On Writing

I had the honor of speaking for a group of writers the other day and I did some thinking about the written word and its possibilities. Once I took a few words and sent them off to the creator of the famous Marmaduke Cartoon. He sent me a few dollars and drew a wonderful cartoon using my few words. It was published in a newspaper and then appeared later in a Book with a collection of their best ones. I put another few words together into a joke and it appeared in a Home Improvement Magazine. I wrote a poem and after 25 rejections it appeared in a Christian Magazine. I wrote about those rejections and it turned into a chapter in my book titled Selling Lucky. Earl Nightingale did a radio show that was broadcast to several million listeners all over the world and he talked about my poem. Later that article I wrote about those rejections was in a sales magazine and just a couple of years ago that article containing the poem was in a Safety newsletter online and went out to around 6,000. Of course I have used that same often rejected poem in writing classes and in sales speeches and it was on some of my Sales Cassettes and I did it a few times when we were making videos and now days it could be an item on Youtube.com. I will spare you from reading the poem. The whole thing is that when you do something take a good look at what you’ve done and see if it might have another life in a different application.