Motivation for Writing?

By Jim Moore

Those of us who write, either for income or pleasure, are constantly asked about where we get our motivation or discipline. Writing, of course, is a discipline that requires an output of product on a regular basis to achieve a final vision. William Styron was quoted more than a few times claiming that he wrote only a paragraph a day because it was the only technique he knew for perfecting his work. This explains, perhaps, why it took him ten years to complete The Confessions of Nat Turner.

My favorite story about motivation for writing comes from a little cafeteria at the foot of the Franklin Mountains in the desert of West Texas. Cormac McCarthy (who should need no introduction to this group) moved to El Paso from Tennessee to concentrate his work on the American West. In the UK, he was already widely known as a man of great talent for his books like Blood Meridian, Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, and others but in the U.S. his work sold only to a core group of readers who appreciated his ornate prose and vivid descriptions. Then, however, he won the National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses.

Famous for being reclusive, McCarthy never spoke with journalists. The fact that he was finally ascendant in his native country, however, prompted an editor of a London newspaper to dispatch a reporter to Texas to seek an interview and do a profile of the author. I’d had a slightly less ambitious goal for many years as a fan of his books. Blood Meridian had changed my romantic view of U.S. western history and I devoured every word McCarthy had ever committed to narrative. As a TV news correspondent, I was frequently assigned to do reports in El Paso and had heard McCarthy hung out at a particular pool hall at the end of his writing day and always took his lunch alone at the Luby’s Cafeteria on Mesa Avenue. As hard as it was for me to see him sitting at a table for one eating square fish or the LuAnn Platter, I still stuck my head into Luby’s whenever I got a chance hoping to see the great man in physical form. I never did and I considered that chasing him down at his neighborhood pool hall was a bit too much of an invasion.

The British reporter, who apparently hung out at Luby’s long enough to see McCarthy, is said to have walked up to the author’s table to request an interview. Although the reporter was polite and sought forgiveness for the interruption, McCarthy was non-responsive. The reporter, as reporters will, persisted until McCarthy told him, “I don’t do interviews.” Undaunted, the reporter explained how he had traveled across an ocean and spent thousands of dollars to try to find McCarthy and that his editor was pressuring him to deliver. The author was unmoved and did not speak. Hell, I can see him there scooping up his peas and moving forkfuls of his square fish into the pile of tartar on his plate, acting as if the reporter were not even alive, much less standing next to his table.

The reporter was silent until he came up with a new idea. Perhaps, he assumed, McCarthy would at least offer some advice on the topic of writing. According to the story I was told by a friend of McCarthy’s, the reporter begged for words of wisdom on the craft.

“Mr. McCarthy,” he pleaded, “can’t you at least just give me some advice on writing? People would love to hear anything you have to say about it.”

McCarthy was silent but had made a decision to speak, though he didn’t put down his fork or stop eating. His insight, though, ought to be hanging over the desk of every wannabe author or columnist.

“As far as writing goes,” McCarthy said without looking up, “If you don’t have to write, then don’t.”

Nobody has ever said anything more illuminating about writing. You know if you have to write. If you don’t, go find something to do that is more lucrative, and that’s a pretty long list of endeavors.

And now, if I may be so bold, I’d like to offer Mr. McCarthy some advice. You, sir, are horrible in interviews. You were right not to answer questions about your art. Don’t do it ever again.

And for god’s sake, stay off of Oprah.

The First Trap a Speaker Must Avoid

by Bill Dunne

NOTE: This is the first in a series of featured posts from Gotham team members and friends offering tips and thoughts on the craft of writing. We hope you will find them enlightening and useful.

Bet you thought Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address.

Of course, Lincoln did speak at the great Civil War battleground. But it was someone else entirely, a certain Edward Everett, who gave the formal “oration”, that is, the principal address. Lincoln’s role, which the event organizers had conceived almost as an afterthought, was simply to follow Everett with a few “dedicatory remarks”.

The selection of Everett to give the main address made sense. He was an ordained minister, so who better to memorialize the dead. He was also a past president of Harvard. But of at least equal importance for that somber day in 1863, Everett was regarded as one of the nation’s great orators.

So why doesn’t Everett’s Gettysburg Address ring through the ages? Could it be because the speech dragged on for two hours?

Here’s the point: The first step in preparing a successful speech should not involve putting pen to paper or thinking great thoughts. The first step should be to bring the allotted speaking time within bounds, to avoid death by droning.

Too often that is not what happens. Consider the typical run-up to many speaking events for business executives:

Weeks or months before the speech date, the CEO is in a routine staff meeting. Several matters are discussed before the subject of the upcoming speech is raised. Finally the speaking engagement comes up and gets kicked around, and at some point the CEO asks, “By the way, how long do they want me to talk?”

“An hour”, someone replies, looking at some notes. “Sixty minutes.”

Bad answer. What the staffer should have said was: “They want an hour but we’ll get them down to a more reasonable time.” The reason that should be the answer is because many, if not most, speaking opportunities for executives actually do come attached to time slots of one hour. Or, what’s not much better, 45 minutes.

What are the planners of these speaking events thinking?

They’re thinking they have a job to do, and “they”, typically, are the venue producer and staff — the venue being, say, an industry conference or trade show. Their job is to plan, develop, and stage an attractive, varied, and complex program of meetings and presentations, each tailored to the interests of certain audiences. The void of time that must be filled is formidable — two days, three days, or more. So the venue planner is thinking, “If I can fill out the program in nice big round blocks of time, that’s good”.

Signing up

Then there’s the other side of the equation. That’s you, the would-be speaker, or your communications staff. Along comes a message informing you of a speaking opportunity, a great chance to tell your organization’s story. Quickly you sign up before the slot goes to a competitor.

Okay, so you’ve hastily made your bed. But does that mean you really have to sleep in it? This is where a little negotiating can go a long way. And most times, you do have leverage.

Beware, though. The CEO can sometimes be his or her own worst enemy. He’s tough and indefatigable. You’ve seen him slog through grueling talk-fests before, and he comes through fine. You know if you express concern over a 60-minute script he might say, perhaps with a touch of bravado, “I can do that.”

What then? Should you push it? Damn right. The last thing a speech should be is a speaker’s personal test of stamina. The only important factor is the audience. Rub them the wrong way and you might as well not have bothered.

The central problem is this: a large span of time practically forces the speaker into talking about everything. And when you try to say too many things, the main point, if there is one, is lost. Voltaire put it this way: “The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.”

Rule of thumb

In the matter of that classic speech occasion — the Sunday sermon — one senior prelate of a major Protestant denomination had a simple instruction for every new class of seminarians. “If you don’t strike oil in twenty minutes,” he said, “stop boring.” In the same vein, Mark Twain said that “no sinner was ever saved after the first 20 minutes of a sermon”.

Twain, the nation’s best-paid public speaker in an age of prized oratory, knew what he was talking about. That said, the 20-minute rule of thumb is only a rule of thumb. Different venues and different circumstances must have their due. Audiences differ. Topics differ. Goals differ. Twain himself routinely spoke for an hour or more. But then he was a practiced entertainer and well able to pull it off. For most executive presentations, the 20-minute limit is about right. It means the speaker doesn’t exhaust himself (or herself) talking, and the audience members aren’t tuning him out long before he’s done.

Two sheets

Now back to Gettysburg. Lincoln’s assigned role, as we said, was to follow Everett with a few “dedicatory remarks”. That he did. He pulled two sheets of paper from his pocket and read off 272 words. Next day, Edward Everett wrote the following to Lincoln: "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

So let’s say you’ve persuaded the CEO that he probably doesn’t want to go longer than 20 minutes. Now what? Well, now you have a heart-to-heart talk with the venue managers.

Be bold. You’re in a position of strength. The last thing a venue manager wants to do is rustle up another speaker after he’s had one in hand. If he seems to recoil from the notion of “only” 20 minutes, it usually works to offer a post-speech Q&A, bringing the presentation to, say, a more ample-sounding 30 minutes. Once in that neighborhood, event organizers are usually glad to adjust.

And you — freed from clock slavery — can now concentrate on the real goal: a winning speech.

© Copyright 2008 by Bill Dunne

GG Featured in Business Week

Our firm received a nice plug in a story in the May 22 edition of Business Week that looks at the growing appeal of “Anti-Wall Street” jobs to this year’s college graduates.

Some employers are adjusting to meet the expectations of the new workforce. Dan Gerstein, founder and CEO of Gotham Ghostwriters, a New York speechwriting company, hopes to attract the next generation of talent by offering flexible hours and the opportunity to work freelance. According to Gerstein, a speechwriter working for a prominent client can make upward of $10,000 per speech, and he predicts that good writing, and especially good blogging, will be increasingly in demand.

"I had three people call me last week and ask me to find someone who can do blog writing," Gerstein says. "With older people who didn't grow up with blogs, there's a certain kind of [Web] illiteracy. A lot of companies and even PR firms don't have people on staff that can do this."

You can find the full story here.

The WORD Is Out. . .

Introducing Gotham Ghostwriters
New York's Only World-Class, Full-Service Writing Firm

Gotham Ghostwriters was formed to fill a significant void in the communications marketplace. New York is the media and idea capital of the world, jam-packed with global players and high-end PR firms. But there is no one reliable place to turn to for world-class, sophisticated writing — the kind of craft that stirs conversations and seals deals.

To meet this need, we have assembled a diverse and distinguished team of more than a dozen top professional writers. They come with extensive experience in private industry and public life: Our writers have worked for Fortune 100 CEOs, U.S. presidents, and global foundations; they have written on just about every market and issue in the public eye; and they have mastered practically every format in use today.

Our focus will be on serving clients in New York and across the country who work in the thought leadership arena — major corporations, foundations, advocacy groups, and campaigns that aspire to stand out and spur change. That is to say, clients who are seeking to go beyond the worn clichés and pat answers to shape public debates, change public opinion, and ultimately give their brands the distinctive richness and crispness of a trendsetter.

We will specialize in longer form writing — speeches, books, white papers, corporate reports, congressional testimony — as well as handling op-eds and the occasional doctoring project. But what we will really be offering are winning arguments and defining moments. Give us your core mission and message, and we will help you translate them into influence and prestige.

That is what we at Gotham Ghostwriters excel at — not simply putting words in a speaker's mouth, but planting ideas in a listener's mind.

If you think we can be helpful to your company or cause, please don't hesitate to contact us via phone or email (see below). And if you know others who might be interested in our services, please share our website address with them.

The word is out — and we're ready to write.

Gotham Ghostwriters
641 Sixth Avenue, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10011
212-871-8244 (O)
212-871-8101 (F)
info@GothamGhostwriters.com