Writing Archives - Page 4 of 12

Writing in Coffee Shops

I advocate writing in coffee shops. Not only is everything better with coffee, but the combination of caffeine and background noise is ideal for concentrating on your work.

I wrote Murder in Ocean Hall in a coffee shop. I reported every morning, as if I was going to work, and sat there writing away from 8-12, telling myself that I was not allowed to leave until my time was up.

I aimed for 2000 words a day but most of the time wrote 1100 or so. But the important thing was to be there, to be present, and to keep going.

Why are coffee shops so productive for writers? A recent New York Times article says it’s all about the background noise:

In a series of experiments that looked at the effects of noise on creative thinking, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had participants brainstorm ideas for new products while they were exposed to varying levels of background noise. Their results, published in The Journal of Consumer Research, found that a level of ambient noise typical of a bustling coffee shop or a television playing in a living room, about 70 decibels, enhanced performance compared with the relative quiet of 50 decibels.

The article goes on to profile Coffitivity, a web site that provides the sounds of a busy coffee house anywhere.

But it’s not just sound that makes coffee shops productive places. When I would report to Caribou (and I thought of it that way – reporting to work), seeing all those people all typing away on laptops made me think that I better get to work. Call it peer pressure or socialization. Seeing others work made me think that I better get to work. I better start working on that novel.

And don’t underestimate the power of caffeine. It’s not alcohol that makes writers – it’s coffee, with the cheery, well-focused buzz it gives you. Coffee houses have given birth to sprawling novels, symphonies and Western Civilization. Not bad for a simple bean.

When people ask me how to write a novel, I tell them to go to a coffee shop. My advice:

Pick a store populated with grad students or freelancers – you want lots of people sitting alone at tables, with a minimum of talking.
Slow or no wifi is a good thing, because you’re supposed to be writing.
Put yourself on a schedule and commit to it.
Reward yourself with as much coffee as you want.

Habit is a powerful thing. If you spend one hour a day writing, imagine how much you could accomplish in a year. Plus, you get to drink coffee. Writing and drinking coffee – is there any better way to spend your time?

First Post for Medium: We Need a Facebook for Failures

I am profoundly ambivalent about Facebook. It’s an interesting peek into the lives of others. But it’s also a source of much angst and drama, an extension of our high school lives into adulthood. I really hate it at times.

Which is why I wrote We Need a Facebook for Failures. In this short article, I call for people to be honest on Facebook rather than showing only the best of all possible worlds.

I wrote the piece for Medium, a new blogging site by Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter. It’s a collaborative blogging environment with a distraction-free design that lets you focus on words.

The Wallace Line Selected as Nelson Algren Finalist

My short story “The Wallace Line,” has been selected as a finalist in the 2013 Nelson Algren Awards sponsored by The Chicago Tribune.

I was one of four finalists selected out of more than 1,000 writers. I get $1000 – more than I’ve ever made in a lifetime of literary work – and “The Wallace Line” will be published in a special supplement later this summer by the Tribune. As someone who grew up reading the Trib in the suburbs of Chicago, this is a huge honor.

“The Wallace Line” is about a Nature Conservancy manager who takes a wealthy donor to the island of Komodo – and then things go horribly wrong. Here’s a sample:

Harold marveled at how quickly it had all gone to shit.

The approach to the beach had been perfect, as Anak expertly guided the longboat over the swell. Behind them, the sun climbed above the tranquil waters of the Flores Sea. Ahead, the pink sands of Komodo were radiant in the morning light. A warm breeze blew across the boat. January in Indonesia, when it was hot but not too hot, and while the East Coast of America was locked in ice.

A moment you could not forget, and would be forever grateful to receive. As had been planned. These expeditions were carefully organized for maximum effect. The trip had been in the works for nearly a year. Countless emails had been exchanged; permits obtained; supplies purchased; forms filled out on onionskin paper wilting in the heat of Jakarta; signatures obtained by Directors, Department Heads, Deputies and other interested parties (with the occasional bit of friendly bribery to grease the way – nothing major – an iPhone, a bottle of bourbon, the promise to write a letter of recommendation for a nephew.)

The climax, the finale, was this grand arrival onto the mysterious island of Komodo, a lost world, a paradise that remained undiscovered by white men until 1910. One of 17,000 islands in Indonesia, this particular speck of land was the most unique of all for it was home to dragons.

Komodo dragons. A billionaire had flown halfway around the world to see them and Harold was there to provide him a show he would not forget.

I was a web editor at The Nature Conservancy for three years. While I never went to Komodo, I worked a lot with TNC’s Asia-Pacific program and have long been fascinated by Indonesia. I wrote articles, email newsletters and designed web features – all to protect places like Komodo. Conservation marketing is really interesting – it’s a mix of art (pretty pictures of animals) and science (preserving ecosystems) – which is background to my story.

“The Wallace Line” is the first chapter of an unfinished new novel. The theme is that the borders between ideas and people are disappearing in this interconnected world.

Look for a link to “The Wallace Line”when it’s published in the Trib later this summer (follow me on Twitter if you don’t already). In the meantime, check out my other novels Murder in Ocean Hall or Don’t Mess Up My Block.

Murder in Ocean Hall – 99 Cents on Kindle

I’ve cut the price on my novel Murder in Ocean Hall to just 99 cents on Kindle!

This murder-mystery is set in DC, but in the real city beyond the monuments. It makes a perfect gift for anyone who wants to learn more about how Washington works – or doesn’t. Murder in Ocean Hall has received a slew of five-star reviews on Amazon. It is a quick, entertaining who-dunnit filled with memorable characters and a dash of humor.

Download Murder in Ocean Hall today!

Sequestered and Feeling Fine

Due to a sequester-related contracting snafu, I get a spring break of an indeterminate length! Hopefully, I will be back to work at the National Weather Service in a week or two.

They call it a “gap” as they move people from one contract to another. I’ve got a job with the new company on a new contract. Who that company is, when the work starts and even how much I’m paid – all that is unknown.

Letting the contractors wander off and then hoping to sign them up with a new company is one of those “only in government” moments. It only makes sense if you work there. But if you think about it logically, and count up all the costs in managing people this way, it will drive you mad.

I was a Communications Manager for the Weather-Ready Nation initiative, which is about making communities more resilient in the face of extreme weather. In this role, I developed communication plans, managed web site content and coordinated social media efforts. We were making good progress too – see this presentation I gave to the Federal Communicators Network for more about my work.

DC is gorgeous this time of year. In addition to enjoying the delights of the city (food trucks, bike trails, museums), I have my own projects to work on:

Judging screenplays for the American University Visions contest
Blogging
And, of course, photography

I’ve got plenty to do.

Communicating Science: Make It Relevant

How do you communicate science to a general audience? That was the subject of a recent presentation I gave to the Federal Communicators Network. Based upon my experience as a science communicator for NOAA and The Nature Conservancy, I suggest that writers:

Use common terms
Avoid acronyms
Get out of your organizational bubble
Make it relevant to the reader
Stress benefits, not features

In the talk, I used case studies from my current job as a Communications Manager for The National Weather Service (NWS). For example, NWS has a great new technology under development – Wireless Emergency Alerts.

When talking about this new service, do you communicate the features (cell towers, polygons, alerting authorities) or the benefit (getting a text alert before a tornado hits your house)?

You stress the benefit, obviously. The benefit establishes relevancy in the mind of the reader. Grab the reader’s attention by leading with benefits and then you can explain the complicated details.

Five Things Reporters Want

“Reporters are lazy,” a PR director once told me. “They won’t do any work – they want everything explained to them.”

I’ve been on both sides of the table, as a freelance writer and as a communications manager. It’s not that reporters are lazy. They just have different objectives than PR reps. The job of a reporter is to find news and report it back to an audience. If you’re in public relations, your task is to get favorable media coverage for your organization.

What looks like journalistic laziness is in fact a relentless search for news. Reporters don’t have time to unpack the complexities of your press release. Don’t ask them to parse a technical document. They won’t sit through a press conference unless you have something really special to announce.

If your communication is not clear to them, they move on. If you can’t explain the story in a sentence, then they’re going to find something else to report on.

So, what do reporters want?

They want news. News is, above all, new. It just happened or (even better) is about to happen. It is new – not something repackaged from six months ago. It is different, special and unique. Publishing an annual report is not news – everyone does that. Publishing your annual report as a series of tweets – that would be news.
Benefits, not features. XYZ Company announcing a new widget is not news – the fact that the widget cures cancer, that would be news. Would you describe an iPhone by the kind of chip it uses or all the things you can do with it? Promote benefits to users, not a laundry list of features.
Relevancy. Why do my readers care? A blog post from your CEO is not news. Bring me something that my audience wants to read about. Give me something that informs, scandalizes or improves them.
A good elevator speech. You only have a few seconds to pitch your cause. What do you say? How do you summarize your story? Reporters are drowning in press releases – they’re not going to read more than a sentence or two in your release before they hit the delete button. Put the value up front, in the first sentence of your pitch.
Speak like a human. Do you want to sound important or do you want to be understood? Think simple. Avoid jargon and acronyms. Take out the run-on sentences. Instead, explain your point so clearly that your grandmother would understand.

Reporters want interesting stories that audiences will read. Help them out by producing news and not news releases.

And check out these tips on pitching from editors and reporters. Note how publications have very different and unique requirements.

My Instagram Book Cover

Joe Konrath had a really important post on how to sell ebooks. This successful indie author made the point (among many other great ones) that it was important to experiment. In his words:

There isn’t a single thing I’m saying here that you should automatically believe. Don’t trust me, or any other so-called expert. Instead, try things out for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Or to quote screenwriter William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything.”

That’s the case with art and marketing – you can’t predict what’s going to work. At best, you can try and try again.

I love my book Don’t Mess Up My Block. It’s a funny, cynical look at the way we work now. The people who have read it have liked it, especially if they have experience in the bureaucracies of Washington.

Yet, this novel is hidden far down the long tail of Amazon, unlikely to emerge from obscurity.

For my first novel, Murder in Ocean Hall, I had this great cover by Dave Newman. It’s a classic.

But this time, I’m experimenting. I was inspired by Seth Godin and the Domino Project, which has set out to revolutionize publishing. He’s rethinking everything the book world does, including covers. Why do you need a title and a name on a cover for an ebook? For example, here’s his book Poke the Box:

My second novel Don’t Mess Up My Block is a journey through the dysfunctional American workplace, from companies obsessed with the latest management fads to federal agencies unable to get anything done. What would make a good cover?

Fortunately, I had exactly the right picture, taken while I was at work one day. I was amused by the cheap stapler they had given me in my new job and just how beige and early 90s everything in the office was. I snapped this Instagram picture, thinking it perfectly captured the banality of the white-collar workplace.

So, that’s it. That’s the new cover of Don’t Mess Up My Block. It’s a funny and absurd cover for a funny and absurd book.

Don't Mess Up My Block – First Amazon Review

My novel Don’t Mess Up My Block has its first Amazon review! And it’s a good one:

As someone who spent many years dealing with consultants, federal contractors, and federal employees …. this book rings all too true. The people, places, and situations are much too familiar … for me, it was a non-fiction “day in the life” – or “you won’t believe the day I had”. Well done Joe! The author has captured life on the Beltway merry-go-round.

I know the reviewer and if anyone is an expert on the Beltway merry-go-round, it is he. Glad that my book rang so true with someone so attuned to the absurdities of life in Washington.

So, what are you waiting for? Don’t Mess Up My Block is just 99 cents on Kindle.

How to Lead a Fascinating Life but Make No Money: My Year in Writing

The more interesting the work, the less it pays – that’s the rule I uncovered in 2012. It’s the reason why technical writers are paid well (you want to write a help guide for Sharepoint?) while film reviewers are paid poorly (you get to see movies!).

However, it was a great learning experience to meet so many creative folks. Truly inspiring to meet people who had written books, made movies and created web sites.

The highlight of the year was the work I did for On Tap, the free monthly entertainment magazine in DC. There’s still a special thrill to see your name in print that no digital facsimile can replace. I wrote about Lawless, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Dark Knight Rises, V/H/S, Mansome and The Sessions. Continue reading “How to Lead a Fascinating Life but Make No Money: My Year in Writing”