Discipline, Desire and Writing

The other day I ran into an acquaintance, Jack, a salt-of-the-earth older man who does things hands-on.  He built a house off the electricity grid in Arizona - that's the kind of guy he is.

He asked what I'd been up to and I told him I was writing three books on contract in a year. He replied, "How do you find the discipline to write?"

"I need the money!" was my quick retort.  I laughed and walked off.

That's not really the reason. It's been said that about 80% of the people in the world want to write a book. Less than 1/10 of 1% ever do.  Is it that the others lack discipline?

Partly.  But also you have to have the desire to do it. And you have to have the perseverance to keep going even when it gets rough. Lately, it's been tough for me. yesterday was a little better; I got through a dificult chapter and almost have it in hand.

In my 30s, I had the desire to write; I even started what I thought could be a novel or two a couple of times, but I just didn't know where I was going with them.  They were just words. I didn't really have a story, just a few ideas, and also, I didn't really know how to go about it.I didn't know any other writers personally either.

At 39, I had a biz/tech book deal with a major European publisher. I wrote a few chapters, got some bad feedback from a technical editor, then the business editor left and I ran into personal problems (divorce, and much more) and the thing just died out.  What a mistake. It took me 12 years to get back on track and get another book contract. I sure as hell am going to finish these books. The regret that filled me for not finishing the first one is enough to keep me focused.

But in the interim, I learned to be a writer.  I learned by going to poetry readings and talking with poets and writers. I learned by reading the biographies and autobiographies of writers. I learned by reading books on writing. I learned by having other writers that I respect review my progress on my novel. But mostly, I learned by reading the works of great writers - a task that is never finished.

I'm still learning, of course, but it does take discipline.

For me, it also takes discipline NOT to look at business email or that confounded, soul-draining facebook crap first thing in the morning when I come up to my office. On my best days, I roll out my yoga mat and do my little 20 minute routine, and then go to my desk. For weeks  now, months, really, I have been getting up at 3am-4am and starting to work before sunrise. That's the best time for me. It's quiet.  I almost cringe when the sun comes up since my little piece of private solace is soon to be gone, the dogs will start barking, a fire siren goes off, or like yesterday, the neighbors start arguing loudly in the street.

On the weekend, I have to force myself NOT to work on this book.  I hit the wall a couple of weeks ago and started having physical problems with my back, neck and right arm, from toiling away too much.  I was coming apart. So I have to have the discipline to make it a point to get away, to rest, to contemplate and to take care of myself by relaxing a little.

And it took discipline to write this post when I have to get back to my business/tech book writing this morning.

So yeah, it takes discipline, but mostly, you have to have the desire to do it. My first novel took seven years of learning, writing, reading, and working, sometimes putting it away and coming back to it. But the payoff when you see your name on that book cover and hold it in your hands and leaf through those pages you write is simply divine.

Failing Forward

Yesterday I failed.  And the day before that.  It happens almost every day: I don't accomplish what I set out to in writing. Yesterday was Memorial Day, but I have so much to do on this current book that it was less stressful to try at it than to take the day off.

After about two hours or so, I wasn't making much progress.  I ate. I rested. I came back to it and struggled through another hour or so when I realized it just wasn't going to happen.  It was worse than pulling teeth.

Some days, I succeed!

But only rarely. Some days, I get done what I had been planning to get done in less time than I thought. I quit.  I don't jump in to the next thing to bog down that day.  I try to leave some in the tank. It's the getting to it that is the hard part, the mental stuff.

But mostly, most days, I fall short.

After a string of days and weeks and months of failing, I can see progress.  I'm getting there.

This is nonfiction, a textbook-like tome that I'm working on that must follow strict rules and guidelines.

In writing fiction, the rules are a little different.  If you come up with one good idea in a day, it's a good day.  If you sat down and wrote, it's a good day.  If you found just the perfect word you were looking for to dress up a sentence, it's a good day.  Maybe you want to write 1000 words or 2000 words but if they are crap, it doesn't really matter  What matters is that you wrote well, that you moved yourself and your writing craft and your work forward.

For now, through, I'll take another stab at things and see if I can inch this monstrous boulder up the hill.

It's Emotional

I've had the blues lately - I guess the prolonged stress of writing three books back to back on contract, missing deadlines, missing my Baby Doll, toiling through re-writing, begging for citation permissions and endorsements, well, it's all just draining.  And alongside that, my brother's 18 months or so of illness, now entering the final stages with maybe six months of pain and agony left, which I feel all the way.

But when I look at my completed book cover, I feel like I accomplished something.  I even teared up a bit. I wrote something no one else ever wrote, and something the business world needs. I pulled it out of my ass. I was in over my head. It stretched me out of my comfort zone. It was painful frustrating hard work.  But at best, I wrote something that will help shore up American -- in fact, global -- business competitiveness and protect it's intellectual property (governments too, unfortunately); at worst, I completed a book for a major publisher.

As I read the cover flaps and my bio, it almost seems like someone else did all that work over a quarter century to get to where I am to be able to write that book.  But no one else did. I did. I made my small contribution and I am working on making more.

It feels good.

How do you like me now?

“This book is a great read for anyone in an organization who thinks of information as a strategic asset and needs to protect it. A clear, concise and comprehensive view of a highly complex problem.”
         —Jeetu Patel, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer,
             Information Intelligence Group, EMC Corporation

“In today’s highly competitive business environment, corporate and state-sponsored espionage is a reality—yet many organizations fail to properly manage, govern and secure their information assets. This book enables executives and managers at all levels to understand the various threats to their information assets. It provides a clear roadmap for policy and technology solutions as effective countermeasures.”                                    —Craig Rhinehart, Director, ECM Strategy and Market Development; IBM Software Solutions Group

“Fantastically thorough and practical. This book provides a compelling and comprehensive blueprint to getting the security of electronic information done right, and for the right reasons. A worthwhile read for anyone with a stake in governing information.” 
         —Julie J. Colgan, CRM, Director, Information Governance;
             Merrill Corporation

“With reports that corporate espionage is on the rise and growing daily, this book is a must read for professionals concerned with protecting their confidential information assets.”
        —Bud Porter-Roth Principal, Porter-Roth Associates

“There is no better or more timely book about information governance on the shelves today. Robert has penned a readable, actionable—and get this—enjoyable must-read book for information age executives.”
          —Thornton May, Futurist & Author of The New Know: Innovation Powered by Analytics



Managers and public officials are looking for technology and information governance solutions to “information leakage” in an understandable, concise format. Safeguarding Critical E-Documents provides a road map for corporations, governments, financial services firms, hospitals, law firms, universities and other organizations to safeguard their internal electronic documents and private communications.

• Provides practical, step-by-step guidance on protecting sensitive
and confidential documents—even if they leave the organization
electronically or on portable devices

• Presents a blueprint for corporations, governments, financial
services firms, hospitals, law firms, universities and other
organizations to safeguard internal electronic documents and
private communications

• Offers a concise format for securing your organization from
information leakage

In light of the recent WikiLeaks revelations, governments and businesses have heightened awareness of the vulnerability of confidential internal documents and communications. Timely and relevant, Safeguarding Critical E-Documents shows how to keep internal documents from getting into the wrong hands and weakening your competitive position, or possible damaging your organization’s reputation and leading to costly investigations. Practical, step-by-step guidance for corporations, universities and government agencies to protect and secure confidential documents and business records


Robert Smallwood’s career in electronic document technologies spans over 25 years. He is a Partner and Executive Director of the E-Records Institute at IMERGE Consulting. Mr. Smallwood is one of the most published and respected authorities on e-records and document management, and he has published more research reports on e-records, e-documents, and email issues over the past five years than any other person or organization in the world. His clients for consulting and research reports include: Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Apple, Miller-Coors, Ricoh Americas Corporation, South Carolina Retirement Systems, Dallas Independent School District, U.S. FDA, National Archives and Records Administration, Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Canadian Parliament, Canadian Supreme Court, Canada Mortgage
and Housing Corporation, Australian National Archives, and others. He has appeared on C-Span, BBC, and local network news programs.

What Happens When the Magic is Gone?

In reading Hemingway's biography by Carlos Baker ("A Life Story") -- the absolute most complete biography available -- I was again struck at what happened to Hem in his final days. You see, he was getting shock treatments for depression, and taking blood pressure pills, and he found that he could not write any longer: his imagination was gone. He couldn't stand it. So he busily went about trying to kill himself and his wife stopped him a couple of times and even locked his guns away in a closet.  But she didn't hide the keys well enough and he blew the top of his head off a few weeks before his 62nd birthday, and just seven years after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I'm well aware that a writer's imagination is a fleeting, mercurial thing. It is a limited fountain.

At one point, about 10 years ago, I had a gran mal seizure and while the paramedics were trying to put an oxygen mask on me (I pushed it away because I couldn't breathe fast enough), my heart was beating out of my chest--faster than ever in any race I'd run.  I  fought off death, which took every last ounce of my effort. My most pressing thought was, "I won't get to finish writing my novel!" This was my first book. It was very important to me. (a few years later Hurricane Katrina hit and I ended up publishing that book first.)

I woke up in the hospital a few days later, and the doctors told me they'd scanned my brain and I had huge tumors all over it and they showed me the CAT scan image. It looked like a skull with a glove inside it. Talk about making you feel mortal. They said I had non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had maybe 30 days left. I accepted it. Nothing I could do but call my teenage son to the hospital room to let him know that Pop was on his way out. (The first thing he asked was, 'Does Grandma know?")

A couple of days later a doctor came in and said they had made a mistake, and that they'd been giving me antibiotics and I was responding. All I needed to do was submit to a spinal tap just to make sure, and they'd let me out of the hospital. Oh, and also, the spinal tap is painful and can have life-threatening effects. I said OK. I had the worst headache in my life for about a week, since In was about a quart low on spinal fluid.

Turns out it was not a tumor but lesions from a rare brain infection that comes from a parasite found in the water in the southern U.S. The lesions were shrinking, and would eventually calcify and disappear. I took heavy medicine for a year and they did serial MRI scans to verify the progress.

They had me on an anti-seizure drug. The effect of it was that I couldn't write.  I had no imagination. I couldn't stand it, so against doctors' orders I tapered off the drug (I told them I wanted off of it and they said don't stop suddenly).  Eventually, when the lesions were gone, they said it was probably OK.

So I am quite aware of the finiteness of life, and this fuels my urgency for writing, even living.

When asked what the best age for writing is, William Faulkner said, I believe, "in your thirties." This only serves to remind me what a late start I got!

Right now I am doing essentially "contract writing" for three nonfiction business/tech books, which is almost like having a job. I haven't had a real job in over 20 years. But worst of all, it keeps my from the deliciousness of writing fiction, plays and poetry -- the type of literature that can last. Tech books go out-of-date fast. A good novel can stand up for 500 years!

Back to the initial point: lately there have been several deaths of celebrities who had lost their edge or whose talent had diminished.  They could not adjust: the magic was gone. Football player Junior Seau killed himself, Whitney Houston died of a drug overdose, and I believe that even Michael Jackson's death a few years ago was the result of his thinking that he could not perform like he used to, that he was not up to the challenge.

There are many more examples. Sometimes people compete too long, since they don't know what else to do, and they end up injuring themselves.  I think that's what happened to Mohammed Ali.

It's a tough one, but you have to prepare. you have to be cognizant that God-given gifts have an expiration date.

I can't wait to get back to writing my next novel!

Getting Away from The Machine

Over the weekend I did my best to stay away from my desk and computer. Even though I've been exercising regularly, I get constant problems with my low back and right (mouse-holding) arm, all the way up to my neck.  These things clear up pretty quickly when I'm off in some foreign land, exploring, without the stress of business. I seem to get all worked up and focused while I am writing technical stuff.  You can't just pace around and hope that inspiration hits you like in fiction; you have to read the references, analyze, think logically, and come up with something new or better-written.

I've been pretty much heads-down working on this book for over two months, and the weight of knowing there is so much more to do has carried into the weekends, and I have dome some work here and there on a Saturday or Sunday, but mostly thinking about the project endlessly has worn me out.  And there was the hectic six months or so on the first book -- which still has some lingering details I keep having to take care of. Today.

Henry Miller wrote in Tropic of Cancer,  that he wished there was some way to take "the machine" (typewriter) with him, since some of his best thoughts seemed to come while he was away from it. Well, today, there are a myriad of options. But writing is not dictating, or just thinking, it is sitting down and hitting the keys, or writing thoughts out. Until they come up with a machine that can type out your thoughts, (which I understand is not far off).  Imagine writing by just thinking!  That will be the best!

Mark Twain said in his autobiography that it is impossible to write a biography of a man's life, since his life really is made up of the thousands of thoughts that pass through his head daily.  I have to say, I entertain myself so much all day with constant humorous thoughts that, well, according to Mark Twain, I'm having a pretty good life. If people only knew what swims around in my head! Someday,  maybe I will get closer to getting it down on paper. A writer friend I know who laughs uncontrollably at some of the things I say tells me that in my fiction writing, I'm still holding back, not unleashing the raw humor that I can in person, spontaneously.  I have to work on that more (but you have to have a story line too!).



I've been watching the series Mad Men on Netflix, which is set in the early 1960s on Madison Avenue. I love it.  It delves into the world of business, especially the NYC advertising business, and its portrayal shows you just how different things have become in the work environment over the past 50 years or so.

The men and women in the offices are almost always lighting up a cigarette.  Doctors used to endorse it. Doctors used to smoke in their offices--while with patients! Mothers even smoked at home in front of the kids, which would probably end them up in jail these days for child cruelty.

The executives are drinking in the office, frequently, sometimes even first thing in the morning (this got me started on Bloody Mary's last Sunday morning ;). It's quite common to take a client out for drinks--lots of drinks--and maybe some girls, working girls. And the men have pretty much open access to flirt and insult the secretaries, all of which is passé or illegal in today's politically correct and heavily regulated business world.

So I got to thinking about how hard my father worked, but how he left at 7:30 a.m. and was home by 5:30 p.m., unless he was traveling (where he sat in the back and drank and smoked on the plane), and didn't do any office work to speak of once he was home, and all weekend.

Just think: no email, no voice mail, not even typing--the secretaries did all that.

The working people of yesteryear would not recognize today's work environment.  We are swamped in messages and information, and can hardly get away from it.

I am thinking that as wrong-headed as many things were in the 60's, one thing they had right was they rested, took a break, separated work and home life.  The business world could use more of that today, but I fear there is no turning back. Yes, I'm certain of it.

So how do you deal with this daily, hourly incursion of interruptions and information?  Well,.you can do like I do (once I'm done writing these books!) which is to use these technological advances for your advantage, and to be able to travel and live and work anywhere. I've worked from Mexico for the better part of five years, but also from San Francisco and Las Vegas and D.C., and have even gotten some work done while I  have been traveling in Panama, Europe, and even Cuba (yes, I was able to log in over a slow connection from a state-monitored computer in a hotel lobby).

The ability to work irrespective of time and space is the ideal work situation, and today's tools allow that and provide more freedom for those who work hard to pursue it. But there is a lot of work to getting it set up; you have to make sacrifices and trade-offs as you slowly remove yourself from a physical work environment to a virtual one. It is well worth it, and many are following this path. It's my contention that nearly every job has some angle that allows it to be done online. If you are a car repair person, you may have to have a fix-it or diagnostic manual ghost-written to sell online, and maybe set up a toll-free hotline for second opinions or advice. If you are a teacher, you can create course materials for home-schooled students, or hold video tutoring via Skype, GoToMeeting or other remote communication tools. If your expertise is supply chain management, you can offer consulting services online. If you are a journalist, it's easy - just research and write online. If you have some kind of special expertise, some hard thinking and work and some help from others can get allow you to build an online source of income.

You may not get away from the machine, but at least you will get away from your desk or office building, and you can break up your workday into a more non-linear, fulfilling life experience.

Surfer Girl

Surfer Girl runs barefoot through the sandy lot
Surfer Girl shows her bra strap above her halter top
Surfer Girl bobs and dances about
and stuffs a hot pizza slice in her mouth
Surfer Girl surfer girl surfer girl... 
Pretty brown surfer girl... ;)

Work and Death

I look up and see I haven't done a blog post for five months!  It's not like I haven't been writing - it's just that it's been in my head!  Brilliant, incredible stuff that would set the world afire, but I never quite got around to writing it down.  Dumb. The trip to Panama was a whirlwind, exhilarating experience (more later) but it's been go go go since December; really; more like all year; really more like two years. But let me back up:

He's waiting to die, I'm waiting to live. 

That's the way it's been around here for months now. I'm working hard on my second nonfiction biz/tech book within six months, which I wasn't quite ready to do, since I am still doing little things like final edits, getting blurbs/endorsements, and scheduling speaking engagements and book signings for the first book, while my older brother, who lives across the street, has been battling and enduring cancer and worse yet, cancer treatments. He had chemo and radiation, even surgery, and it did shrink the tumor in his ass, but now it has spread to his skull.  He's probably got it from head to toe now; the results of the full body scan they did will be in next week. He was having terrible headaches that even morphine didn't knock out, so they increased his dose. There are hideous lumps on top of his bald head, and he walks stiffened somewhat like Frankenstein, due to his weakened state--and the e-coli infection he had in his spine that landed him in the hospital three months which started all this over 18 months ago.  Before that, he was a strong, healthy, boisterous man of 64 still working full-time.

He is just across our pedestrian street, so when I take a break from the toil that is nonfiction, or just take the garbage out, or head to the gym, that's what I'm treated to.  He has no one else.  His daughter and son are nowhere to be seen.  His worthless girlfriend flaked out as soon as he got sick and couldn't buy her drinks. There's no escaping it. The neighbors next door are nice, but it's on me. I can't feel sorry for myself since I'm not the one who is deathly ill. In fact, in some ways, things have never been better for me, at least career-wise.  I finished the first book, which will help American corporations (and others) to protect their trade secrets and maintain their competitive advantage. This next book on e-records, will hopefully be used as a text to train the next generation of records managers, archivists, and information governance professionals. There are no complete and current books on the topic, which seemed strange to me, until I started putting together this book and realizing just how huge and complex the topic has become. It's a monster. And preparing a book for a major publisher (Wiley) is no picnic -- they are exacting and uncompromising and need to be. So I've solicited 7-8 expert colleagues from around the world who are editing specific sections of the book that deal with their expertise area, which will help make the book the authoritative ever on the topic.

A couple of weeks ago a business partner in Chicago suddenly died.  Before that, a business partner in Toronto retired due to failing health. He was going to work with me on this book. Death and dying everywhere around me.

It's come with a mountain of stress.I've worked so hard on the sections on e-records inventorying, retention and disposition, taxonomy development, and international standards to the point of mental exhaustion.  Then I handed them off to my esteemed colleagues, shooting for the May 15 deadline I had agreed to.

In March, I'd just returned from Panama after two months, and I had to do some editing on the first book while I was gone but other than that, I didn't work much.  I didn't write; I only thought long and hard about writing. And I read a comprehensive biography of Hemingway that had much more detail than anything I'd read. It tied his personal life with his professional writings so you could see how his life experiences impacted his work. I didn't realize he wrote a Broadway play, which made me feel a bit better about my play, and the effort I put into it.

I like the part where, stone drunk, Hemingway brought a Havana hooker to dinner to meet his wife. She got him back by putting it in the book. He deserved it - lots of examples of pretty boorish behavior, beyond wild, just rude.

I did write a little bit. There is that New Year's Day story that I will have to dig out and post here, which I wrote on idyllic Senidup Island in the Caribbean, just off the Panamanian coast.  It was the first of what were going to be daily writings all year.  That lasted a day and a half. But it sure was nice to have all that time, pure time, in Panama.  I rented a little studio apartment in Bocas del Toro and had my little corner of peace and serenity. I could walk to a nearby beach, grab some cold Panama (my fav!) bottles of beer, and eat some fresh seafood or chicken. Or I'd go on a bike ride to the end of the road and back, from the Saygon area and back, sometimes going all the way to another beach and hanging out watching the surfers. Or I'd take the basketball I bought and go shoot some hoops or a pick-up game nearby.  Pretty nice. No kitchen  in the apartment, so I just bought a hotplate to make breakfast, but the food was cheap enough at restaurants (as little as $4 for a meal) so I ate out a lot. I lost over 15 pounds just eating fish, chicken and a lot of salad, and exercising a lot.

Things were simple there. Here, I've got this nice, new 3-story beach house overlooking the Pacific that I can barely keep up with while I work. Thankfully, a maid came yesterday and cleaned. Hell, every inch of the place is tile, since it's near the ocean and carpet would just mildew and rot, so sweeping and mopping that all is a big chore.  I've been here two years and never tackled it.

So, back to the deadline: I was shooting for May 15 to try to get the book published by September 15, in time for a trade show in Chicago that I'm speaking at.  Looks like I'm not going to make it, but if I can get it done by the end of the month, there's still a chance.

Nope.

I have to remind myself that I'm trying to accomplish a task that no one else in the world - no professional in my field - has ever done. First, no one has ever written a book this complete on the topic of e-records - there are only 2-3 books out there and they are incomplete and out-of-date. The one that is being used as a text all over the world is an embarrassment, it's so dated. And I'm trying to write the best one ever in 60 days? 75? 90? While I'm finishing up the first?  That's another thing: few of the top experts in the world have ever written a book. They're too busy, or they can't write well (although most can), or they can't tackle something like that mentally. And I'm doing TWO within six months?  Planning for THREE in a year?  No wonder I've been stressed out.

It will be just great when the books are all done. A stream of royalties, paid speeches and high-level consulting work around the world. I hope.

In a week or so, I'll have this next book shaped up pretty well, and I'm hoping that in three weeks I can wrap it up. I'm sure it'll drag out like the last one, but not to that degree - I learned some lessons on exactly how the publisher wants things and I'm getting it right the first time, this time.  Not re-writing the damn thing three freakin' times.

Back to my brother's situation: I get to talk about things like where he wants his ashes thrown, what he wants done with his car and furniture, and things like that.  Not so much fun.

This is the second brother I've watched die slowly.  I won't have any more left. Bill, who I grew up with, died in 1994 after a long illness. He lived it up for a while but in the end, he was scared - he was only 37. I tried to reassure him and he turned to me and said, "That's easy for you to say, you're on the other side of things." I couldn't argue. I had my life ahead of me. But he did hold out hope that he would see our beloved, ever-loving Grandmother Smallwood (the sweetest woman ever on this earth), and our father, in the afterlife. I held his hand at night as he slept that last week, until one night I just didn't feel right, I had the bizarre fear that he might awake suddenly and have a seizure and stab me with his pick line needle, so I slept on the couch near his bed. In the morning his blank green eyes were fixed on the ceiling and he was dead.

I remember the ambulance coming and them zipping him up in a body bag, the crown of his head flopping to the side as they zipped it shut, and then carried his carcass out and drove off.