Writer

The Writer’s Legacy

Garth Beyer

J.K Rowling is legendary. She is legendary  not just for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, but for six other Harry Potter books and one unrelated new book this Summer. 

If you read the Harry Potter series, you know Voldemort had his soul torn into seven different pieces. Those seven pieces were part of him. Likewise, the seven books are a part of Rowling and in essence, it is those seven pieces that turned Voldemort and Rowling into a legend.

Does Rowling need to write another book? Of course not. She’s set. The fact she is writing another defines what it means to be a writer. Being a writer doesn’t mean you work hard to produce one book and win big on that one book.

Rowling couldn’t have done it with just one Harry Potter book, there’s no legacy in that, no passion. It would just have been a  book that she wrote and that’s it. It doesn’t matter if you have a book inside you anymore. One book doesn’t cut it, one book doesn’t make you an income you can live off of the rest of your life and one book definitely does not create a legacy.

Every legendary writer you can think of has published more than one book, has written more than one essay, has bled more than one poem. Writing a book doesn’t make you a writer, writing a book is average, millions of people do it. Very few write seven like Rowling, 40+ like Stephen King or have more than 1,000 published like L Ron Hubbard.

There is a highlight to reaching this realization. It makes writing that first book easier. See, too many people spend thousands of hours on their first book hoping to make it big. They spend more time editing than they do learning how to write better when learning how to write better is much more important because the more you write, the less you will need to edit. The less you need to edit, the more you can write and the more you can write, the more books you can have written.

Rowling, King, and Hubbard published a lot of work before their novels hit the status of legendary. They wrote endlessly and everything they started making was ugly until they made so much ugliness that it became beautiful and eventually legendary.

Having a book inside you and wanting to be a legendary writer are two different things. Unless of course, every time you vomit that book inside you, another takes its place.

 

Stay Positive & Stick Your Fingers Down Your Throat If You Have To

(just get that first book out and see if another takes its place)

Garth E. Beyer

Lessons From The Cat In The Box

Garth Beyer

Clover is my cat. Although, I feel it may be more accurate to call her a little kitty despite the fact she is nearly 4 years old and after being with me, has only 3 out of 9 of her lives left. She’s small, cute, has half a tail (rescue kitty), and if you don’t remember, she has a big impact on my writing:( A Writer’s Crashing “Train of Thought” and Why It’s Excellent )

I have a cat story for you.

If your a cat owner, you have put a cat in a box. If you’re not, you now share the same curiosity as those who have as to what will the cat do if put it in a box? Let’s make the box a tall box, and the cat Clover.

Clover got put into a tall box and wouldn’t jump out. Contrary to belief, cats do have fear and it is this fear of the unknown and inability to prepare for the landing that Clover wouldn’t jump out. Cat’s, being very smart, choose not to take the risk. Admiringly, nor do they choose to just stay in the box. They will, just as Clover, put their paws on the rim of the box to try and peer over it to calculate the jump out of the box. It just so happened, as Clover had her paws on the edge, the box began to tip and it is almost as if the box was trying to push her out. Clover chose to try and prepare for the jump, only to find in that preparation that everything fell into place. (Pardon the pun)

See, we can learn many things from life, from each other and even from animals if we only observe.

Lessons Learned:

  • It’s okay to fear, just don’t let it immobilize you.
  • The unknown is not something to jump into, but to fall forward into.
  • If you prepare to try, you gain a forward leaning posture that tips the box, coincidentally pushing you forward.
  • Nothing is impossible, it’s just the angle at which you look at things.
  • Determination is unstoppable.
  • Fear of remaining in the box is worse than the fear of what’s out of it.
  • Freedom of any kind is worth losing 1 of 9 lives for.

Stay Positive & Luck Will Always Be On Your Side, As Long As You Try

Garth E. Beyer

Other posts about preparation (non-cat related): Prep To Destroy, Preparation and Expectation Reversed, Safety First: The Art Of Preparation

Myth: Speling Doesn’t Matter For Bloggers & Writers

Garth Beyer

FALSE

A common piece of advice from great Bloggers, Marketers, Salesman and Writers is that spelling and grammar should not be a priority.

People like Jeffrey Gitomer, Seth Godin and countless others encourage you to blog and write your heart out without a worry about the spelling or grammar because it means nothing compared to the content you are providing. So many successful people think they can get more attention by suggesting to others that they do not need to focus on spelling, but do you notice… they never make any spelling errors themselves? They re-read their own material over and over until it is perfect, because they know the second golden rule of a life well lived –

Everything Counts.

Have you ever read a novel and found that one word that is misspelled? I bet you wonder if anyone else noticed it too, but then you shrug it off. Without realizing it, you have just been pushed back – taken out of the story for a moment. But then, later in the novel you find another mistake and you think, did this author even read this over? This is his heart poured out, his focus, and countless hours of time in this novel and he lets two misspellings go by? Or did he not care enough and simply had his editor try to catch everything? Doesn’t he think his information is important enough to share with other close and personal friends that could have read the novel before its release and found the errors?

Spelling Is Crucial!

It is unfortunate that the consistent effort that a person puts into a goal is not seen by the majority of their peers. Only the end result, the achievement, goes noticed. How do you think we got the term “an overnight success”? I guarantee you, it was not overnight. Why do we believe the novel we read was the absolute greatest? Because it was flawless. The author knows that everything counts, especially the little things like 1 spelling error in a book of 650 pages.

Words, grammar, and spelling are the tools of the trade and should be used correctly. Using them incorrectly is like a carpenter using a sledgehammer to drive in finishing nails. It can be done, but it will leave big marks in the wood and leave the user’s hands bruised and battered. – Michael Barbagallo

The days in which content and messages are only related to a few people each day are long gone. Now, a single message could be sent out to one person or one billion people in a day. A single misspelling could be noticed by (depending on your number of followers) thousands of people. What do these people think? “Does this author even care? And he calls himself a Writer?” Basic errors in grammar, mechanics and spelling are harmful to your reputation, your brand and your credibility.

Interested in more (pardon the reference) sledgehammering of grammatical errors? The Price of Typos

I look at it this way, Scucses is not Success. You cannot be a successful writer, editor, copy writer, journalist, ghost writer, blogger, and so on if you do not put in the effort to have everything in order.

Here is a bonus from SpellDoctor.

Why Spelling Matters 

No matter how you look at it, success in spelling leads directly to success in our overall use of the language. Spelling matters.

Developmental, Practical and Personal Matters

  • Spelling Supports Reading Comprehension. Spelling skill goes hand in hand with efficient word decoding and solid reading comprehension as well as unlocking new words and the understanding of the phonological structure of words.
  • Spelling Supports Effective Writing. Because confident spellers are adventurous with language, they are able to create richer more persuasive essays.
  • Projected Image. Spelling is part of one’s projected image. Like it or not, it is one of the means used by society to judge a person’s literacy.
  • Presentations. Many presentations involve marker boards. Spelling errors can be very embarrassing if committed during a presentation. The fear of making an error can lead to a limiting of word choices and a lessening of the impact of the intended message. (I have been victim to seeing a professional speaker not know how to spell “education” or “management”. Regardless that it was on the spot or not, spelling is an extreme key factor in presentations)
  • Employment Opportunities. A survey of major American corporations indicates that 96% of employers consider spelling, punctuation, and grammar to be “extremely important” or “important” factors when making hiring and promotion decisions. In 2005, The National Commission on Writing for American’s Families, Schools, and Colleges reported that 80% of employment applications are negatively affected by misspellings.
  • Attention To Details. A commitment to spelling teaches us to have high standards and pay attention to details.
  • Self Esteem. Strong spelling builds one’s self esteem. We are saved from that nagging worry that we may be judged as unintelligent.

Stay Positive and Know That Success Is The Greatest 7 Letter Word That You Could Use In Scrabble

Garth E. Beyer