped my fingers against a keyboard, time and again, taking ideas and making them tangible. There is no magic more powerful than that of creation, and none of that happens if we wait for external sources to convince us it should be so.

So, stop waiting for permission. Start writing. Do it today.

Belinda is a writer, author and marketing consultant who has lived in London, Europe and South Africa over the past 20 years. Her first non-fiction book was published by Kwela Books in 2023, and she has written for the Sunday Times, Fast Company, Glamour and Entrepreneur. Before co-founding a content agency, she worked in the publishing industry for Penguin Books and Harlequin. Her author site is https://belindamountain.co.za/

What Makes a Great Book Title?

I received a lovely email from a treasured subscriber this week.

She noted that I don't have anything on what makes a good title for an article, book or novel - or indeed how to come up with one.

Never one to shirk an opportunity to help writers, here's my advice on how to come up with compelling titles.

Use Magic

For the purposes of my fiction writing, I study magic, astrology, numerology, witchcraft and various other arcane subjects. I find it interesting - and revealing about human nature.

There's a little known philosophy amongst mages (yes, they exist!) that holds to the idea that the very sound and rhythm of certain letters, words and phrases is magical. Which I think is actually why the word 'spell' has a double meaning...

Anyway, what you can learn from this is that certain consonants like 'D' and 'P' and 'B' are more resonant on a listener (or reader) than other less 'dramatic' letters like 'M','N' or 'V' for instance.

Also, that phrases (and names) with an odd number of syllables - 3, 5, or 7 etc, as opposed to even numbers, tend to be more compelling and authoritative sounding.

Hence, The Da Vinci Code, (5 syllables and the hard consonants), The Horse Whisperer (5), The Celestine Prophecy (7), have a standalone strength that comes from the rhythm of the title.

Similarly, names are thought to be more solid sounding when configured around 3, 4 or 5 syllables, as opposed to 2 or more than 5, which apparently sound less authoritative - or simply put less 'catchy'.

Use Common Sense

You want to have titles that make sense. A long time ago I wrote a short story called 'The Concomitant of Isis'. I thought I was being very clever until my writing group complained that the title didn't make sense, sounded pompous, and didn't help a reader work out what the story was about! I changed it to 'Forever Dead.'

You need to use words that are clearly understood individually - even if the phrase they're contained in is not so transparent. Titles that fall into this category might be: The Joy Luck Club, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and The Hunt for Red October.

ASIDE: Book cover designers are said not to like the word 'The'. if you've ever studied book covers you'll note that designers often try to hide the definite article by making it smaller than the rest of the title, sometimes so small you can't even see it from a distance!

Be Mysterious

There's nothing wrong with being intriguing by using a phrase that suggest 2 or 3 interpretations, even meanings that sound cool but have little to do with the work.

I once heard that a Hollywood studio had a list of a dozen potential titles for an upcoming movie and herded some punters off the street and tried out the titles on them. 'Which movie would you go and see, based solely on the title?' they asked. I'm not sure how it turned out but the story gives you some idea of the power of a title alone.

The title 'Quantum of Solace' (note the 5 syllables) would seem to have this quality of inspiring the response 'What the h*ll is that about?' As does Nightmare on Elm Street or The Sting or Fatal Attraction or Identity etc. All great sounding but, unless you've seen the movie, mysterious.

Be Evocative

Professional copywriters and marketers are very aware that certain words create automatic, largely subconscious reactions in people. Words like summer, happiness or success on the up side of emotions and on the down, words like cry, despair and fear create a Pavlovian response in the listener which the astute writer can use to their advantage.

Words like brilliant, beautiful, bride and blonde (notice all the 'B's there) provoke emotional responses. As do deadly, damaged, direct and disaster.

Be Helpful

When it comes to article writing and self help books, the competition for a reader's attention is fierce. The best you can do in these situations is be right up front, even outrageous with your title. Which would you rather read - an article called 'Gardening Blues' or 'Six Ways to Clear That Crud!' Possibly neither but I'm sure you get the idea.

The average person's attention is subjected to 1000 advertising messages a day. In amongst that they are actually seeking useful information. How does anyone differentiate between the myriad of incoming data?

You need to be specific nowadays. You need your title to tell people exactly what your message is or if not, be intriguing enough to warrant a second look.

7 Habits of Successful People, How to be Your Own Life Coach, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and Chicken Soup for the Soul fall into this category.

Brainstorm

There really is no better way of coming up with titles than to deliberately set writing time aside to brainstorm them.

Okay, great titles sometimes just come to you. They have an inherent insistence you keep returning to. But mostly, you'll have to juggle words and phrases until you find titles that appeal to you - and others.

Robyn and I do this around the pool table. We'll have a glass of wine and, while potting balls, brainstorm movie and book titles, even character names. Many are not great (we'll laugh and giggle about the bad ones) but one idea can lead to another, one word that is right can carry you on to combinations that sound better. Completely unpromising starts can lead us to a title or name that seems definitive, sharp and compelling.

Try it yourself with a friend - because most of all, you should...

Have Fun

Writing is about transferring your thoughts, words and ideas into the mind of another person - without you actually having to be there with them!

Remember that your interest, passion and enthusiasm for your own writing comes across. On some deep mysterious level, your reader can pick up on you, the writer - and trust you if they know you're sincere.

Make your titles reflect the joy you feel towards you work. Use your titles deliberately to pique a reader's or editor's interest.

Be mischievous, be clever but most of all, be honest.

Hope this helps.

Keep writing!

Writing Academy