Maybe inspiration could be the topic. Everyone is inspired in life. Everyone has goals.
What are your goals? I'd be interested to know. But I'd be even *more* interested to know what is behind them, what inspired them.
Today a nice lady from my exercise class, Lynn, was asking about how to sell greeting cards. At least, I think that's what she asked me. She started out by saying, "You've published a book, right? Well, I'm working on these greeting cards, and I had some questions about it."
That, of course, led to my diarrhea-of-the-mouth speech about the publishing industry. I think by the end of our 3o- or 40-minute discussion, I'd probably just succeeded in thoroughly confusing her! I'm still not sure what she expected from the conversation, but now that I've thought about it a while, I think I know what *I* meant by it!
There are so many aspects of "greeting card writing." She had had a successful salsa (and cookie and chips) business, where she had to do a great deal of marketing. She told me that she really didn't want to go that "full bore" into marketing the greeting cards. At that point, I must admit I wondered if she was driven enough to stick with her new dream. On the other hand, there are plenty of us who would rather write than market. That's what agents are for, we think. But just get a publishing contract and you'll find yourself doing a lot of marketing, anyway!
I guess what I was trying to get a feel for as we spoke was, what were Lynn's goals with the card business? Did she want to reach for the stars and knock on Hallmark's door? Or would she be happy soliciting to several contacts she had made in the gift store market while she sold her salsa?
She said she was enjoying her retirement. So if she is enjoying her retirement and she doesn't want to do that much marketing, then maybe placement of her wares in local stores is the way to go. And again, "enjoying my retirement" makes me wonder just how long she'll stick with her new goal of selling greeting cards. Gosh, I'm such a skeptic! But I've seen people come and go in the writing business. It can be grueling. You can feel at times very alone, and at times like a very bad writer. It's hard to get the positive vibes you need, to keep the creative juices flowing. Will Lynn be able to keep herself pumped up? I hope so. I like to see people follow their dreams. That's inspiring for me.
Then we talked a little about why I write, and why my buddy Marlean creates and sells her calligraphy (commissioned through a fine stationery store.) We both told our new creative friend that we pursue our goals mainly because we love doing what we're doing. We don't do it for the money. Marlean's calligraphy is a very slow process. I'm a slow writer. We couldn't ever be properly compensated for our time, unless maybe she was Donald Trump's personal calligrapher, and I was the next Nora Roberts.
Uh oh. I'm back on my favorite topic, writing. But I really think you can learn a lot about life just by comparison. In any job you do, if you don't love it, will you do your best? Will you do it for peanuts? Will you keep doing it day after day, hour after hour, and be contented?
What inspires you?
Some people are inspired by money, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people are inspired by fame. That's cool, too. Others are inspired by learning, by a need to fill a hole in their lives, by the success of others, by the *greatness* of others, by music, by beauty, by good weather, by the need to prove to themselves they can do it, and the list goes on and on.
I probably confused the Lynn the greeting card writer by throwing out all the options to consider, like whether or not to join a critique group of her peers, or license her work before putting it on a website, or if she should send it out to editors before she gets too much feedback.But I think what I was trying to say was, "This is what the business is like. Now, what are YOU like? Can you handle criticism? Can you take rejection? Are you willing to be in it for the long haul? Would you do it for free, forever, if you never got paid? Do you love it? Are you doing it for your relatives and friends, or for Hallmark, and does *that* even matter?"
It all boils down to, what inspires you? What are your motives? What is the carrot that's dangling in front of you?
I love people. I love to try and figure out if I can answer those questions about them. It fascinates me to the extent that I spend a lot of time watching dippy reality shows, gorey murder tell-alls and reading People Magazine. I want to see reactions. I want the blurted feelings. I want to know the real you. Scary,right?
What makes you tick? Is it obvious? Could I figure it out right away? Probably not. We're layers and layers of feeling, memory, emotion, upbringing, opinion, hormones, chemical balances and imbalances, genes.
Fascinating stuff, eh?
Well, back to trying to at least figure out my characters. I'll work on *you* tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment