Steven (Steve) Barnes introduces an episode of Life Writing Live reflecting on collaboration and modeling in writing. He describes mentoring relationships with "Larry" and "Jerry," explains how he learned by modeling their belief systems, thought-order ("middle syntax"), and writing habits (physiology). He gives concrete productivity rules (write 1–4 stories/month, finish and mail submissions, read ~10× more than you write, ‘butt to chair’ daily practice), notes he was working at Pepperdine University when he sought out mentors, and points viewers to iwanttosellmybook.com for book-selling resources. The piece closes with encouragement to stay true to one’s heart and to write with passion.
Questions this video answers
Pepperdine University.
Write one to four stories per month.
Read ten times as much as you write.
iwanttosellmybook.com.
Chapters
Hi there, this is Steve Barnes with Life Writing Live, coming back after a long painful drive along the 210 freeway in Rush hour traffic. It was terrible, but it was worth it because I got to play with Larry and Jerry again, my beloved friends and mentors. You know, Larry is like a dad to me and Jerry is like my crazy uncle. I just. I just love them both to pieces. And my life would be so much poorer without them. But I'll tell you the way things started, I simply wanted a role model. I wanted someone who would show me what was on the other side of the barrier I was trying to get across. Everything I've accomplished in my life, I've accomplished by modeling, by finding people who can do the things that I wanted to know how to do and could do them better than me. And then asking them from the neuro linguistic programming point of view, what are your belief systems? What's your middle syntax? What's your use of physiology, in other words, your belief systems. What do you feel? What do you think is true about this thing that you do? In Larry's case, the writing is fun. Writing connects him to people and so forth. Belief system, middle syntax, what is the order in which you think? That'll be things like plotting and how do you plan out your day's work, so forth. And then the use of physiology for a writer would simply be, how much work are you doing every day? Looking at this in terms of what we call the machine, that's you write a story, one to four stories a month, you finish what you write, you put it in the mail, you keep it in the mail, you don't rewrite except to editorial request. You read 10 times as much as you write and you keep it up for 100 stories. That's the use of physiology in terms of we're not going to talk about how do you type, how do you breathe when you're typing, what's your posture while you're typing, stuff like that. But just what are the habits? You apply butt to chair and you write. So I was working at Pepperdine University at the time and I knew that I was writing and I wasn't as successful as I wanted to be with my writing. So I deliberately sought out writers who were successful. And the first ones who I was able to make contact with and connection with were, were Larry and Jerry. The collaboration with them, you know, it started wanting to learn. And the fact is that what I would do is I would do the first draft and then they would rip it to pieces. And as I said before. I knew that if I could survive this process, I would learn things I could not learn any other way. In no school in the world could I learn these things. So I put my ego out of the way and just became as open a vessel as I could possibly be. Let me learn. Let me learn. Let me learn. Please God, let me learn the things that I need to know in order to do this thing that matters so much to me that I would rather have failed as a writer than succeeded in anything else in the world. It was that important to me. I'd really burned my bridges behind me career wise, and it was frightening. My entire life has been a high wire act in many ways, but it's worth it. It's worth it. What I can say to you is that when you decide the thing that you want to do that's really close to your heart that really expresses who it is that you are, there is nothing that is more valuable and there is nothing anyone can offer you that is worth betraying yourself, worth not being true to your heart. So I was fortunate enough to find two guys to work with me and the only way I can honor that relationship is by being true to my work and giving them my whole heart every chance I can and letting them know in every way that I can that I genuinely love what they've done for me and for my life and everything that they've contributed. And if you are lucky enough to find someone to do that for you, I hope that you will love them the way I love these dear, dear friends of mine. That's really what I wanted to say today and heading into the weekend. This is our first week of Life Writing Live. Want to know more about the kinds of things that you want us to talk about. We'll discuss anything that has to do with the writer's life or my life that would be of use to you. For those of you who are writing and creating your own businesses, selling your own ebooks and so forth, once again I suggest that you go to I wantttosellmybook.com where you will find a lot of resources for selling books selling services. Just the one book that you can get free on Dotcom Secrets. Talking about how people actually sell stuff on the Internet is hugely valuable. I've been searching for this kind of information for years and I'm glad that I finally found it. So you can get some really good information at iwanttosellmybook. Com. Have a wonderful weekend people. Once again, if you like this video, share it. That's the way you can let us know that you want to see more. Take care of yourself and write with passion. Take care. Bye Bye.
