Life Coaching as a poem?

For weeks something has been gnawing at me concerning the direction of my poetry.  I knew I wanted to write poems that inspired and motivated others; encouraging them to raise up the success of their lives. And I’ve been reading motivational poems and inspirational poems but something was just “off” to me about the poems in relation to what I feel pulled to write. That type of poetry seemed more spiritual,  soul searching, and geared to those dealing with a personal crisis like an addiction or depression.

That crowd was not my focus.  Then I started thinking about life coaches. Started thinking about books by Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, books by Robert Kiyosaki and Tony Robbins. I wanted to write poetry for that crowd of readers. That’s the audience I’m looking for. All motivated to succeed and rise above the norm.

I started visiting the sites of life coaches and success teaching gurus. I figured if they can put success teachings in a book I can put them in a poem. I’m 100% convinced of this.

And I searched the net for this type of poetry and I can’t find a true category for it. I find quotes by the hundreds dedicated to personal success and achievement but poetry? Not hardly.

So that’s what I’ll focus on.  This should be interesting.

The many sides to writing

Writing poetry is what I do and sharing it is what I enjoy.  What I have learned is that to share poetry a poet must make a HUGE effort to introduce themselves to the world and stay relevant. Which means every day I spend time on the internet working on what I’ve learned is termed an “author’s platform”. This is a side of writing that is new for me and has proven to be challenging and rewarding.

An author’s platform is an author’s media outlet to the public. A way to stay on the minds of your fans. This can include a main website, interactive sub-websites, Facebook and MySpace pages, Twitter accounts, email newsletter, profiles on niche social networking sites, blogs, writing articles, writing book reviews, podcasts, videos, doing workshops, and even your own online talk radio show.

The goal is to connect with people most likely interested in your work. So you find out where on the net they are located and you interact with them.  The idea is to get a fan base so when your book is published you have a fan base already interested in your work.  This makes perfect sense yet it does take time. Time doing some or a lot of all the ideas I listed above. And it takes organization.

So this is what I’m working on in addition to writing my poems. I’m quickly learning this whole process requires a major commitment from me and I look forward to providing poetry that encourages and inspires others.  Poetry with a purpose is how I see it all.

ROFL. Kayne will never live it down.

Google yourself then do something about it.

If you have never done this I highly recommend it.  Open up Google (or any search engine) and type your name in quotes and hit enter. In less than five seconds you will see what the world knows about you. Well at least you and anybody else in the world with your first and last name combination.  If you have a common first last name duo then you will have to browse through the sites to determine which entries are really about you and not the John or Jane Public that lives in another city. If you have a unique name then rest assured what ever results come up in the search are probably about you.

Once you get the results then get to reading. You may be pleasantly surprised or horribly shocked to see what is floating on cyberspace concerning your life. But at least you will know WHAT is on cyberspace with your name attached.

I read that in this information age people should take control of their online persona.  In doing so you  have a level of input on what people find when they search your name on the net. It’s called online branding. From potential employers to potential clients to potential dates people may research your name to determine if they want to do business or interact with you.  There is not much you can do to stop someone from mentioning you unfavorably in their blog or preventing an ex-friend from posting pictures of you on Flicker. But you can post enough of your own content on the net where the search results that are returned are information you have generated. Because if somebody is going to mention you on the net it might as well be you.

Here are some ideas to get you started on rescuing your internet persona. If you’re lucky your name is still available as a domain name. If so then buy it. Like as in now. I bought www.alisalawton.com a few weeks ago and now when my name is typed into Google the first result that pops up is my website. As a matter of fact when you type my name in Google all the results on the first page contain information I generated from profiles I created. Which brings me to a second idea. Create websites and profiles of yourself. From Facebook to MySpace to Twitter you can create a profile that allows people to learn about you what you want them to learn. Want a website? Then start a blog and then link your domain name, which hopefully is http://www.yourname.com, to your blog. You can start a blog on www.wordpress.com, www.blogger.com, or www.livejournal.com.

Your blog can be anything you want it to be. Talk about your favorite hobby, your experiences of being a parent, post your poetry or your art, or your photography. Love the news or celebrity gossip then blog about that. Are you a spots fan then start a sports blog. Just blog about something you have a passion or interest in. Then keep that blog updated. In terms of profiles find an online community that focuses on your hobby and start a profile there and interact with people of similar interests. The key factor here is to start generating content on the net with your name attached.

You can make this project as in depth or as simple as you prefer. The important thing is to have input into what others find when they do an internet search on you.

Inspiration

Have you ever been inside of a big candy store? The kind with so many choices of sweets that you couldn’t decide what to buy because with so many choices you were not able to make A choice. That’s how objects of inspiration are for me. There are so many things in a day that inspire a poem that it’s hard to make A choice.  So I’ve decide to make a list of first liners or titles. These are phrases that come to mind when something motivates me and these one liners tend to fuel the beginning of my poems. And a one liner inspired me earlier this week.

One thing I keep running into in my reading is about authors with such a taste of the dramatic they end their own lives. Almost like their last great scene is their act of suicide. After reading an author’s bio and discovered he too killed himself I blurted out inside my empty room “what is this thing with them killing themselves!!!”   And a phrase came to mind “winter freeze came early”. And there was the inspiration and title for a poem.

This poem will be about how too many authors leave life in their prime years and I will relate that to how a winter freeze comes early in the season killing off vegetation too soon. Although the vegetation does not induce the freeze where the authors has chosen to end his life. But that’s just a minor difference in detail.

I’m a big advocate that creative people need a balanced life otherwise their own creativity will drain them and claim them turning their life into a surreal piece of art.  And maybe if those authors who ended their lives way too early had a balanced life they might have created additional masterpieces in novels and poetry for us to enjoy.  Imagine what great works of literature Hemingway would have left us if he had not put a shotgun to his head.

Yes. Winter freeze came too early.

Books are just as exciting…

I was watching a video on CNN about the big day today. Today is the release of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and for those in the know you nod your head in understanding about the buzz. Or maybe you are standing in line at a bookstore jubilant about how in only a few minutes you will be able to spend your special day off doing exactly what you took the day off to do and that is to read this book. Yes, I’m sure somebody in bibliophile land took off today just to read The Lost Symbol. Then there are those who just went to the search engine to type in Dan Brown because they are wondering “Dan who?”. To keep it simple he is the author of the books that were turned into the moves Angels & Demons and Da Vinci Code. Did you at least know about those movies or seen them? I hope so.

Ok, back to the video. Jon Howells of Waterstone’s Books stated that big book releases like The Lost Symbol are good news for readers because it gets people excited about books and that sometimes we need to be reminded that books can be exciting like films, albums and rock bands. I agree with dear Jon that every so often we need to be reminded how exciting it is to sit down and read a good book. I think it’s awesome there were people standing in line at the bookstores before they opened waiting to buy a book.

I’m going to buy this book when the funds free up but I don’t have to wait to read it. America has this amazing invention called the library and my copy will be waiting for me to pick up and read within the next day or two. And then I’ll post back on my blog a review of this highly anticipated novel.

A great quote for poets

“…the poem is a communication between a mouth and an ear—not an actual mouth and an actual ear, but a mind that sends a message and a mind that receives it.”

Louise Glück

Pushing yourself

Creating a goal and making plans to achieve that goal is exciting. Then comes the real work. You gotta get it done and turned into a reality and not just a eureka moment of an idea. And that is when pushing yourself kicks into gear. The discipline, the focus, the will power, the drive are needed to make progress towards your goal. Because success never comes to the half efforts but to those who give it their 100%.

Yes, there are so many wonderful and exciting distractions in your life. That keeping full attention on your goal can be a challenge yet kicking up that drive into a higher gear can help you weather those moments of diversion. Take me for example. I promised myself every day I will write. Be it poetry, my blog, working on my short story, or just keeping Twitter updated I will write. But life is full of “must dos” and those items seem to pop up whenever I’m gearing up to put in some quality writing time. But I work hard not to falter and I write. See, I have a goal and if I don’t write every day and if I don’t build up my poetry collection I’ll never reach my goal. So I have to push myself. Every day, no matter what.

And if you do this pushing yourself every day thing you may find that success you have been craving is a lot closer then you realized.

Finding readers

I’ve been thinking about this for the past week as I have been developing and tweaking my online outlets. Last night I was reading an article about speculative poetry in the 2010 edition of Poet’s Market. Speculative poetry is poetry that fits into the genre of sci-fi and mythological. What I found interesting about this article it stated speculative poetry is the type of poetry that actually pays. Often I have heard that poetry doesn’t pay and at best doesn’t pay well. But here was a genre of poetry that based on what the article was stating does pay out better than the average publisher of poems.

Why is that I wondered. After thinking about the article I realized that the sci-fi genre has a very dedicated and committed following. It has birthed an entire culture of hard core fans with a grassroots type movement. Dragon Con anyone?

And now it makes sense. Supply and demand is the root of all that is profitable. And the sci-fi fans LOVE their sci-fi in all its formats. Poetry included. A collection of poems that focus on sci-fi may actually sell. Why? Because sci-fi readers LOVE reading sci-fi.

My point is not that I’m about to write sci-fi poetry although I do love sci-fi and mythological worlds and characters. My realization is that finding readers is a more productive endeavor if I find what genre of writing my poetry falls into and I focus my submissions and online outlets into that area. Adding my poetry as a thread in the fabric of a genre’s culture would develop a readership.

As a poet I like writing about whatever moves me or inspires me and i will always do so. Yet I’m excited to focus my writing into a genre where my work is embraced because it enlivens the culture of the genre it belongs too.

Annie Leibovitz could loose portfolio

I am still stunned at the decision Annie Leibovitz made in order to secure a $24 million loan to pay off her debts. She put up as collateral the copyrights of ALL her work and any future work. (Who relinquishes the rights to future works?)  I find that so mind boggling. I’m sure the pressure of her debts was mounting hard and sometimes financial pressure causes you to make choices and concessions you would normally not consider.

But if you are a famous photographer and your copyrights are your goldmine and future copyrights are your future earnings why make that collateral?  She puts herself in a position that copyrights of her works and her future works especially may over the course of her lifetime be worth more than the $24 million loan. If that’s the contract then it’s never “paid off”. Everything she ever makes Art Capital Group gets the copyright too. Ten years from now or twenty years from now. I can’t get past that.

Oh not only did she put up her copyrights but also all her real estate. Huh??  This woman will be left with only her name. Now I know Tina Turner made a comeback with only her name but at least she kept the earnings from her future works.

For more on the story of Annie Leibovitz check out this CNN article.