My Feet Never Touched the Bahamas, but My Voice Found Paradise.

October 16, 2008 By 76 Comments

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.

~Douglas Pagels

Bloggers I Heart: Blogger Dad

I love writing for Writer Dad.  It’s tremendous fun.  Though the whirlpool of words is a ball, the real benefit of the blog is the people who’ve entered my life.

Comments are as constant as coffee; I love them thrice as much.  Every so often, a comment leaves the blog’s basement behind, then leaks into an email… then nine… soon a hundred.

I’d like to plant my flag in new tradition.  I think we’ll call it, “Bloggers I Heart.”

Bloggers I heart are the bloggers with whom I have a running dialogue.  These are the ladies and gentleman who, were I in their city, I couldn’t imagine bread not being broken.

Anyone who has been with us longer than a week will need no introduction, but I’ll send out a sentence anyway.  It’s only fitting I start with David Wright; alter ego, Blogger Dad.  I stole his name, he stole my theme, and now here we are an armload of weeks later.  We’ve collaborated before and will again.  I don’t know how many days have passed without at least a single email, but they were few and probably sad.

Without further ado, my friend, Blogger Dad:

My Feet Never Touched the Bahamas, but My Voice Found Paradise.

Are you writing in YOUR voice or are you mimicking someone else’s?

The best way to show you how to find your voice is to tell you how I found mine.

I used to think that writing humor was easy. My influences growing up were 80’s-era Letterman, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Saturday Night Live “when it was good” and columnist, Dave Barry. I ate comedy for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snacks (emphasis on the snacks). I knew that someday I would be making people laugh. All I needed was an audience.

I started writing for a local paper three years ago, convinced that I was going to be the Next Dave Barry. Unfortunately, the paper wasn‘t looking for a columnist. They assigned me to the political beat. While there is plenty of unintentional humor to be found in covering local politics, I rarely got a chance to flex my humor muscles in straight news stories.

While I plugged away at my beat, I practiced writing a humor column in hopes my bosses would see how brilliant I am and would give me a shot. Soon, I realized that writing humor is hard. Hell, it’s almost work.

I showed a few samples to my editor and mentor, Jason Whited. He gave some advice, carefully couching criticisms within compliments to protect my fragile writer’s ego. One of the things he said shocked me, though.

“This isn’t your voice,” he said.

“Huh?” I asked, “Of course it is! I wrote it.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t the YOU that I talk to. You haven’t found your voice yet.”

Though not intentional, my first attempts at a column were merely pale imitations of Dave Barry. My writing was like a decent karaoke performance. I sounded enough like the singer I was imitating, and some tone deaf people might even have found it listenable, but there was something lacking.

Jason’s advice was this, “Write from your heart, write often, and you will find your voice.”

Stop trying to be the next (insert writer name here)

In January 2006, I was asked to step up to the plate.

My publisher made a bet with me that I couldn’t lose 100 pounds before the year was up. If I won, he would pay for a trip for me and my wife to the Bahamas. If I lost, well, I’d be publicly embarrassed. But even if I lost, I was still a winner, because I was getting a shot at writing a regular column every other week about my efforts.

This was my chance to prove myself!

Just let go

My first piece had to be a good one. No, make that great! I wrote a few different drafts, starting out with an emphasis on “the funny” and once again aping Dave Barry’s style. On the night prior to my deadline, I was sitting in front of my computer, cycling through different drafts of the column. I was attempting to cobble something together. It wasn’t working. Then a thought occurred to me – let go.

I deleted each of the drafts quickly and decisively, knowing that if I didn’t kill them without hesitation, I would never be able to.

I put on some music, closed my eyes and searched inside. I had to lay it all out on the page. I had to be brutally honest about a subject I’d tried to dance around for most of my life. I needed to expose myself as I’d never done before. I needed to do it with humor and heart. I opened my eyes and then wrote my ass off.

After reading my first column, Jason took me out to lunch and congratulated me.

“This made me weep, man,” he confessed while looking me in the eyes, “You, my friend, have got the gift. You’ve found your voice.”

I sure as hell don’t feel all that gifted, but I believe the second part of his statement.

I wrote a lot that year, even if I didn’t lose a lot of weight. (Six pounds, for the record, so obviously my feet never touched tropical paradise.) I wrote about diets, my relationship with my father, working out and a number of other topics which people still come up to me today and ask me about. Many people told me that my columns made them laugh and cry. It was amazing to make such connections with readers.

I discovered that I wasn’t a straight up humor writer. I would never have discovered my voice if I tried to stay in the mold I had created for myself. I had to break free and be afraid to fail at what I thought I wanted to be. I am a hybrid writer, sometimes funny, but best when I write from the heart.

I know that my journey to great writing is far from over. I’m sure I will struggle for years to be as good as I’d like to be. Fortunately, I’m no longer trying to be someone else.

I’m singing my own songs now.

Blogger Dad

Nine out of ten dentists agree, teeth are ten times whiter with Blogger Dad in their reader.  You can subscribe for free, right here.  In you’d like to be informed of mealtimes, this is where he tweets.

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Behind Their Eyes

October 2, 2008 By 94 Comments

If you’re interested in yesterday’s conversation, it’s still going strong.  I’ve gathered your best questions, and thrown them down, but I’ve no Idea if Benji’s bound to bounce them.

“Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.”  

~John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells

I don’t think there’s a sum I wouldn’t part with for the chance to live inside my children’s heads, either one, and even if only for half an hour. 

I’m totally serious. 

I’d drive to the bank, stack my collateral, beg for a loan, then walk home and figure out the best way to take care of the interest before it buried me to bones. 

Whatever I saw from behind those eyes, I’m sure, would be exponentially worth it. 

I can only ponder how my children view a world unfolding three feet from the ground.  By the time they’re old enough to really break it down for me, they’ll no longer be focusing behind the same lens. 

I helped make them, I certainly know them, and I believe I’ve a pretty good idea about how they string their thoughts together.  But it’s been a long time since I was as little as they are now, and I’ve long since forgotten what it’s like to peer at the world in front of me, without so much as a single breath of cynicism. 

I cannot imagine feeling, at my age, anything so innocent. 

When they’re grown, I hope I haven’t lost the wonder of musing the machinations of their minds.  I hope, when my children are my age now, and Daisy and I are cradling our grandchildren between us for a long, anticipated weekend, that I’m still wondering.  

Of course, I won’t be able to see any more clearly into the mind’s of those still too small to speak, or too tiny to know the minutia of poverty, crime, and deceit. 

I will not be able to see through the eyes of my grandchildren, so I’ll turn my eyes to Mia and Max, and see the world as they do.  It will be easier by then.  Our long histories will have woven together with the unrelenting fabric of shared experience.  Their first world view, born beneath the shade of Daisy and myself. 

So when I’m wishing I could see the world as my grandchildren do, but peering from the perspective of my own brood, it will be the perfect time to ask myself…

Do I like what I see? 

Writer Dad

If you enjoyed these words, please subscribe by RSS or Email.  If you’re a Stumbler, please consider Stumbling.  Thanks.

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No, No, No! I said, “I Didn’t Want to be a Chooch.”

August 27, 2008 By 123 Comments

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. 

~Errol Flynn

This is an exciting time in life; my family on the brink of a shift.

Most of it’s wonderful, but like any move from blue ribbon to better, there’s little reward without any stairs to climb.  

Sweet isn’t near as sweet if you’ve never known sour.

Some of the vinegar in the emigration to full time writer, is this long middling, when the idea of being a chooch frequently worms its way between my ears, lays eggs, then wiggles down my spine to settle where I sit. 

Psst… Writer Dad.

Sigh.  Yes, incessant voice inside my head?

Most readers don’t know random Italian slang.  You only got yours because you read the forward to Mario Puzo’s, “Fortunate Pilgrim.” (Not that you actually read the book.)

Oh, incessant voice.  Good point.

A chooch, according to Italians, is someone who allows their family to fully indulge in their eccentricities, even though they don’t lay a single crumb on the table. 

I’d rather have teeth breaking through the skin on the side of my face. 

I love writing.  It’s harder than breathing, but easier than doing the dishes. 

If I can carve out a living for myself, and my loved ones, by letting my fingers dance across these keys, then I’ll bow down and count myself as one of the lucky ones.  But I can’t stand the idea of pouring over piles of syllables, belaboring every single page and paragraph of a novel that might take another year, and designing rhymes that no one will ever enunciate, when there’s a stack of bills that need to be paid (and quickly). 

If I’m a writer, than my responsibility is to not only produce content that makes me smile, my family proud, and audience happy, but that also puts food in our tummies and fattens the college fund. 

I don’t want to be the guy who goes to his garage with three drunk buddies and plays off key oldies, mouthing off about one day getting a gig, while his family’s inside passing a tub of popcorn and saying, “Where’s Daddy? 

I want to write. 

I want to write chapter books for my children, and a love story for my wife; something funny and tragic for my mom, and maybe a western for my dad.  Perhaps I’ll pen something dark and quiet, cynical and sweet for my sister. 

I can’t wait to write a book on raising children or running a pre-school, and I’ve got an awesome idea for a sci-fi novel.  I’ll probably start on it as soon as I’m finished with the book being written right now. 

I don’t need a Costco sticker covering up the last letter in the title of my tome, but my time must amount to something. 

I just can’t stand the thought of being a chooch.

Writer Dad

Disclaimer: Daisy does not endorse this post. I have read it to her three times. One had this really hilarious ending that was far better than this one. But I digress. Daisy doesn’t think that I could ever be a Chooch, and poses a strong objection to the word, especially when used in relation to myself.

If you enjoyed my words, please subscribe.  I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.

If you liked that, you’ll probably love, “Here’s a Macbook, Go Make a Million,” “Sink or Swim,” or “Your Baby’s Born in the Rough Draft. You Raise it in the Rewrite.”

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Let’s Put Ourselves Together

August 14, 2008 By 98 Comments

“The future is now.”

~Nam June Paik, mixed media artist

I started this blog four weeks ago.  I didn’t know why I wanted to start, only that I was sure I should.  

I had a good amount of children’s stories completed, a novel in its third draft, and a need for daily practice.  

Why not work on my public voice, I thought.  

So, after a floundering couple of weeks on Blogspot, I decided to take things seriously.  I searched through a mess of domain names, and to my surprise, found Writer Dad dot com wasn’t taken.  

I’m a writer, and a dad.  

So, I bought Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger book, read it, and got to work.  I started reading all the “How to Blog” blogs.  

Everyone said I needed a niche.  Everyone said I needed a niche.  Everyone said I needed a niche.  

The repetition was maddening.  

A niche?  But I just wanted to write.  

I quickly decided that speaking to a niche would dull my voice, and until I discovered my niche, I should just speak as though over a cup of coffee, even if it’s to someone sitting at their own keyboard on the other side of the world.  

This, it turned out, was exactly what I was supposed to do.  

Allow me to share my three biggest surprises since starting the blog:  

  • Traffic at Writer Dad has faced a steady climb in both subscriber count and traffic since its first day online.  
  • The comment section has been lively, filled with well thought out comments and genuine exchanges.  I’d like to give a special thank you to Vered, who found me on my very first day, commented, and shined light on immediate possibility.  Private emails were surprisingly high, but the day after I put the contact page up, they doubled.  
  • Traffic is much higher in the evening, and the stays are longer.  I’ve had days where the average time spent on the site was six and a half minutes.  People are spending time on the site, reading multiple pages.

So, now I know my niche.

The Writer Dad reader likes to take their time and read.  They like to chew, not swallow.  They appreciate the mathematical beauty of the way words can be woven together, even if they didn’t know they felt that way.

People have always loved stories.  That isn’t going to change just because technology is outpacing philosophy.  It doesn’t matter what I say, as long as I say it well.  

Which brings me to my point.  

I’ve already talked about the new Renaissance, and the internet as the great equalizer.  We’re in the first generation of a new breed of writers, and age doesn’t matter.  A sixty year old lifetime graphic designer from New York has the same shot at putting together a unique and touching piece of work as a twelve year old child in India.

Tangible books are going nowhere; I’ll never stop buying them and neither will any of you.  

But they can be complimented.  

An author needs only a small, loyal audience to make a decent living.  If he’s willing to change the model.  The same is true for illustrators.  

The author who illustrates his own book is rare.  In fact, attaching artwork to manuscripts is heavily discouraged.  It lessens the probability of getting published.  You sell your words, and the publisher matches it to an artist.  

Often this works, but isn’t it a bit like an arranged marriage?  

In the new model, we use the communicative power of the internet to bring artists together.  I know I said I would announce my first project tomorrow, but I’m doing it now. 

Tomorrow, I’ll post the full text, and that will be all you’ll hear from me until Monday.  Except, of course, through comments or email.  

I chose this story first because it’s small, and has a great message about money that everyone should hear, especially now.  As a society, we do not do enough to teach our children about money.  Most of us expect that they’ll eventually just pick it up.  

But If it’s not taught in school, and we’re not teaching it at home, where are our children learning it?  They learn from our example.  

Not from what we say, only by what we do.  

Tomorrow’s story is called The Eighth Wonder of the World.  I would give these words to newlyweds, or perhaps a couple expecting a child.  

It’s short and lovely.  

The entire text will be available on tomorrow’s post, and I will never remove it.  However, if you enjoy it, or you think the message is worth the money, you can download a PDF for $3.50.  

That’s the price of a latte; a small one.  

I’m not a graphic designer, and yes, it will look like a brochure.  I’m sorry.  

But I will get an illustrator, and I will make it better.  That’s what this is all about.  My goal is to have most of my writing available as both a download, and old fashioned copy.

I have a fair amount of work in various stages, and I’m just finding my voice.  

From now on, Friday is project announcement day.  If you know of someone who might be a good fit for tomorrow’s words, please forward the link.  If you think I might be on to something here, please forward the link.  If you’re an illustrator, and you’re interested in joining a project, feel free to contact me.  If you’re a writer and you’d like to join this community, I’d love to have you.  

If you like tomorrow’s words, please pass them on; Stumble, Twitter, whatever.  

I have thousands and thousands or words that are waiting, and I can’t wait to release them.

Writer Dad

If you enjoyed my words, please subscribe.  I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.

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Ready, Set, Jump!

July 21, 2008 By 7 Comments

 

Alright.  I’ve caught up on all the little things, and now I’m ready to jump. 

From this day forward, I commit to posting, at least once a day, Monday through Friday.  Weekends are for reading, gathering my thoughts, and cuddling those closest to me.

I’ve read the books, made my tweaks, and now I’m ready to make this place the best that it can be. 

I’d like to thank Darren Rowse for his book ProBlogger.  I’d also like to thank Chris Pearson for the outstanding theme Thesis, which you are now looking at, and Chris Brogan for the suggestion. 

Lastly, and most importantly, I’d like to thank Leo Babauta at Zen Habits.  I’ve been reading his blog for almost a year, and he, more than anyone other than my own wife, has succeeded in quietly convincing me daily, to finally become the writer that I guess I was born to be. 

If Daisy convinced me that I could get it out from my head and on to the page, Leo convinced me that I could post it online.  

So, if you’re a dad, join me.  If you’re a writer waiting to get published, join me.  If you’re an established writer bursting with advice, then please lay it down.

 I’m listening.

I’m excited to see where this adventure takes me, my family, and all the people I’m lucky enough to meet along the way.

Cheers,

Writer Dad

If you liked this post, think about subscribing.  I’m doing it again tomorrow.

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Her Face at Odds

July 9, 2008 By 3 Comments

In six and a half years, I don’t think our Mia’s ever lived through a week with such an obvious paradox etched across her face.  Those last few days of school were hard on her. 

And the two sides of her heart were having quite the skirmish.  

With the end of the school year just a few hot lunches away, Mia didn’t know whether she should be feeling sad, happy, or a healthy percentage of each. 

The resulting confusion bled across her face like one of her watercolors left too long on the porch.

Haven’t we all been there before; probably more times than we care to count (or admit)?

Mia’s excited about spending Summer at home (no schlepping in the car and racing across town before her breakfast is even digested), and she’s looking forward to a quality of downtime that she hasn’t really had in any significant measure for the past nine months, but Mia also knows that it’s going to be ten weeks before she sees any of her friends again, and that next September, when we pull up to the school with a fresh backpack and fresh expectations, her Señora will be Maestra to another class.

Mia’s first teacher was tremendous; everything Daisy and I had hoped for.  She loved our daughter, and, even better, she checked her in all the ways that our little girl needs to be checked.  Like any great mother, Señora gave Mia a generous amount of rope, but also knew when it was time to pull it tight.  

She encouraged Mia’s assets, discouraged her deficiencies, and stretched her mental rubber band (sometimes to the snapping point).  She spoke to her with a strong voice and direct language, inspiring her to try countless new things and admirably succeed at many of them.  

Mia will miss her terribly, and so will we.  

But it was good to see her work through such conflicting emotions and arrive on solid ground.  The summer’s going swimmingly so far.  She misses her teacher, but she’s using her feelings to make herself a better writer.  

What more could a writer dad, or a writer mom for that matter, ever ask?

Writer Dad

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A New Door to Knock On

June 28, 2008 By 1 Comment

 

We’ve been rambling down the road of finding an agent.  Yesterday, we received our first response; exactly forty-five minutes before the work week ended.  The answer to our query was both relieving and disappointing, though a good deal more of the former. 

As is often the case, life saw fit to open one door just as it was shutting another.  The response was from the same agent we’d already sent a query once before; he of the, “shudders of horror” fame. 

After we were knocked down a few notches by our first query, we sent out a much subdued second.  Finding an agent is a long process and unfortunately, the neutered query received no response even after two weeks.  Last night Daisy and I e-mailed a rather bold, imaginative, third. 

We were finding an agent and it was the right thing to do.

We received a reply in eighteen hours to the same question that had remained unanswered for two weeks.  Though the agent’s answer hung low beneath a cloud of definitive rejection, it had a gleaming silver lining shining underneath. 

The agent said no to our work, but enjoyed the query.  He said it was, “Very clever query without falling off into the pit of silly.”  The agent also said that he was entirely deaf to books for our targeted age group, and suggested another agent he thought might work out wonderfully. 

He even said we could use his name in our query. 

To me, this was better than finding an agent, at least the first one willing to say yes.  It isn’t about how fast we can succeed in finding an agent, it’s about finding an agent that will be best for us in the long term.  I just want to write; finding an agent who understands me will help me to do just that.  

My expectations for finding an agent aren’t that different from my expectations in a good teacher.  

I want someone who will tell me what I’m good at, and where I need to work harder.  I need my very own literary Yoda.  So, this weekend, we plan to carefully draft our new query, and hit send before our faces touch the pillow on Sunday night. 

I know I’m just finding an agent, but I feel like I’m drafting a letter to Santa Clause.

Writer Dad

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