Brushed by the Wand of Success

Any writer who has deposited a check signed by the treasurer of a publication has, at least for that point in time, been brushed by the wand of success. To me, success is relative. It’s that special feeling I get at a particular moment when I feel I’ve made it.

In the beginning, it was all about getting published. Once I did that, I sat back on my newly-found success and waited for the assignments to roll in. I waited and waited and waited. In fact, I ended up waiting for nearly six years. And in all that time, I didn’t publish another piece.

Success is a funny thing. It does things to me, as I’m sure it does to you. I feel a not only a sense of accomplishment but one of euphoria. When I saw my first article in print in a national magazine, Popular Mechanics, I couldn’t believe it. The article looked great. And there was my name in print, as bold as it could be, letting everyone know that I was the writer.

Notice I didn’t say “author.” I reserve that title for those celebrity writers, like Stephen King, Ann Rice, and Norman Mailer, among others, who appear regularly as guests on talk shows like “Charlie Rose” and late-night shows like “Letterman.” I’m just a writer who works hard, the kind that makes up the backbone of the freelance writing industry.

After my initial bout with success, I realized I hadn’t handled it very well. While I managed to get something published, what good did it do me. I had my 15-seconds of fame. What I failed to do was build on that success which stopped me dead in my tracks. What actually happened was what I call a “happy accident”—a good thing that just happens but the chance of repeating it is slim. Some writers go through their whole carriers having happy accidents. I soon learned that I had to take control of my success or I won’t have any others.

I had written an article on building a modern “chuck wagon” box for my hatchback so that could travel across country camping while still eating home-cooked meals. The idea was a practical one, so the magazine's editor thought his readers would benefit from it. However, the subject was far from what I wanted to publish—travel articles about exotic places. It was only remotely related to travel, and the writing wasn’t anything like what I wanted it to be. In essence, this became a dead end piece, an article that couldn’t really help me get anywhere. That’s why I didn’t move on in publishing for six years.

The next big success for me was my first book, a book for teens on solar energy. I learned a lot from that book, but it, again, wasn’t in my field of expertise, just a field of interest. Because it wasn’t about travel or by this time history, but science, I didn’t get anywhere with that project, either. I couldn’t promote the book to publications because it wasn’t what I was writing regularly.

After that bit of success, I began to pay attention more to what I was writing. I focused on several different subject areas and made a point of not writing in others that wouldn’t advance my career.

My next book, called Amish Country, was a big success, and showcased my travel writing skills. The Amish live less than an hour from me, so it was easy to write about them. My future articles and books all moved my career forward, and successes became more frequent. Soon my successes outweighed my failures, and at that point I considered myself a professional freelance writer.

What Does It Mean to Have Cave Smarts?

Neanderthal man survived for a very long time because he had “cave smarts.” To survive as a freelance writer, you also have to develop cave smarts but of a different kind. While the Neanderthals learned to hunt by trial and error, you must know your strengths and weaknesses and use them accordingly.

Most writers are industrious, sometimes intuitive,  at times a bit impulsive and perhaps compulsive, and observant. What drives most writers is inspiration. The difference between writers and wannabee writers is how they handle it.  A wannabee writer believes that he or she has to be inspired to write anything while a professional writer uses inspiration to get ideas that he or she further develops into articles, stories, and books—all the while keeping an eye on their target market.

If you don’t have a reader in mind when inspiration strikes, you might as well not write anything. Writing for yourself won’t get you anywhere professionally. You have to write for a specific audience. This audience may change from publication to publication or from book to book, but it’s there, nevertheless. Knowing who that audience is ahead of time will enable you to use those inspired ideas to their best advantage. And that’s where being industrious comes in. It takes a lot of hard work to develop an idea to its full potential—perhaps hours of research, followed by an equal amount of time actually writing.

And men, don’t let the women convince you that only they have “intuition.” If an idea seems right, then it probably is. Follow your intuition once in a while. You may have a “gut” feeling about a topic. Follow it through. It may turn out to be the best piece you ever wrote or a runaway bestseller.

While it isn’t in your best interest to act impulsively, once in a while you may have to decide then and there—providing the light bulb goes on in your head—that you’re going to start working on an idea. This often will give you a jump on the competition. And in today’s super fast media world, that may not be such a bad thing.

Avoid acting compulsively. Don’t worry about sharpening your pencils or making sure your desk is compulsively neat. Sure, you’ll have to put on your janitorial hat occasionally, but don’t make it come before getting your writing done. Don’t use cleaning, filing, or sorting as an excuse not to write. As a professional writer, you should be able to write any where at any time.

Many believe that successful writers don’t clip, file, retrieve information. Only a handful of writers work at an empty desk with only a computer and a monitor. If you don’t accumulate lots of files on the work your doing, then you probably aren’t doing enough research. You may use clips of articles to help develop a current project, or you may let them age to help trigger ideas in the future. More important than talent or luck, is the knack for using clips and files to research and develop topics to write about. Contrary to popular opinion, professional writers don’t write off the top of their heads. Even writing a blog takes some thought and preparation.

Writers overdevelop their sense of observation the way a blind person overdevelop their sense of smell or hearing. You need to be alert at all times, even when you’re not actually working. Ideas are everywhere and if you’re not keenly observant, you’ll miss them and perhaps some great opportunities.