Snoots

What about these Chronicles of a Confined Writer??? Where have I been? Why have I not written every single day? Why have I gone months without contributing? My advice to Me follows. It is so much easier to offer advice than it is to listen to one’s own. Someone wise said, “The burglar judges by his own condition.” In this context, that is to say that I can advise others on issues from which I also suffer.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

I’ve been busy with too many things to do and not enough time. — We are all busy. Each of us has “enough” time. In fact, Jack Welch (formerly of GE), Larry Ellison (Oracle Corporation), Richard Branson (Virgin), and Steven Tyler (one of my favorite musicians, ever) all have “enough” time (i.e., just 24 hours each day). “Well, of course they do. Who wouldn’t have enough time with all that money and people to do things for you?” It’s a silly conversation to have but some people still believe that they could be successful if they just had money. I say to me (remember, this is my advice to me), “Get with the program. If you want to write, then write. If you want to sit there and make excuses because your personal life is troubling, or your day job is too involved, then just sit there and say you want to write. For many people, making excuses for ‘why not’ is enough. Not for you and me.”

I haven’t been feeling all that motivated to write. Oh, the irony! Are you feeling like going to that 9 to 5 every day? You’re not motivated to do that but one thing drives you there… the almighty dollar. I do not wish to impress that money is unimportant. The thing is, people work their J.O.B.s because they think they have to. Conforming thinkers allow themselves to settle in and call it “comfortable.” I submit this question (and others)… “How comfortable are you with the proverbial fingers tapping on the table up inside your wanting head, telling you that you’re better than that?” You’re better than the rat race. You’re better than making someone else tons of money because it’s “comfortable” for you. Like hell, you’re comfortable! If it isn’t writing for you, what is it? What do you get excited about? Why don’t you make time for it? Do you make time for TV? Do you make time for friends? TAKE time for you and see if you like it!

I’ve been helping other people take care of some things. Again, you may perceive your altruistic nature as impedance on those things you’d “rather be doing.” Take a hard look at how helping others stops you from succeeding. Everything I’ve read says that helping others is key to being personally successful. Are you sure you don’t have an aversion to success? Maybe you feel guilty about being successful - financially, relationally, whatever. I say, “Don’t!” If you have the ability to do something you love, make use of it. You cannot put others first for your whole life. Your internal restraint will never encourage success in others. It comes from within - for all of us. You only stifle your own creativity and expression by deferring to others’, realized or not.

Remember, this is my advice to me. I’m not suggesting that any other readers should heed my advice but it is free (at least until people will pay me for it). What I do recommend as advice to you if you’re interested, is to write your own “Advice to Me [i.e., you, not me].” Feel free to post it here as a comment, or do it for yourself and post it on your bathroom mirror.

Because it’s so much easier to give advice than to receive it (at least for many of us), try giving it to yourself. Who else knows you or your situation as well as you?

To Jeff and Florencia, the two of you are inspirational to me. I don’t know you well, but I love your independence from the rat race and from society’s expectations. In a lot of ways, you motivate me. I am happy to know you and be inspired by you both.

I’ve been absent from my chronicles for a while. Well, I’ve been writing but not with a goal or a plan to make it a bigger part of my life. I found myself asking the same questions over and over again… “How do I actually sell my work?, How much money can I make doing what I love so much?, Where do I go when I’ve never published a thing in my life?,” etc. You go to class!

For about a month, there was course catalog on my kitchen counter for non-credit classes at the College of Southern Maryland. I kept it around all that time thinking that eventually I was going to scan it for writing classes. I had been hoping for some motivation by taking a class because God knows it wasn’t inspiration for which I was searching. Then, I came across a class developed for online instruction called “Beginner’s Guide to Getting Published.”

That’s just the class I needed and never knew it existed. As luck would have it, I found this on May 16 and that was also the first day of the class that typically runs every couple of months for 6 weeks (two lessons per week). I had to pay $118 but that seemed a small price for what I perceived as “the missing link” in my intended writing career.

The class was created and is instructed by LeeAnne Krusemark. So far, it appears well-written and easy to understand. As with most classes, there are quizzes and assignments after each lesson.

In the interest of keeping my chronicles up-to-date, I’m going to describe the lessons as I go through them, and I’ll also post my completed assignments after I complete each one.

Thank you for coming along on my journey.

This evening, I decided to come back to Moe’s. This time, to take advantage of the good food but also the wireless internet where I can write and write in comfort on a real chair and a real table. Sounds silly and trivial, but to some, that’s luxury.

To my pleasant surprise, I heard great music as I entered the store. I didn’t know at first that this was live music. How neat! I learned that Kevin Brooks plays jazz at Moe’s every Thursday night from 6:30 - 8:30. Who’s Kevin Brooks? He’s a musician that clearly loves playing the keyboard. He’s soulful, energetic, humorous, and after talking to him on a break, I learned that he’s good people, too. Kevin’s the kind of person that does more than try. He’s there performing for the world to see and what a pleasure it is to have met him.

I’m thinking I’ll go back and write my words while he plays his music next Thursday.

The other night, I put a line up here that said, “Coming Soon… The Idea Wagon.”  The fact is, I’ve been working on some thoughts and as I work them out on paper, or online, more thoughts come to me.  Once I do more than try to write, one thing leads to another.  The words fly off my fingers and my mind comes up with more and more material - way more than the fingers can keep up with.

What is that?  There’s this phenomenon, an internal synergy of sorts… when you’re stuck, just start.  So what if what you’re doing sucks?  So what if you make mistakes, commit grammatical crimes, etc.?  Who cares?  Aren’t you doing more than the people that sit around watching television and talk about trying to write?

Off on a tangent, here we go…

What does it mean to try, anyway?  My brother told me about a demonstration that he observed when he was in the Marines.  Somebody asked him to try to move the pen that was placed in front of him.  When my brother touched the pen, he was yelled at.  “I said try to move the pen!  I didn’t tell you to move the pen!”  The point is, we can try all we want to do anything.  Do we want to try, or do we want to do it.

Do anything.  Please, do anything but don’t try.  Do.

Idea Wagon?  What Idea Wagon?

This has been another entry with no clear beginning or end, or sense for that matter

Tonight, I drove by the barber shop at 7:45pm. I planned to get my hairs cut tomorrow but when I saw his door open “after hours,” I decided to stop by. I said, “You’re not really open, are you?” His sign said he was open but he usually leaves around 7:00pm.

He reluctantly told me, “Yeah, come on in.” Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have approached a merchant when I believed they were closed. Don is different. Don, the barber is really a business man that earns money how he can. He’s a skilled barber of over 20 years. He lives 50 miles away in a nice part of Maryland but comes to Prince Frederick because he knows that he’s the best barber in Prince Frederick.

Don doesn’t just sell haircuts. That “gets ‘em in the door.” Don sells advertising to other local merchants on the wall behind the usually occupied waiting chairs. This guarantees at least one set of eyes will view little “mini-billboards” for every haircut-buying visitor. Don also sells swords and knives. I don’t know how many of these swords and knives he sells because in my 25+ visits to Don the barber, I’ve never seen anyone come in looking for a sword. Nevertheless, the small collection takes up a tiny bit of space on the back wall, makes for good conversation, and it occasionally makes Don a few extra dollars. I’ve also seen a few other goodies there on that back wall. For example, once I was there and he had a beginner’s guitar hanging there for $30. It looked like a good deal but at the time, I wasn’t into guitars.

I don’t aspire to be a barber, but I aspire to be like Don in some ways. He works hard, he’s resourceful, and he’s capitalizing on multiple streams of income. I failed to mention, Don owns 3 houses - one in Annapolis, MD where he lives, one in Ocean City, Maryland on the beach, and a farm also on the eastern shore of Maryland. Two of his three houses pay for themselves and he can retire any time he wants.

I want to write, but I’m thinking more and more that writing may be a tool for me in my quest for a way of life. Writing affords one the ability to work in his or her own environment on his or her own terms. Soon, I plan to add some Google Ads in here and perhaps one or two other affiliate programs. It can’t hurt to generate a little revenue for sustenance of this habit, right?

Please, consider what you want out of life and pursue it. There’s no time like the present and none of us know more than the sum of our experiences plus the courage to try something different.

Like Seal said, “You’re never gonna step out - unless you get a little crazy.”

11:56am on March 27, 2007  — It’s my lunch break from my “day job.”  Is there a book called, “So, You Wanna Be a Writer?  Mr. X’s Guaranteed Method to Replacing Your Salary Through Creativity“?

I can write.  I’m sure I can write.  I have tons of stuff that I’m just going to dump in here one day.  More importantly, though, I don’t have a plan.  I have a will to write but what I really would LOVE is a coach or maybe even a leader - a manager, if you will.  I need someone to say, “Here’s a job - pay’s lousy but it could lead to other things.”  Where do I start?  Is there an Idiot’s Guide?  Probably.  I also want it handed to me!  I know, it won’t happen and I’ll never get anywhere with that expectation, right?  How about this:  Tell me where to get started.

I’m starting here.  My work is available here, even if it’s not known.  So, next it must be known.  If anyone has any suggestions, please post them.  Any and all suggestions are welcome and I’ll let the public know what the suggestions are and how I acted or didn’t act on them within 3 days.  That’s what I am offering in return - a direct response to each suggestion - at least until I cry “Uncle.”   I promise, I’ll try to keep Mr. and Mrs. Yeah Buts at bay while I search for success.  Won’t you be a part of my success?

What’s in it for you?  Besides a direct response from a distinguished writer, you may become motivated by my own determination.  You might be a writer and want out of it.  If I can help You in any way, let me know.  I’m a helper.  I believe in networking and I believe in karma.  What goes around comes around.  Interested?  Good.  Not interested?  Thanks for your time!

Tomorrow morning, I go back to my “day job.”  Has anyone ever told you, “Don’t quit your day job?”  Most likely, it’s because you’re not seriously considering a change in careers.  What if you were?  What if you were thinking about quitting your “day job” to become that whatever you’ve always wanted to be.  Would they tell you you’re crazy?  Maybe they would.  But you probably know already if you have the talent to do it.  If you want to to replace the daily grind with a daily experience that never ends, what’s stopping you?

What’s stopping me?  I believe in my skills as a writer.  I believe in my ability to write interesting thoughts.  I believe I could take the simplest of concepts or thoughts, and turn it into an essay.  You name the topic, and you name the length.  As a matter of fact, I think I’ll try…

Here’s the thing - I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time.  I’ve wanted to write about stuff I always assumed nobody cares about.  Now, it seems more and more that I just need to write.  Who cares if others care?  Well, it would be nice to make a living from my writing but even if I don’t, to write is a blessing.  It soothes me.  It’s something that this country’s Freedom of Speech allows me to do about any topic that I choose.  I can take any position, “right” or “wrong” and ellaborate to my heart’s content.  I can piss people off if I want to.  I can praise stupid people, or chastise geniouses (see from my spelling, I’m not a genious).

I always think about Field of Dreams - “Build it and they will come…”  I need to “Write it and they will come.”  Tiresome are the excuses about how hard it is to get started, how much time it takes away from other things in life, or how much money it costs to do that which should be free.  I’m finished with excuses.  If I never sell a dime’s worth of writing, I’ll at least do what I love to do.

I called it “Chronicles of a Confined Writer” but perhaps it’s not a matter of being confined.  Being “confused” is more like it.  It doesn’t take a website, a PC, the internet, or a typewriter to be a writer.  It takes desire, and the will to beat failure.  If I write, I’m successful at writing.  Is this a big, long story about nothing?  No, it’s me getting motivated.

Now, on to writing 100 words about my drive home from Moe’s, the burrito restaurant.

What are these “Chronicles of a Confined Writer?” Well, since I was little, I’ve been told that I was a good writer. As a youngster, when someone would tell me that I was a good anything, I had to prove to them that they were wrong. So, I didn’t like writing. My “good” handwriting turned into chicken-scratch. My polite demeanor turned into defiance. Well, maybe just a little bit.

Nevertheless, writing is one of a few things that I’ve always been pretty good at. These chronicles are about my desire to write and my desire to follow a dream. I am going to become a better writer. I am going to begin making money with this craft of mine. Eventually, I will sustain my children and myself from it, as well.

Do I have a timeframe for this? What’s stopping me? Why haven’t I done it up to now? What’s different? What makes me think I can do it when others can’t (hint - I think they just choose not to)?

I see a time in the not-too-distant future when I can work in my pajamas, or my winter coat if it’s cold and my heat doesn’t work, or my birthday suit if I just don’t feel like getting dressed after a nice, long bath. Since I can work from anywhere, I choose “everywhere.” I will work at whatever time I choose, on whatever day I choose, and in whatever surroundings are available to me and appropriate for me. This all depends on what I am writing at the time I am writing.

Writing is a fascinating avocation, occupation, and infatuation. To be continued…

Saturday, March 24, 2007. Seattle’s Best Coffee.

I want to be a writer. Do I write? Sure. I write letters for work. I write contracts for work. I write emails to friends. I wrote papers and essays in school. All these are and were sources of stress for me. Well, all except the emails to friends. As you’ll learn if you stick with me, some emails to friends are sources of stress for me, too.

So, I’m sitting here at Seattle’s Best Coffee in Borders Books, Waldorf, MD. It’s a different sort of environment than I’m used to. I’ve actually been opposed to “snooty” or “trendy” coffee places in the past. Elitists go there. Is that true? I guess I’m turning into one. As I was just talking on the phone (also writing), a middle-aged lady walked in the door. She had an old lady with her. The younger one said, “Excuse me. Can ’she’ sit here?” Of course, I told them she could sit. I was honored that I must have looked friendly enough for approach. The elderly lady sat quietly and I continued to write. A friendly occurance; how nice.

What am I doing here?