How to Create Snappy Sassy Salty Success for Authors and Witers

Welcome to My World

that I would be in. The only hint that my ultimate vocation would become writing and speaking about, first emerged in third grade. I got in trouble. In fact, I was in trouble a lot. You see, I talked too much. And I passed notes to my friends in the classroom. Teachers didn’t like that. I thought it was normal.

It wasn’t until decades later when I was the President of a college foundation in Northern California, that, real writing became a gleam in my eye. A book. Of course, it was to be  just one book. But it didn’t start out as a  book idea; it started out as a dinner.

As the president of the foundation,  there were perks—one was that I was always included in the private dinner held for our guest lecturers. Our speaker was my dinner companion one evening. We had a lovely time; laughing and commiserating about each having teenagers. Little did I know that he was actively listening, chalking up a slew of ideas that he would turn into a column based on things I said during the three hours we were together.

A week later when I was on a business trip, I discovered his column in the Los Angeles Times with all my ideas around raising teenagers. Oh, the column was amusing, but I wasn’t feeling so amused. In fact, I was a tad ticked—he never asked permission or even told me he was thinking about writing about our conversation. Upon my return, there was a letter thanking me for the evening and telling me (warning me?) that he might use some of my ideas in a future column. It was signed, Cheers—Art Buchwald.

Future? How about past tense?

Yet, the “aha” dropped in—my epiphany. All that ran through my mind was, “If I don’t start taking some of my own ideas, others will take them … and make money.” That was April of 1979. By December, I had sold my first book.

Writing too many notes in school, and getting caught. Talking too much and  actually being sent home multiple times because I couldn’t keep still or quiet. I didn’t and wouldn’t follow all the rules. Who would have known that they were precursors to my livelihood: being an author and being a professional speaker.

Whatever, whoever, why-ever you are driven to being an author and writer, celebrate it. Go with the flow; know that you will hit plenty of hazards in your journey. It’s normal.

Over the years, I’ve created quotes, the ones for authoring and publishing are included within these pages. One of my personal favorites and one that I tell all my author clients to write down is: Don’t do well what you have no business doing.

When writing, it’s your world. Don’t let others take your sage advice, storylines and ideas. Stay focused and just go for it. What “it” turns out to be may literally   morph your world.