I love James Altucher’s advice and style. This morning he sent me an email – an ad for a writing system. I didn’t (don’t) consider it solicitation or spam; it was more entertaining and insightful than a lot of regular articles and columns I read. Heck, I may invest in the system. The Title is How to Become an Addict Like Me. Here’s the intro:
Writing is my guiding philosophy of life.
It’s not a passion or a purpose. It’s the way I live.
Because I write, I think of ideas.
Ideas lead to things I can sell. Writing helps me sell these things.
I live for writing well…
I’m an addict.
If I can’t write well for two days, then something is wrong with my life. If I can’t write well for three days, then I cancel everything until I write.
It makes me happy. Many things make me happy. But every moment of the day is about writing for me. Nothing else. Not money. Not my career. Not my relationships. Not even my kids. Everything else comes in second.
Which sounds like a mental illness. Maybe it is. I love my kids. I will do anything for them. But first… be quiet until I write.
Building the skill of writing is one way I choose myself every day.
Without writing I would have no career and no self-esteem…nothing.
Writing is what put me on LinkedIn’s Top Influencers of 2015 list.
Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Mohamed El-Erian were ranked #1,#2, and #3 – all are three billionaires.
LinkedIn ranked me #4 because I’m a writer.
- James Altucher, June 1, 2016.
That short piece resonated with me. I dedicated the month of May to posting at least once blog entry per day here – I failed. I hit 28 out of 31 days – not bad but the quality of what I wrote suffered a bit. Something was wrong. Something is always wrong but that’s how we improve. I should have taken days off. I’m working on as many thing as I can right now. I hope June’s articles are more substantive. I don’t know where I stand on LinkedIn although I do have more than 500 contacts. My Alexa ranking was rising but has fallen rather sharply in the past few months.
Google.
I stand way outside the mainstream (or even the extreme stream) of political thought. Wally does too. Scott Adams from today:
Dilbert (love Dilbert!), Scott Adams, June 1, 2016.
Anyway … that’s the “righting” angle.
As for “writing”, I rarely explain how I come up with my stuff beyond base mention of cigars, booze, and a healthy dose of anger and sarcasm. I was going to do a proper “how-to” article on my writing methodology but I don’t really have the time this morning (late for the gym). And, I rarely write properly anyway – a lot of my work is posted straight from my phone and I do a good deal of talking to text. Messrs. Strunk and White must be aghast. Maybe I can round this out later…
Instead, here is a short list of some tools I use when writing (the write…right way):
A computer, duh (or a phone, pencil, dictaphone, whatever);
Coffee, coffee, coffee (in the morning);
Water (in the evening and as a healthy substitute for ale);
Cigar (really helps unless the ash falls on the keyboard);
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary;
Black’s Law Dictionary;
Harvard Legal Citation Guide (The Blue Book);
A thesaurus;
Latin Quotes;
Popular Quotes;
Google;
Strunk and White;
Chicago Style Manual;
MLA Manual;
Several other books on making books.
(I may come back and round this out later – you get the point.)
Off to the gym now. A particularly impressive milestone is just around the corner…
