How many teapots are you raising?

During my recent trip to Taiwan, I had the delightful opportunity to spend an afternoon with master blogger and tea aficionado Stéphane Erler of the Tea Masters Blog. At one point, the conversation turned to teapots and the process of “curing” the vessel. Repeatedly brewing the same type of leaf in the teapot permeates the porous clay with the flavor of the tea, lending more depth to the amber elixir.

Stéphane warned that many tea enthusiasts become too wrapped up in the teapots and lose sight of the star: the tea itself.

His mentor taught him that curing teapots is very similar to rearing children. It’s a time-intensive process that requires constant attention. When this impatient American pressed him for an average timeline, Stéphane suggested seven to eight months of daily brewing to season a new teapot. If you divide your time between two teapots, the curing period doubles. If you only brew tea sporadically, the process drags on with slow results.

My Aha! Moment

The conversation reminded me of a few other areas in which I’ve allowed myself to get distracted. Specifically, my sales and marketing have fallen behind schedule because I keep running across a new tool, technique, webinar, etc. So I drop my current plans and check out the new approach… until something else catches my eye.

I decided then and there to follow the same advice that we offer clients: Focus on one area and get that in working order before moving on to the next project. (Think of the classic spinning plates routine, where the entertainer starts one plate spinning and then tends to the rest in rapid succession.)

• A few months before this vacation, I resurrected our monthly newsletter with its new look and shorter format. (Sign up for it here.) Next week will mark our fifth consecutive issue.
• At the start of the trip, we launched this blog. Is it in its final branded form? No. Do we have all our cornerstone content in place? No. But we’re working on it.
• Next up: We’re launching our new website, which has been a work in progress for the last nine months.

Each morning, I remind myself of this new, one-track approach as I brew tea in the tiny teapot from Ten Ren in Taichung. The same tea, the same pot. And it tastes heavenly.

Are you multi-tasking your marketing? Torn between updating your website or overhauling your sales letters? Maybe you’re debating between launching a blog or starting a newsletter. Pick one project, and make it happen.

If you need a writing assist, let us know.

The Secret to Writing Success

Let’s be brutally honest here. I don’t feel like writing right now.

It’s my last day of vacation. The sun is shining. Taichung beckons nearby, with exotic sights unseen and culinary delights untasted.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be at the airport, preparing to fly back to the bitterly cold Northeast.

But therein lies the secret of successful writers: They write, whether or not they feel like it.

If you don’t make your writing a priority, something better will always come along – and you won’t write.

Thinking of starting a blog or some personal writing project? Stop thinking and start writing.

Maybe your initial efforts will suck lemons. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a nugget of gold that will inspire something amazing.

You’ll never find out unless you break out your pen (or pencil, keyboard, etc.) and write.

Go ahead. Spend the next 15 minutes writing whatever comes to mind, and tell us about it below.

Write. Now.

I hate shopping in department stores. My fashion is underdeveloped, at best, and all those choices send me into a panic.

The same instinct to flee assails me when I sit down to write, particularly fiction. Confronted with every writer’s nemesis – the blank page – I don’t know where to start. I’m terrified that I’ll make the wrong choice.

Take my current fiction project: a novel. I’m roughly 9,000 words into what will likely be a 100,000-word manuscript, and I’m not exactly sure where the next scene should go.

As a result, I haven’t touched the manuscript during this vacation.

I think about it and look at my laptop. Then, I do something else.

Today I tried something different: I sat down and started writing – not at my usual sticking point, but at some point later in the story.

It started innocently enough. I was wondering what kind of quirks my current protagonist might have, and baseball came to mind.

What could I reveal about my hero, a paid assassin, through his love of this all-American sport?

After toying with the idea for an hour or two, I grabbed my notebook and started to write.

Let me be honest: It was a slow, painful slog – especially those first fifteen minutes. I even made a note in the margin about the horrible quality of these words, with the caveat that the premise behind them held potential.

Soon, I had written more than 500 words and learned some interesting things about my lead character.

In fact, the experience was so exhilarating that I’m looking forward to getting back to my story.

Are you stuck on a writing project or having problems simply starting? Begin writing somewhere else. Start with the end, or jump into the middle, jotting down your main points and building from there.

Let me know how this works – or share your own suggestions for getting un-stuck.

Small Steps

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao-tzu

Have you read David Allen’s Getting Things Done? This book is an amazing guide to doing more. I’ve even picked up the OmniFocus application for both my computer and my iPhone to help manage my to-do list.

Too bad I’m not so disciplined about using the system.

One of the key principles that Allen writes about is the need to break huge projects into small, actionable steps. It’s the same concept used by that super-achieving minority who set goals and make them happen.

Identify specific, time-sensitive outcomes and create a specific plan of execution.

Yet, what do I have under my goal of “Complete my novel by year end”?

Nada. Zip. Just a daily reminder in my calendar to write 500 words every morning, which I usually ignore.