The cup of coffee steams on my desk. My new office has hardwood floors and magnificent views of the mountains, which are bathed in the morning sunshine. But I’m darkly staring at my computer. It’s Monday morning, and I’m already chewing on my lip.

My to do list for the week involves four different clients, two doctor’s visits, teaching, and at least two hour-long meetings. And I overslept, so I’m behind.

Forget it, I tell myself, There’s just no way to work on the novel today. There’s no time. But two hours later, I close my computer on another few thousand words of new fiction.

Why Your Writing Isn’t Sacred or Special

Many aspiring artists and writers view their creativity through a lens of sacredness or specialness or inspiration. As in, “This is my sacred craft,” or, “I’m an important person, a special person, and I have something important to share with the world,” or, “I need to cultivate my inspiration.”

This is the kind of self-important chatter that will leave you with writer’s block so thick it feels like a 2-ton rock sitting on your chest.

Don’t get me wrong. Your writing may be sacred to you. You may have something important to share with the world. Good for you if that’s the case. And who doesn’t want to write when they’re inspired?

These ideas, however, will put pressure on you and to make your creation process about as pleasant as doing your own dental work (and about as effective).

Tip #1: Dig Ditches, Don’t Create Works of Genius

Do you think that your average trucker has good weeks and bad weeks — that affect his ability to drive and do his job? Or does he climb into that rig, regardless of how he might feel about his job on that particular day? Think he gets trucker’s block, and just can’t seem to move that semi down the highway no matter how hard he tries?

Nope. Blue-collar jobs don’t work like that. He gets the job done, and how he feels about it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a job, something that he has to do.

Your creativity is exactly the same way.

Writing a book is like digging a ditch. Your creativity is really just sticking your shovel in the ground. Hit a rock? Dig around it. Shovel break? Get another one. Need some buddies to help you? Get help. Plod along.

If you set out to “write a book” you will be immediately screwed. Every time I’ve tried to work this way, I get caught inside a lofty idea, and then every day of mostly mediocre writing is a disappointment of unmet expectations. I start to beat myself up, and pretty soon the book grinds to a halt.

The reason? I have no idea how to write a book. I bet you don’t either. But I do know how to dig ditches. And when I treat my writing like that, books get made.

Tip#2: Don’t Believe (Your Own) Hype

You may consider yourself a goddess or someone very special, but if you write under that expectation, you’ll soon end up eating some well-deserved humble pie. 

One of the most prolific writers of our time, Stephen King, has two interesting things to say on writing. (King, for the record, is a finalist for the Person of the Year 2014 for Time Magazine.)

King: “I’m the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.” This is a truly blue-collar attitude from an author worth hundreds of millions of dollars. How many of us would be willing to be so humble in our own work?

His other quote I love: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

In other words, dig ditches, don’t write books. No matter how you feel, what you’re thinking, what you’d rather be doing, or anything else, sit down and write, everyday. If you can’t write, sit and literally stare at your computer screen for two hours, trusting that whatever nonsense is going on in your brain will work itself out, and that tomorrow will be better.

Tip #3: Forget About Talent 

There are a handful of scary talented artists out there, to be sure. These are the men and women who inspire us not only with the power of their vision, but the beauty with which they capture it.

But most successful artists and writers — the overwhelming majority — aren’t any more or less talented than anyone else. What they are, instead, is in touch with their motivation. After all, what good is creativity, talent, and vision if you can’t sit still for a couple hours a day, and slug through the mess?

Tip #4: Understand the Real Reward of Your Work 

Your work should be rewarding and not just work. But the reward isn’t the thing, the goal, not the book or the painting or the exhibition. To be successful and prolific, it’s the process that must become rewarding.

Once you start to enjoy digging ditches, anything is possible. You’ve started to love the process, not the goal, and now you’re free to create whatever you want. Nothing and no one can stop you, except you.

Tip #5: Uncover Your Deeper Motivation

How have I managed to get three books published, and to be knee-deep into my fourth?

The expectation is for me to say something like: I’m disciplined. Or I’m driven. Or that I view my work as sacred. People seem to suspect that I’m talented, or creative, or just plain lucky. The truth is it’s none of those things. What I am is motivated.

Ask yourself this: What are the deeper values driving my desire to write this book? What is really driving me?

I can tell you with 100% certainty it’s not about getting your message ‘out there’. It’s not about ‘following your genius’, or creating a platform for something bigger. It’s not about your creativity or your helping others. It’s not about building your business, getting on Good Morning America, making art, or making money. Nope. It’s not really about any of those things.

It’s much, much deeper. And much more powerful. When you know what it is, you won’t ever struggle for motivation again.

Tip #6: Get Help if You Need It

You don’t have to struggle through this on your own. Sometimes, an outside view can help to get you in touch with your deeper motivation — and hold you accountable until you find your own groove.

I help my clients connect to their goals in a deeper and more inspirational way, so that they get clear on what they want, how they’ll know when they get it, and how to get around all the crap that gets in the way. Learn more about how I might help you.

And in the meantime, get digging!

The post Treat Your Creativity Like a Blue-Collar Job appeared first on Keith Martin-Smith.

There is a lot of talk these days about self-publication, traditional publishing, the fate of bookstores, and digital versus books. We’ll take a detailed look at the industry, so you can make the best decision for your book.

Summary:

• Traditional publishing has some very serious drawbacks writers need to understand
• Self-publishing has different strengths than traditional publishing, but a whole set of its own drawbacks
• Print books still outsell ebooks 4 to 1 as bookstore are making a comeback (and why that’s important)
• What to should consider when determining if you should self-publish or traditional publish

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Many writers, from the famous Seth Godin to writers such as James Altucher and Hugh Howey, have written or spoken about how obsolete and doomed traditional publishing is. Traditional publishing still has some big advantages, but self-publishing companies and self-published authors are making the case that traditional publishing is nearly as obsolete as those compact discs gathering dust in your closet.

These critics of traditional publication make some great points.  Let’s take a high-level look at some of the most damning observations of traditional publishing.

Traditional Publishing Drawbacks

• It’s slow: It takes somewhere between 9-18 months for a book to be released once it is submitted to a publisher, an infinity in the digital world.
• It’s unfair: Publishers take the lion’s share of royalties, usually 85-92%.  That means most authors earn about a buck per book, or less.  Publishers hog roughly 70% of electronic royalties, for a product that has almost no production or distribution costs.
• It’s outdated: They are not social-media savvy; they may have powerful inroads to traditional media, like TV and print magazines, but those things are increasingly irrelevant to book sales.
• It’s ineffective: They do not give most authors a very big marketing push, or sometimes any marketing push at all.
• It’s short-lived: Most authors’ books will be in bookstores for a few weeks and then get pulled from the shelves when they don’t sell very well, leaving it entirely up to Amazon sales.  This begs the question: why not just use Amazon?
• It’s not cost-effective: The vast majority of authors don’t make any real bankable money on their books.

Traditional Publishing Strengths 

Traditional publishing does offer far greater prestige, sizable advances to even beginning authors (if you have a good book proposal), seasoned editors who can offer incredibly valuable creative and practical feedback, the ability to more easily sell things like international and subsidiary rights to your book, and professional, in-house designers to create great book covers.  While few publishers will do all your marketing for you, good ones will actively support your marketing efforts.

But is traditional print publishing really dying a slow death?  Let’s take a closer look.

Print Books Are Doomed! (Or Are They?)

There is an assumption: everything is moving quickly towards digital, which plays against traditional publishing’s strengths and into their weaknesses. After all, one of traditional publishing’s biggest strengths is getting physical books into physical bookstores, in front of the eyes of physical buyers. Without this, they are taking another step to being like record stores without records, and we all know how that went.

But the death of print isn’t happening as predicted.

The Pew Research Center survey released data in December of 2012. The report showed that the percentage of adults who have read an e-book rose modestly over the past year, from 16% to 23%. But it also revealed that fully 89% of regular book readers said that they had read at least one printed book during the preceding 12 months. [1]

Bottom line: As of late 2012, electronic books had 22% of the total market, not exactly the domination and ass-whipping that had been predicated.  That means almost 4 out of every 5 books sold is still a print book. [2]

But Book Stores Are Still Doomed, Right? 

Bookstores had a rough time in the first decade of the 2000’s.   About a thousand small and independent stores closed their doors, Borders Books went out of business, and the media reported often on the dire state of the industry.

But something strange is happening.  Bookstores are growing again.

According to the American Booksellers Association, since 2009 the number of bookstores has gone up (very modestly mind you), from 1,404 to 1,567.  Independent bookstores currently sell 10% of the books, with Barnes and Nobel selling 20%, and Amazon 29% (the remaining 40% of sales are spread thinly through another 10 or so mediums, from Wallmart to resales outlets to audio books).  The independent booksellers holding their 10% of the market are finding novel ways of staying relevant to their communities.  [3]

Bottom line: It seems a safe bet that the book industry is not going to be the music industry, Part 2.

Self-Publishing Strengths

Self-publishing seems like it offers everything a writer could want. Print-on-demand. Design services. Fast turn-around. Copyediting services. Minimal financial risk. High rates of return per-sale (from 50-85%, as opposed to 8-15% in traditional publishing). The ability to write the book a writer wants to write. No risk of rejection, even for bad ideas and poorly written books.

These are all true. And some writers, such as Jan Strnad, Rachel Schurig, EL James, have made lots and lots (and lots) of money self-publishing. But it isn’t all sun and sunshine, either.

Self-Publishing Drawbacks 

• While writers make most of the money, they also have to do all of the marketing themselves and take 100% of the financial risk. If you don’t have a large mailing list and a marketing plan, you will not sell books.  Period.
• Editors are offered for hire, but they seldom have the breadth of experience traditional publishers’ editors have.  Most importantly, they won’t tell you “this book stinks and won’t make a dime, and here’s why.”
• It is much harder to get books into small and independent bookstores (10% of the market), into huge book fairs like Book Expo and London Book Fair, and to sell the subsidiary and other rights for additional income.
• 50% of self-published authors make less than $500 on their book.
• 10% of self-published authors earn 75% of the money in that field, which means while the average for a self-published author is $10,000 a year, that statistic is hugely skewed by the top earners.
• Anyone can self-publish, which means that self-publication gets clogged with vanity projects and books so poorly written they drag the reputation of everyone else down with them.  While traditional publishers also publish a lot of garbage, self-publishers are positively awash in it.
• Most successful self-published authors will sign contracts with traditional publishers because the income potential is far greater. [4]

Should I Self-Publish? 

So what is a writer to do?  How does one determine if they should pursue self-publishing or traditional publishing?

You have a book, or want to write one.  Great.  That’s the easy part.  The hard part is selling it in this golden age of television, Netflix, Facebook, and Smartphones.  The world is busier and faster than ever before, and we are all very, very distracted.  A great book by a great author is no longer enough to capture and hold the attention of our culture.

All writers should create a book proposal for their book.  Why?  Because no publisher is going to swoop in and hand you a marketing plan and a best-seller, even if you get picked up by a big publisher.  Likewise, you’re not going to make 6-figures off of your self-published book without a marketing plan.  If you doubt that, I’m taking bets. Seriously.

Publishers can be a huge asset and partner on the path. Mine have been. They can also be a rip-off and do nothing for your book. I’ve experienced that kind of publisher as well. Self-publishers often position themselves to be the same as traditional publishers (only better!), but usually they won’t deliver anything you don’t pay them to do. And even then, most have a very limited reach. (A great cautionary tale about vanity and self-publishing can be found on Salon.)

How to Decide 

It is up to you to take responsibility for your career and your book. Self-publishing a good book, and then hoping it will sell will not work. Getting a traditional publishing contact and then hoping the publisher will do all the marketing isn’t going to work.  You must know your target audience, identify similar books and writers, and fine-tune your marketing plan. You.

After you write your book proposal, ask these questions:

•  What kind of a deal you do you want from a publisher? (hint: if you don’t know, you won’t get a good deal)
•  What are they willing to do to promote your book, and you?
•  What are they willing to offer in writing?
•  What kinds of media interest and attention can they secure, if any?

And then ask yourself those exact same questions. If they’re not willing to do very much at all, you probably are better off self-publishing. If you’re not willing to do those things either, you might as well save your wallet and your ego a drubbing, and not self-publish.

No matter which path you choose, your book will need a marketing plan and a way to get your message out there. Your book’s success will, 99 out of 100 times, hinge on your willingness to keep promoting it, through blogs, Facebook, interviews, and creative offerings.

Writing your book is the first step to getting it out in the world. It’s also the easiest part of the journey.

The good news is that you are not bound to take one path or the other. Many writers, myself included, have both self-published and published traditionally. So long as you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and go to work on behalf of your book, you just might find yourself with some success on either path.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323874204578219563353697002.html

[2] http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/54609-e-books-market-share-at-22-amazon-has-27.html

[3]  http://www.mhpbooks.com/independent-bookstores-doing-better-than-ever-in-2012/

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/0317/The-novel-resurgence-of-independent-bookstores

[4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/24/self-published-author-earnings

The post Self Publishing Versus Traditional Publishing appeared first on Keith Martin-Smith.

I’ve made a career as an author and freelance writer, but have struggled under a burden that has interfered with both of these things.  This burden came into sharp focus in the last few weeks.

Since my mid-twenties, I’ve worked as a  freelance copywriter, including some notable stints with some of the biggest and most creative ad agencies in the country. The work is creatively rewarding, profitable, and something that I have been able to do almost effortlessly. This work continues to be my main source of income.

At the same time, I’ve been writing fiction and creative non-fiction, and had my first collection of short stories published in 2009 after a long and arduous path to publication. Of course, once you get published it’s easy to get published again, an irony that has allowed me to get two more books into print (the award-winning A Heart Blown Open, and the forthcoming The Heart of Zen).

Being published isn’t very profitable for most of us published authors. The amount of money I make off my two published works is enough to take a modest vacation once a year (one I drive to, not fly). It is nowhere near enough to live on.

How I Financed the Last 4 Books

I wrote my first book over about a decade, working in the odd corners of afternoons and evenings. For A Heart Blown Open, I sold my house to allow me the freedom dedicate myself solely to that book. For The Heart of Zen, I raised $15K in private investor money to allow me to take the time to write. And for Only Everything, my latest book, I raised $30K in a Kickstarter campaign to allow a full-time dive into the book.

So why aren’t these all great things? They are, to a point.

The Dilemma

I was always either doing freelance OR writing creatively. Either/or. This meant that after a long stretch of creative writing, it would take a great deal of time and effort to get my freelance business up and running again, since it relies largely on word-of-mouth and networking. My bank account would often dip into the triple digits, sometimes lower, before I could get steady freelance coming in again.

As the money from the Kickstarter campaign has been winding down, I was feeling the familiar burn: I was about to run out of the money to write creatively full-time, and so I would now have to work on my fiction OR my freelance.

I’ve been around this circle many times, and was ready to step out of it altogether.

The Solution: The 90-Day Writing Challenge

I realized that I needed to think more in a both/and manner, instead of either/or. To include and honor my freelance writing, which I genuinely love and enjoy, AND my love of working on my own creative work. But how?

I came up with a 90-day Writing Challenge for myself. It’s simple, really: everyday, before I do anything else, I work on Only Everything for the first two hours of my day. This means getting up earlier than I prefer (not much of a morning person), but that’s the sacrifice. After I do my creative writing, I’m free to do the loads of freelance work that is pouring in.

The results have, quite simply, floored me. I’m happier and more focused, more creative and more thankful, than I ever have been before. I celebrate the new freelance work (three new jobs last week alone), AND I’m flying through the new novel. I have, after 15 years of struggle, found a stunningly simple solution around what was an impossible dilemma.

The key has been to allow both kinds of writing, freelance and creative, to be part of the single expression of myself.  This is allowing gratitude to arises for my freelance work, since it directly funds my personal work. I help my freelance clients birth their visions into the world, and they help me do the same.

My 90-day experiment ends March 21^st, but I have a feeling it might just be a new way of being.

The post The Surprising Lesson of a Successful Kickstarter Campaign appeared first on Keith Martin-Smith.

The question I’ve been getting, and that you may be curious about yourself, is: “How’s it going??”

In a word, great. 

Now, my original plan was to get up at 6am and spend the first two hours writing. For those that know me, this was a bit of an eye-rolling idea bound to fail. The reason? I’m not much of a morning person, to say the least (despite my very best efforts to be one).

So 6am became 7am. And that became 7:30, and then finally I was closer to 8am. And that was just in the first week. Oh well.

It’s a good lesson anyway. Picking a challenge that goes completely against your nature is not very wise. So I adapted my challenge into something that will actually work. I still spend the first two hours of everyday writing for myself, no matter when I get up. Some days, especially if I oversleep, it can feel like a burn to take that time because I have my freelance clients I need to honor, but I do it anyway.

The first two hours of the day are for my creative writing, and nothing and no one gets between that and me. Simple enough.

So How’s It Working? 

The best and sharpest part of my day — the mornings — are now entirely for me. This means that I climb into the novel each and everyday, keeping the ideas, challenges, and nuance all fresh. When I get stuck, which I do two or three times a week, the stuckness stays fresh in my mind so that when I face it the next day, it tends to be ready to move.

In the past, when I was trying to integrate writing for myself with the work I do for my clients, I would take long stretches off working on my own materials. This allowed me to make money, but then when I got back to my own work, I found that it took a few days, minimum, to get back into the flow. And sometimes, that flow was never really found again.

Whole stories have been set aside as a cost of this, and the negative effect was that I would end up resenting my freelance clients. That’s not a great way to get repeat business.

What’s Happening Now

Since I’ve been doing this, two things have happened. One is that the novel is coming along steadily, and I feel inside of the story and very much alive to it. An excerpt is imminent. 

The second thing has been a bit of a surprise, although I’m now getting used to it, and how good it feels. I have more creative energy for my freelance clients than ever before. I’m bringing a whole new level of creative insight, energy, and genuine gratitude for the work and people darkening my door. And I’m getting more clients than ever before, who are loving the work I’m doing for them almost as much as I’m loving doing it.

So I’ll end as I began. How’s it going? In a word, great.

The post 90-day Writing Challenge: An Update appeared first on Keith Martin-Smith.

Through the crowdsourcing site Kickstarter, I created a fairly elaborate (and I hope funny) movie and page explaining why it would be a good idea for someone like you to join someone like me.

This was and is very edgy, for a number of reasons.

THE TERROR

With Kickstarter, if you don’t get 100% of your funding, you get 0% of the money. It’s like an emotional game of Blackjack, except I’m playing with a novel I’m incredibly passionate about, and a big chunk of my self-worth on the line. Now that’s gambling!

What keeps me up at night, though, isn’t the idea of not getting the money — at least, not as a reflection of my self-worth. I’ve fought through too much rejection at this point in my career to let something like this turn me back.

No, what keeps me up is the worry that I won’t be able to afford to write the book, one that has been burning inside of me and is dying to get out.

THE BEAUTY

I resigned, when I started this campaign, that I would be grateful for anything that came my way, even if it all ended up going back to the donors. A lot of financial generosity has flowed this way, but much more than that I’ve been struck by how many people have expressed their belief in my work — people like Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi, Ken Wilber, Robb Smith, and lots and lots (and lots!) of my friends, colleagues,  fellow artists, and family.

To you all: a deep, deep bow of gratitude. And here’s why those aren’t just empty, blubbery New Age words. 

A LESSON IN NEEDING OTHERS

I’m not a masochist. Nor do I particularly like putting myself out there. And I’m not hooked on the thrill of huge challenges. The truth is much more mundane (and much more beautiful), even if it’s a little on the mushy side: I’m happiest when I’m counting on my friends and family. 

Me being (very!) surprised by Sara and friends when AHBO came out. My face says it all! (click)

My first book (“Mysterious Divination”) was done in the odd hours of life, packed into weekends, late nights, and early mornings. That’s why it took about 10 years to create, and I stubbornly relied on virtually no one to help me with the book. I landed a lousy contract with a shitty publisher, but I got it — all by myself.  I didn’t even go out to dinner to celebrate, because it was a hard, long, and lonely process that left me embittered, broke, and cynical.

For my second book (“A Heart Blown Open”), I tried a different approach. I sought support from a men’s group here in Boulder. I asked my parents for their emotional support and blessing. I shared how the process made me feel, well, naked. I found a woman who loved me and deeply support my work. And my friends and family backed me, 100%, when I decided to sell  my house so that I could take the time to write it. As I fought through the book, I leaned on friends and family, hard. The experience left me elated, connected, deeply grateful, and feeling luckier than any man has a right to feel.

The third book, (“The Heart of Zen”) with Jun Po Roshi — coming out in April 2014 — was privately financed by investors who believed in Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi’s work in the world, and in my ability to capture it. This was a new experience for me — accepting others’ financial generosity to help me do this thing that I do.

SO…I NEED YOU.

I feel an overwhelming  draw and passion to write this next novel, Only Everything, which is the culmination of my entire life to-date, in fictionalized form.

It’s going to be as deep, grand, and amusing as I can possibly manage. It will, at the very least, be the very best work that I can do. Beyond that, fate, talent, and luck will combine in their weird and magical way.

But I literally can’t do this without you. Forget the platitudes or empty New Age slogans. Without your help, I have no audience and no way to live so that I can take the many thousands of hours this book will demand.

And one way or another, it all draws to a close on August 15th. No matter how it turns out, I’ve learned and celebrate how much I rely on the support of others.

UPDATE

The Kickstarter campaign came down to the wire. With about 22 minutes to go, we met the goal of $30,000. This book will now become a reality!

The post The Terror, and Beauty, of Putting it Out There appeared first on Keith Martin-Smith.

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In the next few weeks, I’m going to be doing 20-minute interviews with numerous thought-leaders, teachers, and creators on this topic, all in anticipation of my next novel, Only Everything. You can watch the interviews and share your voice on Only Everything.org. They include Ken wilber, Tripp Lanier, Ali Shanti, Sara Avant Stover, Shawn Phillips, Kelly Notaris, Jun Po Roshi, Robb Smith, and more!  (12 total, starting July 17th).

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The Promise & Burden of What Our Parents Gave Us

The Baby Boomers worked to create the counterculture and a life outside of then-social norms and their parents’ expectations. The mandate they were given was to work hard, settle down, and play by society’s rules, a mandate many of them rejected.

They gave their own children an entirely new mandate. Most of us under the age of 45 were told some version of “you can be anything you want to be.” Joseph Campbell, in 1963, admonished an entire generation: “…follow your bliss…”. A 1980’s mega bestseller was called Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow.

Millions of us listened, and are living with these ideas driving our daily thoughts, expectations, dreams, and self-worth. Gen X, faced with the hugeness of “you can be anything you want to be”, guarded itself with cynicism and a “slacker” culture, and is now marching into middle age as “the ignored generation” (Time Magazine). The Millennials (half of whom still live at home), were raised in a much more “you’re special and deserve a gold star” culture, but seem uncertain how to even step into life.

Aren’t We Special?

Clearly most of us under the age of 45 do feel some sense that we are special, something that is, at a minimum, reflected in our Facebook posts, Tumblr feeds, and  Instagram pics.

The article,“Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” was the most widely read story ever on The Atlantic’s website last year, and landed its author both a book deal and spots on Today and Colbert.

What no one asked her, or is asking, is why do we even expect that we can have it all? Is it because we were raised to believe we could be anything we wanted to be, and that if we followed our hearts, our wallets and homes would be full?

The belief we are special is an empowering one, of course, but one that can also lead to narcissism, which is window dressing for the deeper reality of purposelessness, frustration, and self-doubt. Narcissism, in other words, is directionally proportional to its seeming opposite, insecurity.

Time Magazine ran an interesting cover story back on May 20th of this year, and the cover was: “The ME ME ME Generation: The Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents :: Why they’ll save us all.” It started to look at some of the burdens, and opportunities, faced by the Millennials and, to some extent, their older peers (Gen X-ers like me).

My Experience

As someone born in the middle of Gen X, I can speak to my own experience of a sense of entitlement (yes, it’s there) and narcissism (yup, there too). Truthfully, the mandate “you can be anything you want to be” has created huge currents of shame, guilt, and insecurity for me, as well as the stubbornness to push through huge rejection and resistance.

A complicated legacy, to say the least.

Why? Well, if we can be anything we want, why the hell is life so hard? Why is success so stubborn? How do I tolerate jobs I dislike? And why am I still an unknown? Doesn’t this mean I’ve failed somehow, somewhere, and the fault must be mine?

Perhaps most importantly, if I believe I can have it all, how can I settle for anything less? How can I be happy with anything less than everything?

A Trap? An Opportunity? Both?

What are the implications of this mandate for us? The Boomers broke free of their mandate (“follow the rules, settle down, work hard”), and helped to change the world in radical ways. Might we do the same? What would that look like, for us?

And in the Biggest Economic Shift in 80 Years

The world is in great flux right now. We’re living through the collapse of the old economy and the full birth of a new one. Case-in-point: my 77-year-old father worked for a single employer his entire career, and moved from being the 8th of 9 children in the Depression-era South to middle class success. A world with that kind of opportunity simply no longer exists, at least not for Westerners. With much of Europe plunged into economic crisis, and much of the U.S. still mired in recession, the entire idea of how one entered and stayed in the middle class is in question.

Or, as CEO and entrepreneur Robb Smith says in my interview with him, “In the next ten years, it’s going to be much better to be a Chinese teenager than an American one.”

Why? Well, two-thirds of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. Millennials and Gen Y are saddled with nearly $1 trillion in school loan debt, profoundly affecting the housing and private lending markets. They’re holding an additional $1 trillion in household credit card debt. Companies are now mostly focused on the next financial quarter, not the next decade. And even tried and true industries, like hospitality, can be turned on their head with the emergence of something like Air B&B. The truth is, we couldn’t live the lives of  parents lived even if we wanted to. And how can we follow our dreams when we can’t afford a home, a new car, or the security of knowing we’ll have a job in a year?

Your Thoughts? Your Experience? 

This is the central theme of my new novel, Only Everything. What are your thoughts on this? How has this mandate affected you, or those you love? Where do you see it all heading?

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It has also WON the Silver Medal Award from Nautilus Books, for 2013.

http://www.nautilusbookawards.com/
https://botya.forewordreviews.com/finalists/2012/biography/

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The Heart of Zen takes a step-by-step approach to what has become a vexing problem in spiritual circles.  While we are more and more familiar with popular ideas of Enlightenment and spiritual Awakening, life still comes at us full-force, and hope can turn to frustration as the gulf between our spiritual belief and our everyday life seems to loom ever larger.

What is missing is integration.  If Awakening truly transforms every part of the life of a person, where are we getting stuck?  How can things like anger, shame, envy, and jealousy continue to arise?  How do our relative egos relate to Emptiness, and what does this mean for our intimate relationships, our emotional bodies, our views of the world and its problems?

The Heart of Zen represents the next generation of spiritual books, because it is not content to merely talk about Awakening and spiritual life.  These topics are addressed, of course, but within the context of creating lasting change, through the integration of spiritual insight into the flow and flux of everyday life.  Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi and I talk about how a well-trained meditation students may learn to be non-reactive to emotions, but they seldom learn how to transform negative emotions (and the ego that holds them) as part of a more deeply integrated, lived spirituality.

This book describes, in great detail and with many exercises for the reader to follow, precisely what this means.  Part discussion on these intricate topics and part experiential guide, The Heart of Zen offers a one-of-a-kind take on Enlightenment, emotional maturity, and the integration required to take one’s seat in true liberation.

Stay tuned for excerpts!

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We first met in Boulder, in 2007, at a weekend conference on how Integral Theory had changed/affected out lives. Jun Po, recently in remission from Stage-4 Throat Cancer treatment, was remarkably candid about himself and some of the mistakes he’d recently made in his life, not a common experience one has when talking to a “spiritual teacher”. They tend to be long on teachings and short on personal revelations that might put them in a bad light, but not Jun Po. I was intrigued.

Q: How did you come to write the book? 

Jun Po contacted me in the spring of 2009, and asked me if I was interested in writing his life story. I said, “maybe…”.  He flew me to a retreat center in Massachusetts, where he told me his life story over two days, then asked again if I was interested. It was the most remarkable life story I had ever heard — this guy has done everything from trained with the who’s who of spirituality in the 20th Century to served time in Federal prison — so I readily agreed to write the book.  (Eyebrow-raising excerpts can be found on the madness of his upbringing, on his experimentation with LSD , on amazing experiences in India, and on meeting the Dali Lama).

Q: How long did it take you to write this book?

I started the book in July 2009, and finished the first draft in May of 2010.  After critical feedback on the manuscript, I decided to completely rewrite it, which took another year. From then, it was off to the publisher for editing (big thanks to Manny Otto and David Wright), and finally came into print in February 2012.

Q: What was the hardest part of creating the book?

There were two hard parts.  The first was that when I was first offered this book in the summer of 2009, I realized that it was a story more extraordinary than I had ever heard before.  Denis Kelly’s life is like a Hunter S. Thompson bioptic that somehow ends up with a Zen master at the end of it.

Roshi and writer, 2009

Amazing.  But how does one afford to take a year, or two, off of life to write a book, full-time?  Although I was living in Boulder, CO, I still owned and was renting a house in Philadelphia.  I sold the house in August 2009, and used the money to live on while I wrote the book.  I’ve never regretted that decision, even though the chances are slim I’ll ever make that money back.

The second hardest part was when, in the summer of 2010, the book was rejected by a major New York literary agency because the writing wasn’t strong enough (detailed here).  I nearly threw in the towel and decided to give up on my dreams of writing, but after a long night sitting with it, ultimately decided to “double down”.

Q: It’s an unusual format for a biography, and reads more like a novel.  Was this intentional? 

Very much so. I wanted the book to recreate the emotional and situational elements of Jun Po’s life, so that the reader got as close to possible to experiencing what his life was like instead of merely reading about it. I labored to get inside of his mind and emotional state, and to create the scene and setting of his life events so that the reader would have a deeper and more emotional experience.

I’m happy to know that many people have been deeply touched by this approach.

Q: Did you find that your own spirituality or view of the world conflicted with Kelly’s?

No — Jun Po showed me the missing pieces in the my own practice.  I had been trying to “get away from” my ego and “negative” emotions in my practice.  His teachings showed me I had everything I needed to transcend — and include — all of myself on my spiritual path.

Q: So you became his student before writing the book. Didn’t this create a conflict of interest? 

Possibly, but I worked to offset this as much as I could. I distanced myself from him for the two years I was working on the book, and also collaborated many of the stories in the book to get differing opinions on what happened. Most importantly, Jun Po was not eager to cover up or hide the places in his life where he made serious mistakes and had large breaches of integrity; those, in fact, are some of the most interesting and telling points of the book. Part of what makes him unique is his willingness to discuss the places where he made mistakes, even big and embarrassing ones.

Q: Had you written a book before? Or a biography for that matter?

My first book is a collection of short stories called The Mysterious Divination of Tea Leaves.  I had never written a biography until A Heart Blown Open.

Q: What universal takeaway should a reader expect from reading the book?

Anyone seeking true emotion freedom in their lives — freedom to truly show up as a partner, parent, friend — will be inspired by the book.  Kelly’s life isn’t just an exploration of how to “wake up” and attain spiritual liberation, but how to live that liberation in the mess of daily life.  That means viewing what used to be “problematic” emotions like anger, shame, and jealousy as gifts that can teach us how to truly live and love.  My own takeaway from the book can be seen in my first reading of it at the Boulder Bookstore.

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The first is that it’s never happened before, which makes the experience a novel one, to say the least. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I’m being interviewed about A Heart Blown Open, which was published in February. What’s strange about this is the biography, unlike Walter Isaacson’s wonderful tome about Steve Jobs, is about someone who is very much alive and well and able to speak perfectly well on his own.

The third thing that makes it interesting is my naiveté.  I’m green with envy at writers that have personal publicists to help fine-tune their messaging. I’ve read these publicists are masters of spin, not only with the media but most importantly with the talent they represent. (So, for instance, it’s never ‘what could be done better next time is X’, but instead a bit of a compliment sandwich, like ‘that was wonderful! It might be helpful next time to mention your website. Great job on that last question – that was a tough one!’). It would seem we writers are a sensitive lot.

As my own underpaid and rather unskilled publicist, I must listen to my own interviews to pick up on things that went well while grimacing at the things that sounded great in my mind, but were somehow lost on the journey to my mouth. This, I don’t mind admitting, is a humbling process. It probably doesn’t help that my girlfriend and partner-in-crime is so damn fluid and seamless in her interviews (my favorite is this one, where she’s interviewed by a kinda crusty old guy on a San Francisco TV station, about her book for women, and knocks it out of the park).

The first time I was interviewed, for Westworld Magazine here in Colorado, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. It was over the phone, thank goodness, so my nervous pacing went undetected in a way that would have been a little harder to mask in-person (where I might have knocked over a table or two). The interviewer asked great questions, but after I got off the phone I realized that I had never considered how I might present the book to someone who had never heard of Jun Po or me, and didn’t know much about Zen. Jun Po’s life story is amazing, but the truth is he’s not well known, nor am I, nor are the intricacies of Zen, beyond what most people get from pop culture (“dude, does that mean you’re like zoned out all the time, and shit?”). It was something I was going to need to consider.

By the time I made it to Vail to do a little spot on Vail TV in May of 2012, I had found a message to relay (I made a few blunders, like saying Jun Po was raised in poverty — he wasn’t — but oh well). Since then I’ve been interviewed on Buddhist Geeks, The New Man, and Integral Life (two of three forthcoming), and the results have been, well, mixed. So when the time is right, I’ll put on my publicist hat, and give myself a big, fat compliment sandwich. After all, we writers are a sensitive lot.

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