Then there was Vered’s Women’s day

I summed up Bootcamp with the insight that meant the most to me: Get in line and stay in line.

If I had to sum up Women do business differently then for me the bottom line is to Think in Terms of Strategy and not in Tactics.  That’s a basic difference between short term and long term. I am for 80% occupied with thinking about the next day, the next week or maybe the next month. In other words, I deploy the one tactic after another. 

Oh, I understand the importance of strategy and if you had asked me last week I would have said, yes, of course I have strategies for my business. Since Women do Business Differently, I have to admit, that apart from having an amount that I want to earn by the end of the year, I actually have little to no strategies to make that happen. I am living from invoice to invoice, and project to project with too little to fall back on if I encounter a setback. 

It’s not even that I don’t have back end products to supplement my front end products. I do. But because I am constantly busy with the front end, and the short term, I have not given these back end products the attention they need. As a result, hardly anyone even knows about them!

What’s even more tragic (yes, I use the word tragic!) is that I even have more front end products, related to the one product that has me in its grip, just floating about, being wasted.

In my brainstorm team I was given several ideas for not only promoting my products, but also for building campaigns. And campaigns are what will create a sustainable customer base. And the funny thing was most of the ideas were strategies I had suggested to others to support their businesses but somehow I had not applied them my own business. I even know why…

But that’s for the next blog.

So, to sum up for now

STRATEGY INSTEAD OF TACTICS

The Shift - from ambition to meaning

buy the DVD

A film about the spiritual teachings of Wayne Dyer.

Starts with enchanting music played on the piano, and the words, spoken by Wayne Dyer “thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning”. 

The film then goes on to explain and illustrate this beautiful quotation.

Wayne Dyer, himself a successful writer of self-improvement books such as Pulling your Own Strings, and The Sky’s the Limit while in the morning of his life, felt his own shift into the afternoon of life and his calling to become a more spiritual writer and teacher. The result is the well-known, The Power of Intention and Change your Thoughts, Change your Life – Living the Wisdom of the Tao. His latest, The Shift, Taking your Life from Ambition to Meaning is the basis for the film.

The structure of the film is simplistic, easy to follow and thus appealing to a wider audience.  In brief, a film making team come to a beautiful seaside retreat to film Wayne Dyer as he speaks about The Shift. This interview is punctuated with secondary storylines, two or three individuals, couples and families who are also staying at the retreat and who, coincidentally illustrate Dyer’s theories. 

If you can get past this uncomfortable set up, then what Dyer tells us, and how this is illustrated in the secondary scenes is actually really inspiring, more so because of its almost childlike simplicity. 

In his studies, Dyer has discovered, both in men and women, that the morning of life is filled with striving to achieve external goals, ambitions, the need for recognition, monetary reward, social standing, though exactly how these goals are chased differs significantly between men and women. Then, as we approach the afternoon of life, these goals are replaced with more intrinsic ambitions. Internal satisfaction, deeper meaning to life, spirituality and self-realisation become the new drivers. Suffering is caused when we try to live the afternoon of life with the same program we applied to life’s morning. 

The characters in the second layer of the film, illustrate the different forms this transition can take. A mother who relinquishes some of her nurturing tasks to create space for her own creativity. The film maker who, having been fired from his job at a commercial network, has a light bulb moment and knows he has to make more inspirational films and the company executive, who takes a step back from his corporate ambitions and chooses for family. 

But, the most significant personal shift comes from another character entirely, and if you want to see who and how, then you will have to watch the film!

As I mentioned earlier, this is not a film filled with deep, intellectually challenging metaphors and symbols. It is designed to reach everyone. Wayne Dyer’s presence throughout the film, his gentle tone, and succinct way of explaining his discoveries were pleasant to listen to and for me at least, the lessons sank in. 

Moving On

In the last few posts I have been commenting on the books I have read that have inspired my life, as much as my writing, after having written a lot on my own writing process. The process was written mostly around the birth and growth of my novel, The Cloths of Heaven.
Another novel that I loved writing, and one that was an even more intense emotional journey (if that is possible) is Trash Fire. I hope you enjoy the excerpt included here. It is also one that was written after I had analysed the process and written about it in my previous posts. So, it was also a case of practising what I preached!


MOVING ON
Madeline led her out to the car. Have you ever been in the heart of Connemara before? She asked.
Julie shook her head. Only to Clifden, but then everybody has been to Clifden.
You’ll love our farm. Utterly isolated, but with the advantage of electricity, and good sanitation. We grow our own vegetables, of course, and never eat meat. Bread we bake, though we do buy the flour from the health food store in town.
And Julie did love it. She loved the smell of the peat and the dew in the early morning, fresh and vitalising. She loved the sight of the mauve mist over the black velvet mountains. She loved the feel of the damp, cold grass beneath her naked feet. And when she listened carefully she could hear the bleating sheep on a distant valley and the trickle of the mountain stream. Peace at last.
She helped in the vegetable garden, plucking the weeds from between the onion shoots. She hoed the thick, compacted soil loose so new crops could be planted. She harvested the beans and carrots, the food they would eat in the evenings.
She thought of her own garden, back home. Hers and only hers. The only gardening Dick did was mowing the lawn and then only on the sunniest of days. And because the mowing was his task he had purchased a motor mower for himself. He had wanted to buy one that he could sit on, and steer, so that all he had to do was take care that he drove in a straight line, and gulp beer from a can.
He didn’t. He feared he might look a fool for the neighbours who still pushed their hand mowers and raked the grass into neat piles afterwards. Instead he bought a Flymo with a grass collector and generally took no longer than fifteen minutes to trim their suburban patch of grass. When he was finished he lounged under the parasol in his cushioned recliner and read the paper while drops of perspiration dribbled down his neck and under his white cotton shirt.
And while Dick recovered from his exertion, Julie weeded and thinned and fertilised her vegetable patch at the back of the garden where the sun shone its finest and the hedgerows gave protection from the west wind. She planned to replace the hedgerows next season with some gooseberry bushes that would serve the same purpose but be much more practical. She fancied cultivating a strawberry patch too, and eventually a small vine to creep along the fence that separated her garden from the one next door, on the sunny side of course.
A shadow fell over her. Julie looked up to see Madeline blocking out the sun. She smiled.
You seem to know what you’re doing, Madeline remarked.
I learned it from my mother, Julie said. It’s still a hobby of mine.
The garden, its produce, her grubby hands and nails blackened with soil, all transported her back to when her mother lived, and chattered and tended her vegetables. Past mingled with present. Mother returned to Julie’s mind and heart."
(C) Geraldine Nesbitt 2010

An abundant supply is a dangerous thing

In my last post I wrote about my thinking process. Well, one important issue that has been on my mind a lot is abundance and supply. Bear with me, I know this diverges from creative writing. But this sort of thing can also block creativity. I know it frustrates me at times.
As you all know by now, as well as being a novelist, I also have my own company, which was set up to facilitate companies who have an increasing need for professional bilingual correspondence and publications. Although I have a couple of regular clients I still scour the net for ad hoc projects and/or new openings. What I come across disappoints me.
I am having difficulty getting my head around the state of the freelance writers market at the moment.
From what I can ascertain the market must be completely saturated. It´s as though all of us who have, for whatever reason, stopped working for someone else, and have created some romantic notion of what it would be like to be our own boss, are offering our services on the freelance writers’ market. Oh, I am not saying we´re not talented, or efficient, or creative, but we are flooding the market and this is having significant consequences.
Before I was a writer, I was (and of course I still am) a business graduate. I studied macro and micro economics, accounting and business policy. Naturally I am familiar with the concepts of Supply and Demand. This concept has a significant influence on market conditions and pricing. It is supply and demand that I will be looking at in this article. Supply and demand in relation to the freelance writing market, and how this effects remuneration. When demand exceeds supply then conditions are favourable for the supplier and vice versa.
Looking at it from my own point of view: I have signed up for several freelance sites, hoping that way to spread the word about my writing and translating abilities. However, for every project I bid on, I am but one on an enormous list of possible candidates. So, supply is abundant. There is a flux of supply. There we all are, offering our services, and the demand is scarce relative to the supply. So it becomes a buyers’ market. And what happens then? Prices fall, and we as freelancers are almost the underdog. I have been stunned at the number of writing projects offering no more than $1,00 for a 350 – 400 word article. I am stunned too, that this is the criterion used by the ‘demandor’ rather than quality of writing when choosing their freelancer. I am stunned too, at the number of writers who bid on such projects, allowing the value of their labours to sink so low. In one case a contract was for 5 articles per day, at the royal rate of $3,00 per article. Come on people, that’s $15,00 a day! You can’t tell me that’s the dream job you had in mind when you became a freelancer. Come on companies, do you honestly believe that quality, professional texts will cost so little?
In an ideal situation, quantity of supply should be critically measured against the quality of this excess. Or is the quality still relatively high but the freelancer’s purse so empty he is prepared to work for a pittance? Perhaps the economic crisis and a general lack of funds has caused everyone to lower their quality standards and look at everything in purely financial terms. The potential client has limited funds, the freelancer is willing to take ridiculous cuts in earnings just to win the client over. I used to work for a company that had as its slogan “Price-quality ratio”, which to me was a good business motto to live by. However, we seem to have replaced it with “always the cheapest” and I wonder if this is the right trend to follow.
Then there’s the translation market. For years the going rate for translations was on average $0,10 per word, sometimes more. On occasion when the project was large a project price would be negotiated, usually based on the estimated number of hours to be spent on the project and at an hourly rate of $ 40,00 or thereabouts. These days you´re lucky to be offered half of that!!! And who says the translators who use CAT systems will deliver better work than those who don´t?
And what can we do about it? As long as there are enough freelancers out there prepared to work for sub-standard earnings, those of us who put value on our services are going to suffer. Quality writers and translators should want their earnings to reflect their level of expertise and those who are prepared to work for ‘a dollar a day’ are lowering the standards of the writing and translation industry. It seems only writers and translators who marry their services to web design and/or content are reaping the benefits right now. Anyone who can put ‘web’ into his/her profile can apparently create his own demand. Demand for high remuneration. Designers are the elite of the freelance world at the moment and I take my hat off to everyone who earns his real market value. But that shouldn’t automatically decrease the value of the other professionals such as writers and translators.
We read The Secret and are told that we live in a universe of abundance. That does not mean we become victim to the apparent abundance and that we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the seemingly endless supply of freelancers such as ourselves. The Secret also reminds us that out of that abundance we should receive our fair share. And a ‘dollar a day’ is only our fair share if we don’t believe we are worth more.
So, going back to the law of Supply and Demand. If enough of us refuse to respond to requests that are little above an insult to our professionalism, then supply will become more scarce and the clients will have more difficulty fulfilling their demands. We as a professional group need to create some demand of our own. Demand for a respectful remuneration for quality services rendered. We have to remove ourselves from the websites and forums where these rates are the norm. Boycott the ‘dollar a day’ clients.
We need to create an industry minimum and all of us need to stick to it. All other sectors have them. We have the minimum wage laws, minimum youth wage laws and other protective legislation. Why then, as freelancers, are we prepared to accept wage conditions that we would have refused to work for when in regular employment?
It is up to us to have some self respect, and to demand the same respect from prospective clients.

Let it go

Letting go!

Just as editing can be a painful process, so too, is the following step. If you thought all the other steps that go into the creation of a novel were difficult, then don’t underestimate the emotional strain involved in letting go of the novel once it has been written.

It’s funny, you know, but true in almost all cases, that when you undertake the writing of a work of fiction, you go through various levels of confidence and self-belief, counterbalanced by deep periods of lack of confidence and a conviction that you’re useless. None the less, if you have reached this stage, you have obviously plodded along, using the memory of the high points to carry you over the times when the novel in progress has threatened to overwhelm you and drive you to give up.

You didn’t give up. You reached The End, and now you’ve edited, keeping any particularly wonderful passages that didn’t fit the story, but were too beautiful to toss onto a garbage heap. So what now? Straight into an envelop with a letter to a publisher waxing lyrical on your talents? I don’t think so!

I haven’t talked about writing groups here as I was more concerned with you, the writer, building healthy writing habits. The process as I developed it is relevant regardless of whether you write the novel without ever sharing your work in progress with others or alternatively, while participating in a group where your work is read, or at least discussed with other like minded people. The merits or otherwise of such groups will be discussed in another article.

Right now, you’re sitting with a manuscript that you have edited to the best of your ability, using your skills as both reader and writer. But never underestimate the power of your emotional attachment to this work; never underestimate the subconscious powers within your own spirit that might prevent you from honing in on the best and worst aspects of this work of fiction. Don’t imagine that one more read, one more skim over the text will bring to light the weaknesses in the text, or plot or character development. You do not have the detachment necessary to assess this work impartially and that is no slur on your abilities. It is a simple fact. You have put heart and soul and a lot of hours into this work. Following the process as described within this topic, you have come jumped psychological and emotional hurdles to achieve this end, so don’t expect to sanguinely trim it down and perfect it all on your own.

Sit back, relax, and let yourself take one or two mental steps back from your work. Allow yourself to let go. Experience the insecurity, own it, and integrate it, so that you clear the way for ‘going public’ with your work. Just as the voices in your head whispered in your ear that you were not capable of even getting this far, so they will scream at you now to hide this novel in a drawer somewhere, because it’s all rubbish. Use the same techniques now as you employed then to overcome this tidal wave of nerves and prepare to hand this manuscript over. Imagine it being read by someone else and then visualise who that someone else is. Preferably two or three someone elses. Then ask these other people, readers you know have the courage to criticise as well as praise, to read your work, and give you the necessary feedback. Be emphatic about needing ‘negative’ as well as ‘positive’ feedback. Insist that you want to hear it all, because you know this is the only way to trim this story into shape and make it the best it can be.

When I was writing The Cloths of Heaven I was involved in a writing group, and had presented the chapters on a regular basis to my group (a small one consisting of three members, including myself), so grammatically I had done the necessary editing en route. When the first draft was completed, I did my own fine tuning and then asked my group to read the entire manuscript again. But, in order to get an overall view, I asked others to read it too, not writers, just readers, and readers who were prepared to criticise. That way I would receive a well-rounded idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the novel.

Then I busied myself with all those tasks that had piled up, waiting to be done, while my novel was being written. Do anything that takes your mind off the novel for a while, and be patient while your trusted readers do their job.

More on Characterisation

In the article ‘Arms and Legs’ I talked about the importance of getting to know your characters, and there motivations within the plot of the novel. I mentioned the strength of House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III where the importance of impartiality when telling a story. In alternating he gives us descriptions of the two protagonists, as seen through the eyes of the opposite protagonist. This technique gave him the freedom to bring out negative and positive characteristics of the two main characters without having to take sides himself.
In my article on characterisation I was describing the process of getting inside the characters’ head and minds, and deciding what makes each of them tick. But, there is more to characterisation than that.
What about what a character does? How he does it? What are his interests? How does he dress? Does she wear makeup? Watch soap series?
The questions are endless. As are the answers. And for each question, the answer may be different for each character.
It all comes down to the old adage of ‘show don’t tell’, the application of which may be an important element in bringing a novel to life.
Do we want to have a high power character, successful or at least ambitious in business? How would such a character start his day. Probably by showering under his power shower, shaving with a high tech electric shaver and subsequently splashing a well known after shave on his face. He might have slightly long hair, which he ties into a designer ponytail. If he is balding he might just have a millimetre haircut.
He wears a suit or well tailored jeans, a shirt, not necessarily a tie, has an iphone, or at least a Nokia smartphone, and will drink a ready made high vitamin liquid breakfast.
On the way to work in his car he will most likely have his phone in a carset, and be on handsfree.
Incorporating any or all of these elements to describe the way your up and coming entrepreneur ‘does his thing’ and by including, if possible some suitable dialogue, will do a lot more for your writing than telling the reader that he is an ambitious young business man who hopes to make his first million before reaching the age of 25. Let the reader come to this conclusion by just walking your character through his usual routine.
Want the reader to know he is, or at least for now may appear to be, contented, then have him whistle a tune (for example).
In one of my later novels I wanted the reader to know of the ever growing confusion of my main character, an unhappily married woman, mother of two children. So I had her write lists every day, to remind herself to carry out certain tasks. The lists were stuck to her fridge door with magnets. So, this is a woman who is at home, a lot.
I could give endless examples. Try it out, and see how the writing comes to life.
Dialogue is a second tool that will bring a novel to life. Whether a character is intelligent, well-read, thinks things through, can be illustrated by the way he converses with others.
An untrustworthy character, may behave in one way when alone and in another way when with others.
The possibilities are endless.

The Strong Life Test for Women

As you all know by now I am a keen follower of Marcus Buckingham. I took his online workshop, and re-discovered my strengths and talents. Since then, before I take on a new project, or dive off the deep end I ask myself if the project can be undertaken using my strengths. If not, if I think it might involve me laying too much emphasis on aspects that drain me, or do not add to my well being, I will not do it. This is a promise I made to myself after enjoying how it feels to live in your strengths. So, the last test I took (I just love online questionnaires) was the Strong Life Test for Women. And lo and behold, I discovered I was Creative and a Pioneer!!!!
Try for yourself and see.

http://stronglifetest.com/

Let's get personal

Republished

Excavation begins at Forty. It may take a decade before you reap the benefits.

I entered my forties as a single mom of two children in primary school. I entered my forties before Marcus Buckingham had written his life changing books on strengths and weaknesses. I had grown up in a society where, as he so aptly explains, parents are geared to honing in on the lesser grades on a child’s report card, in order to encourage the child to work hard at these to bring them up to scratch. It was a society where strengths were taken for granted, even ignored. Natural talents, because they came naturally, faded to the background while parents and teachers patted themselves on the back every time a child managed, however unhappily or stressfully, to transform a four on a report card into a five.
But not only was this how society was when I was growing up. It was even more so within the family where I grew up. My father believed wholeheartedly in gearing yourself to be good in areas that would insure you had a decent career later. You can be good at almost anything, if you put your mind to it, was his motto, and in my case he was, to some extent, right. I had a natural aptitude for learning in general, and was capable of gaining reasonable grades for most subjects. Not that I was happy all the time. By the time I had reached my final years at secondary school, and having changed had to change my particular combination of subjects several times, as we moved from place to place to accommodate my father’s career (also a normal course of events back then), motivating myself to study at all was an enormous chore. At eleven, when I entered grammar school, I still had subjects like Music and Art and Cooking on my syllabus, as well as English and French and Maths. I played piano, violin and sang in the school choir. At fifteen and three schools later, I was unenthusiastically taking Latin and Gaelic to mention but a couple of subjects that I loathed.
From there to university to study Commerce (business studies). Without going into too much detail, let’s say I scraped together enough points to graduate, but with no idea what I was supposed to do next.
And for the next almost twenty years I see-sawed between working, motherhood and a writing career that though spiritually fulfilling did not exactly put food on the table. Well, it didn’t matter anyway, seeing as I was married to a high achiever, who didn’t seem all too bothered about my seeming lack of success.
But on the eve of my fortieth birthday the excavation was kick-started into gear when my marriage failed and reality hit. Here I was, a highly educated, intelligent woman, who, despite her college degree, had no idea how to merge all her skills and find a job that was worthy of her education but one that would allow her creativity and thirst for knowledge to shine through. And remember, I was brought up to believe that achievement was all down to willpower, not to natural aptitude. My willpower which is both a blessing and a curse, led me to dust the cobwebs off my business degree and get myself back out there seriously, to earn a living. Of course, with that in mind, I didn’t even consider my creative side. Not for a moment did I think I ought to integrate it into my working life. Somehow, what I did at the work place and what I did because I enjoyed it and because it gave me a sense of completeness, were two totally separate issues.
So, out came the business graduate, albeit one with far too little experience for her years. And so began a decade of catching up, and frustration, and at times a sense of despair that I was slowly losing myself. I was good at what I did, of course. But I could be good at so many tasks, and the actual learning curve was exciting, but short lived. I felt a very brief sense of achievement that I had mastered some task or other, but continuing to carry out that task, day after day, week after week, was soul destroying. Several of these peaks and valleys later, it became clear to me that switching companies was not the solution, since it would probably be a case of ‘same old same old’ and so I opted to stay where I was and convince myself that the pay-check and the stability I offered my children was enough.
I read book after book on spirituality and self realisation but somehow did not know how to apply it to myself. I spun round and round in ever decreasing circles, feeling more and more tired at work and becoming increasingly desperate to fulfil myself in the few hours between coming home and going to bed. Writing in such a fatigued state became almost impossible, so I took up painting which at least kept me sane.
Until at forty five the opportunity to start merging my two separate selves started to present itself. Slowly but surely I distanced myself from the financial, analytical side of business and started to use my creative talents too. My natural aptitude for texts and languages was put to use as my employer expanded world wide and needed a more international profile; my eye for design was utilised for a more modern website and both of these were exactly what was needed to become the company DTPer, web localiser and magazine editor.
Yet it would take another couple of years before I took these talents seriously. In fact, when I thought about taking them seriously, the cold hand of fear gripped me, probably because it would entail me going against how I had been raised.
It would take a downsizing of the company and my imminent redundancy for me to take the plunge and start my own business. Not as someone with expertise in finance, but as a creative DTPer and translator. My business skills and intelligence are not wasted, since they will help me structure the business effectively, but they are not the core of what I do. The activities at the centre of my company and the services on offer, are my love of language and the pleasure I get from giving new and existing companies, however small, the support they need in presenting themselves to an international market. I realise that effective communication is my strength and being able to share my own experiences to give someone else a leg up is who I am.
It only took me fifty years to get there. I got there with the help of Marcus Buckingham, Huub van Zwieten, and other motivation gurus. But there had been many other signs and oracles earlier in my excavation process that encompassed the entire decade of my forties; it just took me that long to listen and to shake off the deeply embedded preconceptions that I had internalised as a child and teenager. What was right for my father and his post war generation, is luckily being re-examined and revised for today’s society. We have made a shift in perspective, and we are at a much higher level on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It isn’t just about adequate survival in the jungle, it is about self realisation and, dare I say it, spiritual fulfilment too.
I take comfort from the fact that I am obviously not the only one to be confronted in this way. If I were, then there would be no need for these books and revelations. And, to conclude, better late than never.