The Meaning

I recently watched a TED talk (I know, I know, but it was for my other job OK?) where the speaker (Simon Sinek) spoke about how leaders become leaders.  How some people excel and how others don’t.  Of course I immediately started to think about writing.

Mr. Sinek says in his talk, that people or groups fail because they talk about what they do.  The people or groups who succeed talk about why they do it.

This is something I’ve always struggled with.  When people ask what my book is about, or what I’m writing about, I ramble on about some such theme, or some kind of similarity to something else, to try and give them an understanding of what it’s about and if they think they’ll like it.

But all I’m doing is boring people with what I’m writing.  What is going to make them pick up my book over someone else’s?  What makes my Twilight Zone inspired short story collection unique from someone else’s Twilight Zone inspired short story collection?  What makes my Children’s Chapter book series different from someone else’s?  Content?  Ability?  Character?

No.

Marketing is always something I’ve struggled with because I’ve always thought about what I’m doing.  I’ve always described what I was doing to people.  I’ve never discussed why I did it.

This still isn’t a easy subject to broach, because for the most part, I’ve never thought about it myself.  I’ve always said I write because I love to tell stories, but is this the truth?  Is there something more?

The more I think about it, everything comes back to Belief.

I believe in myself. I believe in my writing.  I believe in what writing stands for.

I believe that if I can write a children’s chapter book series about literature, than I will inspire a child to go out and read some of that literature.

I believe that that child will be once of the next leaders of the world.

I believe that by writing a science fiction story that pushes a character past the limits of their imagination, then the reader will believe that they can do something past their own.

I believe writing improves the world.  That is the meaning behind what I do.  I strive to make the world better one person at a time.

That is why I’ll succeed.  Because I wont stop.  I believe it too hard to give up.