Had to Stop and Enjoy It

I couldn't work today. Yesterday, copies of my new book arrived. I slit open a box using my keys - but not too deep so that I wouldn't damage the precious contents. Folding the flaps back I could smell the fresh ink and paper -- sort of a 'new car smell' to me; I reached in and cracked open the pages of my baby. She'd arrived! I kissed the cover and held the book to my chest. This one, this one, it really took a lot out of me. During a tumultuous time, I had to re-write it three times, at a hectic pace each time, the last time being a week in Bocas del Toro, Panama. The Internet connections and power on the island were shaky, but I got it done and took off to sail the Caribbean.

Today I just wanted to savor the result of all that work in the past year. I'll get back to finishing up this next one tomorrow.

Ocean Inspriation

did i tell you how amazed i am at the ocean - every single day? well i am. the pacific waves are going on like they have for thousands of centuries, yet each wave is unique; like each generation it slowly forms and then surges and rises and at its crest it looks powerful, indefatigable, and strong; yet just as each generation withers and fades away, it falls forward, loses its strength, and fizzles into the shore.

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?

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“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;
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“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.”
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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.