Your intuition knows what to write...

Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way. ~ Ray Bradbury (at Write to Done)
 

I think Ray's connection to his intuition was better than mine. Mine wants to go have a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream instead of writing.

50 Inspirational Quotes For Writers

At Alltop this morning, Guy Kawasaki links to 50 Inspirational Quotes For Writers. He says:

"Cheryl Craigie of Write to Done has collected a wonderful variety of quotes to keep you inspired even in the darkest moments."

How to be a writer
5. The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to says ~Anais Nin
6. Start before you’re ready. ~Steven Pressfield
7. Do the work. ~Steven Pressfield
8. If you want to be a writer, you must do two things about all others: read a lot and write a lot…reading is the creative center of a writer’s life…you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you. ~Stephen King

What to write
40. Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth
41. Write what you know. Write what you want to know more about. Write what you’re afraid to write about. ~ Cec Murphy

Full story at Write to Done.

What is a writer's platform?

A writer friend asks, "What is a platform? I should know what it means but I don't."

How many people want to hear from you?

 Platform is just a fancy word for "how many people want to hear from you?"

If 100,000 people seek out and read your every blog post, story or novel, then you have a large platform. With this kind of platform you will not have any trouble getting published by a traditional publisher, or (if you choose) selling your own self-published books.

There is no single measure of platform. It is a sounds-sort-of-scientific-and-serious-number thrown around by agents and publishers. Often used to browbeat writers or justify publishing-or not publishing-a book.

Platform is measured by a combination of things like:
- number of people on your email list (the ideal list is one that consists only of people who have asked to be on the list, and who would be upset if you removed them)
- number of people who read your blog
- number of people who comment on your blog
- number of YouTube views of a compelling 3-5 minute video you make, telling your story. Ideally it goes viral and gets hundreds of thousands of views.
- number of people who subscribe to the RSS feed of your blog
- number of people who get your newsletter
- number of twitter followers
- number of unique hits on your website
- number of facebook friends
- number of downloads for a free book you wrote and posted on your website
- your Klout score http://klout.com/corp/kscore/

If you don't have a platform, your options are to create one (takes time, like six months to two years) or you can use what's called a "proxy platform."  One way to have a proxy platform is to start writing articles for a blog or magazine with a large readership. For example, the Huffington Post.

Peru increases protection of the Amazon

When I flew into Pullcapa Peru last month, I got a bird's eye view of deforestation of the Peruvian Amazon. I wrote then that my first thought was, "The Amazon is gone. Get over it."  It turns out that Peru is actually trying to do something to preserve at least part of the Amazon rain forest. Here's an excerpt from an article from the WWF website.

(The) Peruvian government has allocated significant funds to help protect a large swathe of the Amazon, home to several endangered species and indigenous groups.

Pink dolphins

The Peruvian National Protected Areas Service has pledged USD 280,000 to boost surveillance activities in the Alto Purus National Park and the Purus Communal Reserve – a total area larger than El Salvador. It covers some of the most pristine forests in the southwestern Amazon and shelters jaguars, pink dolphins, arapaimas (large freshwater fish) and other endangered species. It’s also home to at least eight ethnic groups, including an unknown number of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.

The director of WWF’s Amazon Headwaters Initiative, Jorge Herrera, says: “This represents a major success for all Peruvians. The government’s commitment to safeguard the Peruvian Amazon will help us build long-term conservation strategies for roughly three million hectares of some of the richest forests in the world.”

Expat Peru -- Expatriate website

Expat Peru is a good place to meet other expatriates, rent an apartment, find a room mate, get the latest news and find reliable local services.

An example from the Expat Peru website: A Miraflores area apartment that rents for $210 US a week or $640 a month (July, 2012).

Join the South American Explorer's Club

South American Explorers is a non-profit organization providing travel information through Clubhouses across the continent.

From the South American Explorer's club (SAE) site: "Our clubhouse is a center of information: you find tons of guide books – including our owns!!, information sheets about various aspects of traveling (transport, night life, adventure sport, SAE´s top ten of things to do in Lima), members written trip reports, knowledgeable staff, reference maps, a library with some real gems, a collection of the South American Explorers Magazine, wifi access and more!"

If you plan to travel to South America, consider joining the SAE before you leave. When I was in Lima, my Miraflores area hotel was a short walk from the Lima club house. Had I known about it, I could have walked over, met other travelers, and learned more about Peru while waiting for my flight to Pucallpa.

The SAE membership page is here.

The Ucayali is just a tributary

Nothing prepares you for the size of the Amazon. As we flew over the jungle on our way to Pucallpa, I looked down and saw a huge river snaking through the forest. Enormous.

I later learned I was looking at the Ucayali--a small tributary that feeds the much larger Amazon which is several days past Pucallpa by river boat.

Map showing Ucayali and Pucallpa

Hammocks on a River Boat (bring a good hammock and mosquito net)

More information on the trip from Pucallpa to Iquitos at Expat Peru and the South American Explorer's Club (SAE). If you are going to Peru, seriously consider joining the South American Explorer's club before you leave. As an SAE member you get access to the SAE clubhouses, detailed travel information and a chance to meet and talk to experienced Peru travelers.

Susan Orlean on writing leads

Meyrl Streep plays Susan Orlean in the movie Adaptation

(Note: The 'lead' is just the opening or beginning of a piece of writing. It can be a single word, a single sentence, a paragraph or several pages long. In journalistic jargon the word is sometimes spelled lede. Both spellings are pronounced with a hard 'e' as in 'leed'.)

Susan Orlean on writing leads, from an interview at UC Davis.

WOE: Are you really conscious of looking for a strong lead?

ORLEAN: I’m very conscious of its importance. I can’t rest until I have a lead that thrills me. The problem is that I can’t write the second, third, fourth, fifth sentences until I have the first. That’s part of the problem with the story I was just working on. I had all the material and a million scenes in my head that I knew I had to write and that would have been relatively easy to write. But I couldn’t start until I started.I think it’s the nature of a really good striptease act, that you’ve got to choose very carefully which item of clothing you’re going to take off first. Because it’s got to be enough but not too much, and it has to be arresting so that you think, “Hmm. Well, what comes next?”
     I’m not sure where my leads come from. Often they’re not specifically on the topic, or they’re almost preambles to the story—although the lead I just wrote ended up being very straightforward. But I feel I know when they work, even if they’re kind of oblique and seem a little off topic.
Sometimes if I feel that I’m echoing something I’ve done before, then I actually don’t do it. Any time you have a longish career you’ve got this fear of repeating yourself.
     I do think a lead has to be intuitive. There has to be something intuitively real about it even if it seems eccentric or off-topic.
     I’ve been asked a million times about the lead to “The American Man, Age 10” [“If Colin Duffy and I were to get married, we would have matching superhero notebooks.”] and I’ve said, “You know, it’s not like I set off thinking this is going to be a story about marrying a ten-year-old.” The lead came from an emotional response. It was a story about being inside his head and seeing the world the way the ten-year-old would see it. But I’m not a ten-year-old boy, so I guess the next closest thing was imagining that I was in his world as his bride.

Susan Orlean's writing tips

My mind is on fire since listening to Susan Orlean's interview with Jason Boog this morning. Great interview! I have not been able to get access to the recording of Orlean's MediaBistro's Literary Festival interview. When I do I will post some verbatim quotes. Meanwhile, here are my notes.

1. Ideas are the source, the fuel that writers need.
2. You have to "pull" at an idea until you find the story. (The story and the idea are not the same thing.)
3. Stories are the writer's job.
4. "Pretty sentences" are not the most important thing (in a story or a book). The story is the most important thing. Without the story, you have nothing.
5. Stories are in demand. They will always be in demand, no matter what happens to the publishing business.
6. You have to constantly ask yourself, "What is my reader looking for? Why would he or she pick this (book) up and read it?
7. Orleans keeps researching until the subject "goes flat" for her. She knows something is going flat when she finds herself going over the same material twice.
8. When the research starts to go flat, it's time to start writing.
9. She works extremely hard on the openings of her books and articles. If people don't like the first three pages (of a book) it doesn't matter how good the rest of the book is, they won't read it. She said she worked for (how many?) months on the opening of Rin Tin Tin.
   (Note: Journalists call the opening the 'lead'. When someone talks about the lead, they are talking about the first paragraph or two of an article, or the first few pages of a book. Sometimes spelled lede. Both words are pronounced with a hard e as in 'leed'. Writing a good lead--one that captivates the reader--is generally considered to be the hardest, most important part of writing anything.)
10. Orlean said that she uses magazine articles as a way to test an idea to see if it's possible to 'open it up' into a book. Jason Boog replied that he uses blog posts as a way to find out if an idea is 'big enough' to turn into an article or book.
11. Find a system (for both researching and writing) that works for you and stick with it.
    (Don't waste time learning new software and tools when you have something that works.)
12. Orlean uses index cards to record her research. 
13. She spreads the completed index cards out on a table as a way to organize and structure her books. 
14. She is a Scrivener user.
15. Find writers that you admire. Create a scrapbook of their solutions to problems. Turn to them when you have a writing problem to see how they solved it.
16. If you need an agent, consider going to New York for a few days and meeting agents in person. Call young agents. Tell them you are in town, and would like to meet with them for 10 minutes to introduce yourself. Take a couple book ideas with you. Personal contact is important, and not to be under-rated. (This has been my experience, too.)
17. Orlean doesn't believe in writing nonfiction books on spec.
    (Writing a book 'on spec' means writing the book without having an agent or publisher. This is a complicated issue. Sometimes, you should write a free ebook. It can be a good way to build a following and develop your book-writing chops. Seth Godin wrote 17 (and counting) free ebooks and as a result became an international best selling author.)

Personal observations:
Orlean's comments about ideas and their relationship to stories feels hugely important. Understanding this is a Big Deal for any writer.  I have plenty of ideas. I just spent two years trying to turn one of them into a book. The project failed, because I didn't pull at the original idea until I found the story!

An idea is a starting point for research and exploration, but it is not a story. In Orlean's words, you have to "keep pulling at the idea" until you find the story.

I recently spent two weeks living in the Peruvian Amazon rain forest. Since then I have become fascinated with  Peru, the ecology of the Amazon rain forest and the extraordinary travelers and adventurers attracted to that part of the world. That is an idea. It could even become a passion. But it is not a story.

A story is something human and specific. Like the story of Dervla Murphy, who with her nine-year-old daughter Rachel and a mule named Juana walked the length of Peru. (Murphy tells this story in her book Eight Feet In the Andes.)

Orlean has said in the past that her books are really personal education projects about subjects that interest her. (I can't find the link to the Orleans quote! Grrr)

In a New Yorker interview, JUAN PABLO GARNHAM asked Orlean, "What’s the key for making things like orchids or chickens into an interesting story?"

Orlean replied, "I think the key to making things like orchids and chickens interesting is having a real passion in the writer for understanding them. I really write out of an authentic curiosity, and I get excited about telling readers about something I’ve learned about. I think that excitement is what draws people in, especially to subjects they might not naturally have an interest in."

Here's another Orlean quote at GoodReads that expands on her idea of caring about things, and having a passion for what you are writing about. This particular quote rings very, very true for me.

“The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.” 

Susan Orlean on writers and publishing

I just listened to MediaBistro's Jason Boog interview best selling author Susan Orlean about nonfiction writing and her new book Rin Tin Tin. Orlean had some great quotes about writing, and some generous tips for nonfiction writers. When I get access to the recording of the interview I will post some of the quotes.

In response to a question about the future of publishing Orlean said something really important. Her response went something like this (severely paraphrased)...

The publishing world is going to change. What it will look like in five years is (unknown) but there will always be (a hunger for) stories. 

I am a writer. What goes on in the publishing world is not my business. (Our job as writers) is to find (and write) stories.

Stories are the only thing that will endure, and the only thing (that a reader can't Google.) There will always be a hunger for them. If the New Yorker disappears tomorrow, something else will appear (to publish stories.) (Whether they are published in a paper or ebook format is irrelevant.)

Orlean's latest book is Rin Tin Tin.

Avoid the poisonous palm tree

We stepped carefully from rock to rock. They were wet and slick.  It was the second day of my Amazon visit, and a guide was leading us to a jungle camp. I stumbled and instinctively reached out to brace myself on a tree. The guide yelled, "NO! NO!"

I looked at my hand. It rested on a cleared space of the trunk of a palm tree. Above and below my hand, the trunk was covered with hard, sharp needles. If my hand had been six inches higher i would have had a dozen poisonous spikes through my palm.  We were four hours by trail, boat, and taxi ride from any kind of medical care.

I was lucky. Someone had carefully cleared the tree trunk of needles, exactly where a clumsy visitor's hand would land if he stumbled and fell.

I learned my first big lesson about the jungle: Look carefully before you put your hand anywhere.

I was too freaked out to remember to take a picture of the needles. When I got home I searched the Internet for several days before I finally found the tree. Its latin name is Bactris gasipaes. The tree trunk shown below has been cleared of spines every foot or so.

Four inch spines. Used for needles, weapons and fish hooks.

It seems like every plant in the Amazon has a dozen unexpected uses. The Pijuayo palm tree is no exception.

In the past, indigenous peoples used the spines for needles, fish hooks and weapons. The tree has been cultivated since pre-Columbian times, and today it is an important part of the economies of Central and South America. The tree is a source of food. The trunk is harvested for palm hearts. The fruit is eaten raw, reduced to edible cooking oil, processed into  flour, or cooked into jelly.

Anatomy of the Michelle Welsch blog post

My Michelle Welsch blog post has drawn more traffic, more quickly, than anything I've ever posted.

Why? Did I just get the words right? Is Michelle Welsch famous? I have no idea.

The original post:

Michelle Welsch is looking for a few interesting people.

What would you pay to spend an evening with interesting people who share your enthusiasms?

Michelle Welsch is a charming, likeable woman who apparently knows just about everybody. (One of her gigs is organizing events for Seth Godin.)

She is looking for a few people for a small gathering in downtown Manhattan on  Monday, July 23 from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. The agenda is conversation, connection, and inspiration.

If you are an entrepreneur, student, writer, film maker or artist of any kind, apply here. You won't regret it.

A few writerly observations on why this short blog post works:
- Good title. It's provocative and interesting.
- Good opening sentence. It asks a question and makes a promise.
- Good intro to Michelle. It tells the truth and cites her authority for hosting this gig.
- Good specifics. What, when, and where are clearly stated.
- Good ending. Summary, where to find out more, and a clear promise of benefit.
- The title is 9 words long (An RSS feed will show about 7 words, so title is 2 more than ideal.)
- It is short. The body of the post is 89 words long (I don't like to go over 130 words for an 'average' post)
- The title follows Subject Verb Object construction with an active verb, "looking"
- The title begins with the name of a person.

The Great Moto Taxi Junket

The Adventurists.com and their Moto Taxi Junket across Peru.

Moto taxi across the Andes

A team of Australians with "questionable survival instincts" drive 2000 km across the Andes and through the Amazon in a moto taxi.

Dervla Murphy walks across the Andes

Update below

Dervla Murphy, her nine-year-old daughter Rachel and their mule Juana walked the length of Peru. Murphy tells the story in Eight Feet In the Andes.

Murphy is now in her early eighties, and still travels the world.

Update
I just started reading another Dervla Murphy book, Ireland. I got the book because I wanted to get a sense of how Murphy writes, while I look for a copy of Eight Feet in the Andes. Murphy is a fantastic writer. Her prose is compelling, energizing, electric. This is the first coffee table book I might actually finish. Klaus D Francke's accompanying photographs of Ireland are stunning. I can't find any of the Ireland photos online. Only Francke's arial photography is online. I like the Ireland shots better.

Would you ride a moto taxi?

The first  that struck me about Pucallpa Peru were the swarms of moto taxis on the streets. (Tony Dunnell wrote an excellent article about moto taxis.)  These three-wheel contraptions are fun to ride and cheap. 5 new soles (about $2 US) will take you just about anywhere. (Make sure to agree on a price before you step aboard.)

Each moto taxi is a small business. The driver is a "micro entrepreneur". Starting a moto taxi business looks simple: Think about it. Buy one. Do it.

When I told a US friend about the moto taxis, he replied, "I've given micro loans to people to buy moto taxis." You can make your own micro loan to a moto taxi driver at Kiva.org

Micro lending is big in Peru. According to AOL Daily Finance writer Emily Schmall, Peru ranks No. 1 in the annual Economist Intelligence Unit survey of world's best business environments for microlending.

Did I mention that they are fun to ride? Here's a video of a Pucallpa taxi ride posted by Hobo Traveller on YouTube.

Michelle Welsch is looking for a few interesting people

What would you pay to spend an evening with interesting people who share your enthusiasms?

Michelle Welsch is a charming, likeable woman who apparently knows just about everybody. (One of her gigs is organizing events for Seth Godin.)

She is looking for a few people for a small gathering in downtown Manhattan on  Monday, July 23 from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. The agenda is conversation, connection, and inspiration.

If you are an entrepreneur, student, writer, film maker or artist of any kind, apply here. You won't regret it.

Landing (or not) in Pucallpa Peru

Updated 7/14

Our Star Peru flight to Pucallpa left Lima at 10:35 AM. The flight was smooth over the Andes. Below us, thin roads snaked up mountain sides to small villages. As the mountains got higher, the villages got smaller. Soon we were over the mountains and dark green jungle began to unfold beneath us. Large white thunderclouds filled the sky.

When our plane neared Pullcapa, we descended into a cloud. The windows were gray and streaked with rain. We passed beneath the cloud ceiling, I could see the runway beneath us. The plane bounced through turbulence. The pilot applied power, climbed out of the clouds and circled for another try. The second attempt was worse than the first. We flew the length of the runway with the starboard wing several feet lower than the port wing.

The pilot pulled up again. After a few minutes he came on the intercom and said in Spanish and English, "Pucallpa airport is closed because of weather. We are flying to an alternate airport."

We flew for twenty minutes and set down at a small sunlit runway. I asked the businessman sitting next to me if it was Iquitos. He said no and went back to reading his email on his Galaxy Tab computer.  We stopped and the crew opened the front and rear hatches to ventilate the passenger compartment. I got up and walked to the bathroom. The door to the cockpit was open and the co-pilot was looking at a map and talking to the pilot. The co-pilot looked very young.

After a few minutes the crew closed the hatches. The engines spun up, and we took off again. I thought we were returning to Lima, but twenty minutes later we landed in Pucallpa. The landing was smooth and flawless on a dry sunlit runway.

A Pucallpa resident who watched us try to land earlier said ten minutes after we tried to land, the storm was gone and the sun was shining.

Update 1: I liked Star Peru and would not hesitate to fly with them again.
Update 2: A pilot friend tells me that the main problem with landing at small airports (everywhere) is the lack of ground control facilities at some small airports.  Without ground control, the pilot has to make a visual landing. With ground control, the pilot can make an instrument landing.

Buying a portable broadcast quality audio recorder

Small, professional, broadcast quality audio recorders have advanced remarkably in the past few years. Today's versions are cheaper, of higher quality, and are easier to use than ever before.

(If you only want an inexpensive voice recorder, skip this post.)

B and H Photo has an excellent primer on what to look for in a portable digital recorders, and how they differ from normal "voice recorders" here:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/audio/buying-guides/portable-digital-rec
orders

A few  models worth considering:
Roland R-26
Tascam DR-100
Zoom H4N
Fostex FR-2LE

I recommend buying from B and H Photo because of their excellent customer service and 7 day return policy. 

When the recorder arrives, spend a few hours recording test interviews. If the recorder controls are not intuitive and easy to use, return it to B and H and try another model.

Buying a hat from 5000 miles away

The ideal hat: an Outdoor Research Sombriolet Sun Hat

Two days before leaving on my trip, I still didn't have a good sun hat. In her letters, the tour leader said to bring a good hat because the tropical sun is brutal.

I stopped my last-minute packing, jumped in the car and drove to REI Santa Rosa to look for a hat. After trying on several hats, I finally chose a broad brimmed canvas hat. Just to be sure I had the right one, I asked one of the REI employees "Would this be a good hat for the Amazon rain forest?"

"No. You've chosen a canvas hat. It will be wet, heavy and hot. I'd recommend getting one of the waterproof hats made by Outdoor Research." (The REI employee was right. The humidity is so high in the jungle that the canvas hat would have been wet, heavy, hot and unwearable within an hour. It would have been covered with white mold within a week.)

Back to the REI hat rack. All their Outdoor Research hats were gone. A quick search on my smart phone showed a big-box "sports equipment" store nearby.  I drove to the store. The bored clerks knew nothing about hats and cared less. I finally remembered Sonoma Outfitters in Railroad Square. Back in the car for a trip across town.  Sonoma Outfitters had the hat, and in my size!  I reluctantly paid for the expensive hat, returned home and finished packing.

Three days later I was in Peruvian jungle, where I learned what the locals wore. Baseball caps. Just like the one I left lying in the back of my car.

Moral, "Don't buy a hat from 5,000 miles away."

The hat the locals wear

Re-entry after a vacation in the Amazon

I am slowly re-entering the world of blogs, hot showers, and email after two weeks in the Amazon basin. No phone, no email, no electricity. No news, no politics and no advertising. 

We climb a small hill, stepping from slippery rock to slippery rock. I stumble, and reach out instinctively to brace myself against a tree. The guide yells a warning and I barely avoid impaling my palm on a dozen of the three-inch-long poisonous needles that cover the tree's trunk.

I do my morning yoga on a river beach. 100 feet above, the sun slowly burns away a light grey mist to reveal lacy branches of the forest canopy.

Brilliantly colored birds, butterflies, and insects. Large, black spiders with eyes that gleam redly in the night. Ants. All kinds of ants.

Soon I will probably be writing about how to structure, write and market books.

But not yet.

Seth Godin watches the price of media fall

"A New York City publisher probably needs $2000 a page to acquire, edit, typeset, print and distribute a book (making up a number from thin air). A self-published ebook author needs $1 a page.
That’s not a cost-efficiency. That’s a totally different industry.

Free media -- grafitti in Lima Peru

But the if the viewer/reader doesn’t treat the two products as fundamentally different, if reading or watching one is a replacement for the other, then a crisis is right around the corner." Seth Godin

Girls preparing to dance

Girls getting ready to dance in a parade at a large celebration on Father's Day in central Lima.

The Amazon is gone.

Update below: images from space

Written in a hotel in Lima, Peru upon returning from the Amazon rain forest.

Two days ago I was in the Amazon. Nothing prepared me for the beauty of the place. Or it's immensity.

Early in my trip we flew over the Peruvian Amazon forest on the way to Pucallpa. I was stunned by the extent of clear-cutting, logging, farming, oil drilling. Throughout the flight I saw massive plumes of smoke from slash-and-burn clearing operations. We flew over patch after patch of cleared, cultivated land. I remember thinking, "The Amazon is gone. Get over it. It's gone."

Update 1: Pictures from space
The fires are so large they can be seen from space. The Brazilian Amazon rain forest, as seen from the International Space Station in 2011.

 Update 2: Peru increases protection of the Amazon
The Peruvian government has allocated significant funds to help protect a large swathe of the Amazon, home to several endangered species and indigenous groups.

Pink dolphins

The Peruvian National Protected Areas Service has pledged USD 280,000 to boost surveillance activities in the Alto Purus National Park and the Purus Communal Reserve – a total area larger than El Salvador. It covers some of the most pristine forests in the southwestern Amazon and shelters jaguars, pink dolphins, arapaimas (large freshwater fish) and other endangered species. It’s also home to at least eight ethnic groups, including an unknown number of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.

The director of WWF’s Amazon Headwaters Initiative, Jorge Herrera, says: “This represents a major success for all Peruvians. The government’s commitment to safeguard the Peruvian Amazon will help us build long-term conservation strategies for roughly three million hectares of some of the richest forests in the world.”