Category Archives: writing

The other day I was having lunch with a friend. My friend has a business. He is a realtor. This business, like most, would benefit greatly from the use of a blog and social tools to both communicate to current clients and capture new ones. The problem: He thinks he doesn’t have anything to write about. He says he gets there, logs in, but does not know what to say. He sweats over the details. The words. The subject. Everything. He tells me this, seeking my help. So, here is what I told him and the secret I’m going to give you: Every conversation you have contains something to write about. If it’s interesting enough to have a conversation about, it’s interesting enough to write about and, if it’s not, you should not waste your time talking or writing. I’m not talking about idle chit-chat here (though that could be great too). I’m talking about conversations where real value and information is exchanged. Casual or not. The post is right there, waiting for you to capture it, share it. For instance, here are the things I learned in the five minute conversation we had when I asked him, “How’s business going?”:

1. In this market, you can get a 2,500-3,000 square foot house with three bedrooms and two baths for under $200,000. Compared to even a couple of years ago, it’s a bargain.
2. There are plenty of great house deals like this and plenty of people to buy. The problem is the bank’s willingness to loan. The problem in getting a loan is easily solved with the right Mortgage Broker. He has a guy that has relationships with 30+ banks and can get a loan for just about anyone.
3. Part of his job is, up front, assessing if he and the client are the right fit. He wants to be your guy. Therefore, he asks a few up front questions of perspective clients. Like, what’s their name. Many people don’t even want to give that. They are afraid that will somehow make a commitment. That he will be looking them up and cold calling them every five minutes. In fact, that is the last thing he will do. Why would any reputable business person want to start a relationship with someone who does not want to. How can he even know if he can get you the right house if you won’t even give him your name?

Guess what I told him? In five minutes he came up with his first three blog posts. Information that would be valuable to any current or perspective client. Ideas that can then be promoted with a single tweet or status update. Also, if we could come up with that in five minutes just think of what we could come up in an hour long lunch. A meeting. A phone call. Especially with a colleague or client. Do you also see something else? It’s hiding right in front of your eyes… This post. This post is from that same conversation. I start with “nothing to write about” and in five minutes of casual conversation I have something to share. It’s like magic. But it’s not. It’s called writing.

I’ve been think a lot lately about the whole concept of this site, online writing (blogging) in the traditional sense, and the appropriateness of certain writing for certain venues.

This thinking has been spurred in no small part by two sources. First, the conversations that Gwen Bell has helped to start around these ideas. Secondly, as I’m in the editing process of taking some of this work you see here and turning it into a book.

Now the first is a highly interesting concept, Gwen (and others) have decided to completely wipe the slate clean. Erasing everything from the blog and starting first with rethinking the very idea of what a “blog” should be, what it should contain, the purpose that it serves, and why it should exist in the first place. Years and years of writing and other content gone from the Internet. Instead, Gwen, at least for the time being, is taking future short form writing (that which may have been a blog post) and making it available as a paid subscription based newsletter. For longer works and those curated around a theme, she is producing eBooks (The first of which, Digital Warriorship, is wonderful and well worth the cost).

One reason this is compelling to me is the idea of arts patronage. With a certain view, that is what is going on here. Gwen is asking those who wish to read her longer works to support the production of such with a financial commitment. This is not too far removed from the practice in times past of someone, wanting the custom work of a particular artist, agreeing to support them financially. This was not only in return for the final work but also to insure it’s production (you want to give the artist the freedom to produce without worry of where his next meal would come from). As a writer and, therefore, an artist, one should be able to readily see why I find interest in this.

Then, there is the personal journey I’m going through as I have collected many of the posts here, have sent them to a publisher and editor, and have been in the process of rearranging these pieces around themes to make a narrative whole. It is slowly becoming apparent that perhaps this work should have always been presented in the context of a book. That what you have read here over the years has simply been a rough draft for this final product. That perhaps, once released, those pieces (or even perhaps everything you see here) should be deleted from the blog format and only live on much more polished and only in the context of a collected and curated whole – a book.

Finally, this is all a greater part of my also asking what is the appropriate context for my art. I have discovered that much of what I write is often part of a larger narrative, one yet to be discovered even by myself at times, and should be presented as a book in it’s final form. Although each piece could stand on it’s own as a blog post, should it? I also think about patronage and if I could get a few people to pay for the privilege of having access to longer and deeper work, especially if it had the reward at the end of receiving a completed, edited and curated whole.

I don’t have any answers to these questions yet and have not made up mind to go any particular directions. That said, this partly explains why you have seen a slowdown in my production here and elsewhere and some of the ideas that are forming the basis of what will come next.