Sterling Terrell

smart ideas from books (mostly)

It Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect

It Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect

Such a good reminder via Seth Godin that we don’ have to be perfect to produce.

I hope you are working on a streak too.

One reason that successful and prolific singer-songwriters are prolific is that as soon as they’ve written a song, they can record it and publish it.

And a huge advantage of having a daily blog is that the software is always open, waiting for you to write something.

Your story doesn’t have to be a book, it is simply your chance to make a difference. “Here’s what I see, here’s how you can be part of it.”

When we remove the pre (finding the pen, the paper, the notebook, the software) and the post (finding a way to publish it), it turns out that we write more often, and writing more often leads to writing better.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can simply be the next thing you do.

The patterns matter. Streaks work.

All part of your practice.

The First Hank The Cowdog Story

The First Hank The Cowdog Story

The first Hank The Cowdog story came about differently than you would think.

In fact, I think many books, businesses, marriages, and life adventures start out different than we assume they will.

A doctor starts dabbling in real estate and soon finds 80% of her income comes from her side business.

You strike up a conversion at church and end up meeting your wife.

An actor takes a role as an afterthought and it births a franchise series that comes to define his career.

Who would have thought John Erickson would set out toward his life’s work after penning a satire piece for $65?

When I do programs in schools, I usually leave some time for kids to ask questions. They are curious about where my Hank the Cowdog stories came from, and almost without fail, they will ask the question in the same manner: “What inspired you to write the Hank stories?” It amuses me that they think of writing in terms of inspiration. I wrote my first Hank story as an article for The Cattleman magazine and my “inspiration” was money, sixty-five bucks, that I needed to support a wife and two small children. A plumber doesn’t wait for inspiration to lay a water line. A surgeon doesn’t have to be inspired to remove an appendix, and a professional writer doesn’t sit around waiting for the muse to whisper in his ear. He has to make his own inspiration, and that happens when he follows a pattern of disciplined work.

-John Erickson, Story Craft (Amazon)

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