I'm already hooked on the Olympics -- even planning a special Olympic picnic to get us through the Opening Ceremonies. So while I'm cooking and staying glued to the TV for a couple of days, I'm borrowing parts of a related column from my friend Joanna Penn. (Needless to say I'm jealous that she's actually in London!) Half of this column will come today and the other half tomorrow: The Olympics have started and London is in party mode! The
city has been spruced up and now the hordes have arrived. I never
enjoyed mass sporting events until I attended the Sydney Olympics when
the penny finally dropped. It was a glorious, patriotic time and now I’m
a fan of these brilliant events. So I’ll be soaking up the Olympic vibe
as the city goes nuts. But even if you’re not into sport, there’s still a lot writers can learn from the Olympics. The opening ceremony has become a must-watch event showcasing the
national pride of the host nation, as well as the march of the
competitors around the main arena and the lighting of the Olympic
flame. London’s event is managed by Danny Boyle, famous for directing
Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting, among other movies. It promises
to be a grand spectacular. Our books need to open in the same way.
Not necessarily with a massive event, but with something that the
reader wants to be part of, that drives them to buy the book and stay
with us through the opening chapters. If a reader stays with us through
the length of an ebook sample, they are likely to buy the book. Athletes don’t just wake up one day and compete in the Olympics. Many
of them will have been training for this since they were children. This
is not a hobby, this is a lifelong passion. It’s years of practice in
the cold, frosty mornings or the muggy heat of the afternoons, when your
friends are still in bed or in the bar. It’s practice over and over
again until the body knows the moves and then you push it just a little
further. I was at Thrillerfest a few weeks ago,
and I was struck by how many years the big name authors have been
working to achieve the success they now have. Many of them wrote for
years before they ‘made it’, and before that, they worked for years to
get noticed. Practice over many years will take us all that far. I recently read an article about the professional habits of Michael Phelps,
the US swimmer who takes gold repeatedly, and no doubt will continue to
do so. His habits and discipline 7 days a week give him an edge over
other competitors. I also wrote recently of how Steven Pressfield’s book ‘Turning Pro’ challenged me
with my own writing habits. Being an author is about mastery of the
craft but it’s also about writing the words and getting them out there –
that means we have to put in the time and the hard work. How
professional are your writing habits at the moment? How committed are
you? Professional athletes don’t work on their own, even if the sport is
based on individual performance. There are coaches, team-mates, fans,
support crew. Without this team, the athlete cannot compete. In the same way, writing is (generally) an individual pursuit but we also need a team behind us to succeed. As independent authors,
we need pro editors and cover designers, potentially help with
formatting and we certainly need our distributors and the marketing
platforms we use to spread the word. Traditionally published authors
have an agent, editors and the whole team at the publisher. We all need
the support of other writers, friends and family. I love to read the
dedication and acknowledgements in books, because it honors the support
of the team behind the writer. Not everyone can win gold, even on the same team and so there will
always be rivalry. It’s hard not to look at other people’s success and
want it for yourself. Some people will even attack the winners and
savage their success. Writers see this happen on Amazon with some awful
reviews that often turn out to be from other writers. We need to accept that there will always be some comparison, some
measuring. But then we need to celebrate each others success and use it
to spur our own efforts towards excellence. There now. If, like me, you're taking a couple of days off to enjoy the London party, you at least have an excuse. You're taking lessons from the athletes! |
