Writers: Can You Write Two Books at The Same Time?
I’ll be taking an extended leave of absence from work so I can focus on some of my own projects, especially homesteading and writing. I’ll be updating this blog more with all of the projects we’ve been doing that we haven’t had time to post about. For instance, the composting toilet upstairs and the composting toilet outhouse we built attached to the barn (Thanks Jonathan!); the chicken coop, dog house, rabbit hutch; and food posts like our new asparagus patch, how to keep chestnut seeds viable, how to ferment off paw paw flesh from those seeds, making candy out of anise seeds, drying crook-neck squash gourds for birdhouses, etc… One of the problems having a job working on a computer presents is that the very last thing I feel like doing after being online all day is writing a blog post about something that I want to do outside. I’d rather just go do it. And so we’ve done A LOT of stuff and yet haven’t made the time to share it with everyone. That problem should be suspended within the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I am having a tough time choosing between two ideas I have and would love some input. Is it nearly impossible, or inadvisable, to try to write two books at the same time?
Book idea #1 – Biography with Possible Exploration of Spirituality
A biography of my Navy Vet, Pentecostal Preacher Grandfather that may or may not explore my own personal mystic faith through the fire-and-brimstone lens of my family’s faith. I like this idea for several reasons. First and foremost, it is a great excuse to spend some quality time with my grandfather, who was the closest thing I had to a “real” father when growing up. Without him my whole family would have been lost. He won’t be around for much longer and I have a lot of questions for him. I think it would bring him joy to spend some quality time with his namesake (His name is Everett) and to have an opportunity to share all that he has learned in over eight decades of living a full life. Lastly, even if the book never gets published my family will have something of my grandfather to keep for their entire lives, and to pass on to their children’s children. I have one chapter barely started.
Me with Mark and Anna from Walden Effect.
Book Idea #2 – Profiles on Modern Homesteaders Use of Internet
We know a lot of people who are using the Internet in various ways to finance a “back to the land” lifestyle. Technology allows them to practice voluntary simplicity in an age when taxes, healthcare, interest, stagnant wages, economic inequality, the monopolization of farmland, loss of farmland and the generally high cost of living precludes them from just living off the land and the sweat of their backs. The Internet is more democratic than our nation’s agricultural system, and certainly more-so than other sectors of the economy where banks and land developers call all of the shots.
Retail stores close down in rural towns for many reasons. A bad economy, lack of jobs, Walmart moving to town, huge percentages of the population moving to the cities… The internet allows someone who makes something here in the United States to reach a local, state, national and even a global market for the cost of hosting a website (Less than $100 a year) if they are tech-savvy or can teach themselves the skills necessary to set things up. A storefront in town, which has a far smaller and more economically depressed market, would cost them hundreds or thousands every month.
When we shop at Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes… When we eat at McDonald’s, Hardees, KFC, Starbucks…. Most of our money is leaving the community. The staff barely get paid minimum wage, and most of them don’t have healthcare because they can’t get hired full-time. The jobs created are much fewer, and lower paying, than the jobs lost from family businesses. Members of rural communities work very hard, often at low-paying manufacturing jobs, or in agriculture only to have the product of their work (i.e. revenue) siphoned off to the big cities, sometimes even overseas. In other words, the work gets done here and the money goes there. The energy is expended here, and the financial gain is seen there. The environment is destroyed here (especially in rural areas unlucky enough to have an abundance of natural resources, including coal, oil, timber, topsoil…) and the ones who benefit the most from it economically live somewhere else.
Small Internet businesses don’t work that way. The Internet is still the Wild West in many ways, primarily in that corporations (though they have tried, especially in the last two years) have been largely unable to get their puppets in Washington to pass laws (again, not for lack of trying) that keep small businesses from cutting into their corporate profits. With small internet businesses operated from rural communities the money comes OUT of the cities and IN to the communities. Amazing!
Rural Internet Image from http://blog.eogn.com
Think about that… for hundreds of years, at least since the industrial revolution, it has been the opposite. Outside interests bought up the forests and cut out the timber, leaving steep mountainsides barren, and topsoil unprotected. They took out the coal and polluted the rivers. They mined various substances, and now they are even “fracking” because apparently our rivers weren’t enough; they had to pollute our underground water too. If it turns out that our water is clean enough to drink after all of this, you can bet they’re going to be extracting that and sending it to the cities too. All the while the money made from these resources, from our environment, from the hard-working community – has been flowing out to cities right along with our national treasures. The Internet could allow us to keep more non-renewable resources in the rural communities because the community members will not be forced to destroy their own land in order to survive. If we must sell our natural resources we should have options. Options allow us to refuse minimum wage, poor environmental practices, worker abuse, usurpation of landowner rights … and to get the REAL price for our treasures. We all subsidize corporate welfare, but rural communities pay the most. Let the river reverse direction. Let the money flow back into rural communities and be spent there. Let it circulate and bring new life to people who never stopped trying, who never gave up, who never sacrificed their culture and heritage….
We live here because I work online. We are fortunate. Our good fortune is the good fortune of others too. We’ve hired contractors, plumbers, electricians, handymen… We’ve shopped at stores, eaten at restaurants, paid taxes, rented an office… The income for these activities came from outside the community. In our case it came from Denver. We have friends who sell chicken waterers and write online to make a decent living from the middle of nowhere. I know others who, like me, telecommute or have various eCommerce businesses. The money they live off of does not go straight back to the cities. It sticks around and circulates for awhile.
In the long run we need more local businesses that are providing products and services to the local community instead of shipping stuff all over the world. But for now I see the internet playing an important role both in the revival of rural communities, but also – and possibly even more importantly – unchaining thousands of brilliant people from their cubicles, desks and assembly line positions so they can live the lives they love. Even in terms of pure economics, I think that is the best thing that can happen. When we do what we love we produce more. And what we produce is typically much better in every way.
I want to write a book about the people out there who have found a way to make their “simple life” happen by leveraging the internet as an appropriate technology to operate a small-scale, profitable business from a rural community. The book will hopefully provide inspiration to others looking to jump off the work-consume-work hampster wheel. There will be dozens of profiles / case studies showing how people have found all sorts of different ways to make it work, from CSAs to Telecommuting, and from online microbusiness retail websites to art, inventions, blogging and much more!
In case you can’t tell, I’ve been thinking about this one for a long time. I’ve done a bit of work on the outline, and have the first draft of the first chapter finished.
My grandfather’s age and declining health obviously make that idea much more time sensitive. If I have to choose I’ll probably do that one first, but can they both be worked on at the same time? Maybe I could do all of the research and record all of the conversations, but not write, the biography while visiting these homesteads I want to spend time with for the other book?
Category: Simple Thoughts, The Transplants
Everett writes about voluntary simplicity. This blog catalogs his search for "the good life" as he tries to strike a balance between work and play, freedom and responsibility, simplicity and comfort.
I wish you’d posted about your composting toilet outhouse before we started ours — we probably would have learned something!
I understand your personal reasons for wanting to write about your grandfather, but I’d recommend book 2 for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve found that writing about family is far more fraught with drama than you would ever imagine…. It might be worth doing the interview and then sitting on the data for a while for that reason alone. (But maybe your family isn’t as dramatic as mine?)
I also think book 2 would be a major winner in terms of marketability and might inspire more people to give it a shot. Plus, I want to read it!
I love that we’re your poster child.
If you haven’t looked into these folks already, another few businesses you might be interested in include:
http://blog.holyscraphotsprings.com/
http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/
http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/
I can’t speak to whether it’s possible to write more than one book at once. I don’t seem to do a very good job at it, but you might do better. I do, however, keep many idea files going at the same time.
One bit of advice I’d give you, if you’re interested in leveraging Amazon’s ebook feature, is to publish in small chunks for 99 cents. It really helps build a following, and lets you do all kinds of marketing things like setting one “book” free for a couple of days to drive business to the others. I can talk your ear off about this and other things if you’re interested….
Anna,
Just the sort of feedback I was looking for. I think gathering material and spending time with my grandfather can be done without actually having to write it up at this time. That first chapter I have drafted up is about you and Mark. I’ll probably have to get you to sign a waver or something. ;-P Maybe we can talk about it more if I come visit this fall? Looks like my weedays are gonna be opening up here soon!
I’ve subscribed to the Cold Antler Farm blog for awhile and think Jenna is awesome. I’ll check out the other two soon. I was also thinking about some of the folks at Dancing Rabbit Eco Village who I know that have several online businesses. I know a guy locally who sells wooden rings online that he makes by grafting twigs onto themselves. It’s pretty sweet: http://www.etsy.com/shop/GreenWoodWizard/policy . There are just so many great people to write about I think the hardest thing is going to be whittling that down. I could be visiting homesteads for years and not see all of the ways people have done this.
OK I’ve committed to it on our blog in front of everyone. Now there is shame involved if I don’t write it. I guess I should take whatever motivation I can get.
Thanks!
I Know I would read about the Grandfather. Also, people wanting simplicity, is often about remembering those days when things were simpler. We have freezers to save meat… I learned recently about people canning meat in jars (in lard). (like sausage), taking it fishing then setting it in the sun to warm his lunch. What if we didn’t have any electricity? Maybe put both your ideas into one book. What did Grandpa do to make money? Compare it to now. What do you do? What is your faith? What is his? Good luck….let us know where to buy either book.
Hi Everett,
My 2 cents. I agree with Anna–the second book should be first. Besides my selfish reasons to read it and gain knowledge because the timing is right. There are so many city people like myself who want to live simpler and closer to land but don’t know how to get there. There are hard working people close to retirement who still need to make some money because they lost a lot a few years ago in the recession. What I am saying is that there is more of a market for the 2nd book.
As for documenting your granddad’s life and history, maybe you can have lots of time talking and interviewing and recording it and actually writing it late, but know when that time comes to write he may not be here for him to actually read it to make corrections or be proud of your work.
Can you do both, I would say yes because it is two completely different subjects. Maybe setting mini goals with each book, so many chapter with 1 book then switch to the other. Or 1 decade here and then the other would be maybe 1 family’ way of living. Eventually you would burn out though.. Good luck though and I look forward to your work.
Everett — Just holler — we’d love to see you and will gladly sign anything you want.
It’s harder and harder to drag me off the farm, but we love feeding visitors.
Thanks Mickey and Karon,
I think I’m going to just spend some time with my grandfather in Cincinnati, Ohio and his sister in Bristol, Tennessee. I’ll take a tape recorder and a notepad and see what happens. But for now the focus will just be on collecting as many of his stories as I can and spending quality time with him. I’ll deal with a book later, if one happens. In terms of writing a book, I think I’m going to focus on the homesteading / voluntary simplicity / back-to-the-land one for now. The time is right and this has been fermenting in my brain for about three years now so… let’s do it!
OK I know who I’m visiting on my trip to Tennessee (Anna and Mark!) and a few around here. But what homesteaders can I visit in Kentucky and Ohio? Time to start nominating! Here are the criteria of the types of folks I’d love to profile:
- Living off the land as much as they can and practicing voluntary simplicity in their own way.
- At least partially financing their homesteading lifestyle with income generated over the internet in some way.
- Preferably they live in a rural area, but I may include some urban homesteaders under the right circumstances.
- Willing to share their stories, advice and experiences with anyone who might read the book.
Thanks for any recommendations!
Do the grandfather book in its entirety because if you only have notes or recordings to go from when you write the book and he has passed on by then you are going to find gaps in the story. It’s only natural when recording life stories such as these that even though you are essentially following a timeline, a lifespan, the story will digress while being told. If you write it now he will still be available to fill in the gaps and the story will be fully fleshed out as you want to tell it.
Everett,
I am toiling with much the same dilemma as you are! For 8 1/2 years I successfully taught people with disabilities how to create art and handmade products for the purpose of earning income and watched many become exponentially successful as well as creating a new, progressive model in supported community-based employment for the non-profit I was employed by. During that time I also met and was mentored by an amazing fine artist who has led a very interesting life that I am interested in writing his biography, while also my own entrance into the art world, and how I found my own passion in the arts through his guidance and support. I want to write about the model I developed with the individuals I worked with at the non-profit as I think it could serve as a guide not only for supported employment providers but also educators and family members who support people with special needs in terms of creative activity. I have that one started, about 3 chapters, but, like you, my mentor is aging and I hate to let his stories go with him before they are written. I think I could easily write the book about creative activity for people with disabilities, and I don’t even know where to start with a biography.
We recently also made the exodus from city to farm, relocating a month ago from Las Vegas to Wisconsin. My husband teaches online at the College of Southern Neveda (telecommuting) and I have an Etsy site where I create and sell handmade baby clothes. If your interested in what we are doing check out our blog http://www.hiphomestead.blogspot.com.
Thanks for posting this…it has also given me something to ponder!
Cheers,
Angie
http://www.breedbaby.easy.com
Angie,
I tried to leave this comment on your blog but none of the sign-in options worked for my situation. Google makes authentication such a pain in the butt when you have multiple accounts. For what it’s wort, we use ASKIMET on this site and don’t really have to deal with much spam at all (*knock on wood).
It sounds like you all found a great situation. We’ve come about it the long, hard way and I wish we’d have just rented on an existing farm for a couple of years first. We would be so much further by now! But you learn what you learn when you’re ready to learn it so…
Congrats! I look forward to reading more posts.
I like the idea of gathering the information on your grandfather but actually writing the 2nd book first.
Everett, we are in Tennessee now and will be in Floyd hopefully this weekend. We would love to meet you and your family if you have time.