Personal Development for Polymaths

Why Playing Financial Defense Is A Sucker’s Game

When I was at Virginia Tech, their football team’s defense was a sight to behold, particularly their special teams. They blocked more kicks than anyone else in the country, enough that we were almost surprised when the other team managed to get a kick off. Very often, blocked kicks became immediate scoring opportunities. I even saw them intercept a two-point conversion attempt and run it back for a safety.

And on one particular day, the defense and special teams were in full force, working the magic we had come to expect of them. Except there was one problem: the offense didn’t show up.

Despite the sacks and despite the blocked kicks, they weren’t putting points on the board because they couldn’t do anything on offense. As one announcer said, “Special teams will only get you so far.” And Virginia Tech lost that game.

In personal finance, people who only play defense can expect to meet a similar fate. Steve at Brip Blap has often written about the importance of expanding your means, and I agree with him.

Most people focus purely on reducing spending. That’s financial defense. It’s critically important (and most people are losing that game), but it’s not the only game. There’s also the often ignored game of financial offense, or earning more than you spend, rather than spending less than you earn.

One of the most popular bits of financial wisdom is to keep your eye on the Latte Factor, which is the tendency for small purchases to add up unnoticed over time. And it’s good advice. By controlling your small expenses and investing the money you save, you can end up with lots more money than you would otherwise, perhaps a difference of millions of dollars over a period of decades.

I’m not knocking this at all. I think frugality is the most important key to financial independence. In Where Have All The Dollars Gone?, I talked about the method I used to plug my financial leaks early on, basically just keeping extremely close tabs on the Latte Factor. But there are some problems with only playing financial defense.

In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss says:

“This book is not about saving and will not recommend you abandon your daily glass of red wine for a million dollars 50 years from now. I’d rather have the wine. I won’t ask you to choose between enjoyment today or money later. I believe you can have both now. The goal is fun and profit.”

When you save money today in hopes of spending it later, you’re deferring a lot of your enjoyment to a future date that may never arrive. You might not live that long. Or the economy might collapse (I don’t mean a stock market correction, but something like the dollar no longer being accepted as currency). It doesn’t make sense to put all your chips on something that may or may not ever happen.

Another thing is that you quickly run into diminishing returns. The more you save, the harder it becomes to save more. You can cut out the frivolous expenses pretty easily. Then you can use some self-discipline to live below your means. But when you’re spending several hours a day looking for coupons, you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Another thing is that by trying so hard to reduce your expenses to zero, you’re cutting yourself off from life. If your goal is to sit perfectly still to minimize the energy you use, oxygen you breathe, heat you generate, etc., then what good are you? Why invest so much effort into being a bump on a log?

To be fair, increasing your income is easier said than done, and I’m not going to propose how to do it in this post. I’m just suggesting that you develop both your financial offense and defense. Control your expenses, yes, but instead of trying to be totally passive to minimize your consumption, work on maximizing your output. Create value, make money, boost enjoyment, engage in life.

Photo by Stacey Lynn Photography

Lightworker’s Guide To Self-Employment

Akemi Gaines has released a free ebook, her Lightworker’s Guide to Self-Employment. No email required, just click and read.

A lot of you know Akemi as an Akashic record reader. And my first interview with her (previous link) was one of my most popular posts ever, so apparently a lot of you find her business interesting. Of course, she didn’t just fall into that gig. She had to make the leap from corporate employee to small business owner, a leap she made quite well.

Her ebook covers topics such as myths and reality, paycheck mentality vs. risk management, marketing, business names, fear of success, etc. But what makes it unique is that it’s written for lightworkers, or people who want to make the world a better place instead of just making money at any cost.

Are lightworkers at a disadvantage in the world of business? You might be surprised. Instead of trying to become an aggressive predatory type because you think that’s what you have to do, check out the Lightworker’s Guide to Self-Employment and see how your good side can be a great asset for you in business.

Personal Development For Polymaths

Leonardo da Vinci: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, and writer. Polymath is almost an understatement.

“Polymath” comes from the Greek word polymathēs, meaning “having learned much,” and usually refers to having significant knowledge or expertise in a variety of fields. I’m going to broaden the term and say it also refers to having diverse interests and hobbies. It’s the opposite of a monomath, someone who specializes in one field and has a more focused range of interests.

The word “polymath” is less common than the term “Renaissance man,” but (1) being politically correct by writing Renaissance (wo)man every time would be awfully cumbersome, and (2) the world has changed a lot over the last 400 years, and the Renaissance ideal no longer applies in the age of the iPhone.

Polymaths and monomaths are at opposite ends of a long and nebulous spectrum. An extreme example of a monomath would be someone who completely isolates themselves from society to devote their entire life to becoming the ultimate chess player, to the detriment of everything else. An extreme example of a polymath would be a pure generalist, someone who chases everything under the sun, seeking high achievement in every field of study, every language, every musical instrument, every sport, etc.

But neither of these extremes actually exists. Everyone is somewhere in between. Most people are clustered near the middle, some are more on the monomath side, and others are more on the polymath side. It’s a really vague scale, so don’t worry about pinpointing your location on it. You might have a sense of where you are, and if not, that means you’re in the middle, in the range we call “normal,” with a typical balance of breadth and depth.

As you can see, my blog’s tagline is now “Personal Development for Polymaths.” Nothing is really going to change, except that I now have a context for everything. The purpose of my blog is to seek an answer to the question: How does a polymath make the most of their life?

I haven’t thought the whole polymath thing through all the way, but here are some thoughts for now. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. Let’s ditch da Vinci as an example of a typical polymath.

Yes, that’s his self-portrait above (copyright expired), but he’s an extreme example, not a representative one. Leonardo was an outlier among outliers, the archetype of the Renaissance man at the height of the Renaissance. He made Michelangelo look like a two-bit hack who just got lucky with a chisel. He bears little resemblance to the modern day polymath next door.

2. You are a polymath if you think you are.

If Leonardo-like stature is not required for admission into the ranks of polymaths, what is? It’s hard to propose a clear definition, because polymaths are all so different. Tanned muscle-bound aikido-master genius stud philosophers would probably qualify, but what about real estate agent psychologist figure skater weapons expert hamster breeders?

Anyway, do you have intense interest or significant proficiency in areas that are usually considered unrelated? Do you struggle with finding something to focus on, because you think you’re supposed to? Would you find life to be empty if you could only pursue one thing? Do you think specialization is for insects? If so, you might be a polymath.

It’s hard to judge other people because we don’t necessarily see all sides of them, and it’s probably pointless to come up with a test that tells you where you fall on the spectrum. So you’re the best judge of yourself.

3. Polymathy is neither good nor bad, it just is.

Albert Einstein focused on theoretical physics. Isaac Newton took a much broader approach, making important contributions to many different branches of science. He also invented calculus, and though he’s not known for it, most of his work was actually in the field of Bible interpretation.

In the end, they achieved very similar levels of success, recognition, and impact. They both did what they wanted, and they both came out on top.

4. The world needs specialists, but you don’t have to be one of them.

We need specialists to do things like find a cure for cancer and research alternative fuels. But that doesn’t mean it has to be you. Don’t worry about what you should or should not be. Just go with what you are.

(However, this is not to say that a polymath should eschew all aspects of specialization, as it still has a place in their bag of tricks.)

5. Somewhat paradoxically, being a polymath has nothing to do with being well-rounded.

Polymaths are often condescendingly called “jack of all trades, master of none.” This is flawed right off the bat because no one is a jack of all trades. Everyone has major holes. Trying to be well-rounded means ignoring your strengths and passions to work on things you hate and suck at. How can that possibly be a good thing?

Being a polymath means pursuing a wide variety of trades, but certainly not all of them. If you don’t want to play the piano, don’t play the piano.

6. Mastery is overrated.

A follow-up to the “master of none” bit. First, specialization does not guarantee mastery. There have been many people who gave their lives to theoretical physics, who did not come close to Einstein’s level. That doesn’t mean their lives were a waste, of course. But if you have many interests, you shouldn’t ignore all but one with the expectation that greatness will surely follow.

Also, maybe mastery at that level isn’t that important. Reaching the 95th percentile is far easier than reaching the 99.99th percentile. Some people will prefer moderate mastery of many things over supreme mastery of one thing. Besides, being the best in an objective sense doesn’t guarantee that others will subjectively agree, because value is in the eye of the beholder.

7. Polymaths may have certain traits in common.

As different as one polymath is from the next, I’m sure they tend to have certain things in common. For now though, I don’t know what they might be.

Any list of recognized polymaths you dig up will look like a list of universal geniuses. But I actually think polymathy has little to no correlation with intelligence (witness Einstein the monomath). I was thinking that polymathy is highly correlated with curiosity, but again, Einstein is an obvious counter example. Thoughts?

8. Polymaths face different challenges from monomaths.

Monomaths face challenges such as burnout from lack of variety, working ever harder for continuously diminishing returns, and facing stiff competition from people who do the exact same thing, only better.

The main challenge polymaths face is that their fanatical thirst for variety may deprive them of the focus and follow-through needed to have a significant impact in any one area. Leonardo himself warned about this, saying “Like a kingdom divided, which rushes to its doom, the mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.”

Polymaths may also have trouble finding appropriate outlets for their talent in a world that increasingly demands specialists.

Overall, I think the monomaths have it easier, because the world is friendlier to them, they know exactly what they want, and they’re likely to have a clear road map to follow. Hence, there is a need for more polymath support.

Please share your thoughts. What makes someone a polymath? What do they have in common? Do they have a harder time in life? Would they be better off pursuing all their interests, or focusing on a smaller number of them?

Stop Sucking And Live A Life Of Abundance

More than two years ago, I told Randy Pausch that I was starting a blog with the tagline “Stop Sucking and Live a Life of Abundance.” He then wrote about it in his book The Last Lecture, and my tagline became the number one keyword people used to find my blog.

While it’s no longer my number one keyword, I still receive hundreds of visitors a month who are searching for “Stop Sucking and Live a Life of Abundance.” So if you’re one of them, I just want to say that yes, you’ve come to the right place. It just has a different name now.

My original tagline was an idea that came to me before I had any idea what I was going to write about. And it worked well for more than two years, but now it’s time for a change.

My new tagline is “Personal Development for Polymaths.” It just hit me one day, and I instantly knew it was right. Finally, I can concisely say exactly who my blog is for and what it’s about. It also has some nice alliteration, it’s much better for SEO, it’s simpler, more memorable, and it sounds like an actual name for a blog (something that’s helpful when your domain name doesn’t say what it’s about).

Not much will change, because I was already writing about a broad range of personal development topics. Now I just have an umbrella to put them under.

Fortunately, I didn’t lock myself in with a domain name like stopsucking.com (which for some reason is the site of Trilogy Networks), a deliberate move since I wasn’t ready to commit to any particular niche. So all it took was a lightning fast banner update by Men With Pens, and I was ready to go (though I still have to redo the home page).

Now, what exactly do I mean by polymath? Stay tuned for the next post…

Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York

65 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into what would become the town of Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York. It left a thick layer of atmospheric dust that would shroud the world in darkness for 1,000 years. But it also left something else…

Now, in the final countdown to the Mayan-prophesied doomsday of 2012, a series of mysterious occurrences signals that the end is near. In a frantic race against the clock, mesothelioma lawyer Jack Crowley will risk everything to find the truth, knowing he is the last hope of saving the world from unspeakable evil.

My first novel is now available to be read online, for free. As you can see, it’s a 2012 doomsday novel revolving around a lawyer in an unknown town in New York. Before we go any further,

1. I’m aware that the asteroid really landed in Mexico, not New York. This is explained in the book.

2. I’m aware that the Mayans didn’t really predict the end of the world in 2012. This is explained too.

I’m not sure what genre this is, but it’s something like an apocalyptic thriller parody. Here are some selected characters:

Jack Crowley: A successful New York mesothelioma attorney at the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. He’s sick of all the 2012 hype, and he thought today would be just like any other. He was wrong.

Milli Vanilli Chilli Willi: A prominent mesothelioma physician who seems capable of anything. But can she cure the mother of all cancers?

Frank Breadstick: A bright-eyed paralegal whose good intentions are often compromised by his poor judgment. Will he be more of an asset than a liability?

Count Voldemort Sidious Hitler the Terrible (Morty): Senior partner at Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. Mesothelioma law is his life. Does he know more than he’s letting on?

Kentucky Jones (Tuck): Part archaeologist, part New Age thinker, part cowboy. Can he decrypt the important clues left by past civilizations?

Ivana Suyurass: A fierce lawyer with a fiery temper, she usually gets what she wants. Why is she showing a sudden interest in certain people?

Plenty O’Lawsuits: A young lawyer new to the firm. Will she find mesothelioma law to be the calling she hopes it is?

Teflon Tyrone: He doesn’t talk much, but you wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley. So what happens when someone makes that mistake?

Feel free to leave comments noting any typos, inconsistencies, plot holes, etc. that you find. All suggestions will be considered for inclusion in future revisions. (I’m aware that some of the links point to blank pages, and I’ll be working on this soon.) Other than that, just sit back and see what happens on this eventful December 20, 2012.

Right now, an evil cancer is threatening to end the world.
The only ones who can stop it are mysteriously disappearing.
And people I work with may be involved in both.

I’m mesothelioma lawyer Jack Crowley,
and today is the longest day of my life.

Read Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York, before it’s too late!

The Marge Simpson Guide To Writing A Novel

Marge Simpson is known as the patient mother, dutiful housewife, and voice of morality in the Simpson family. But every now and then, she takes up a bold and daring project that rocks Springfield.

Case in point: her first novel, The Harpooned Heart. She started it on a whim, got it finished in record time, and quickly became the talk of the town. Here are some tips she used to spur herself to success (as well as some lessons she hopefully learned along the way).

1. Know that you can do it.

Marge walked into a Bookaccino’s bookstore to get a muffin. But once inside, she found out that Esme Delacroix, author of the novel To Kiss a Scoundrel was there. Marge asked Esme if she had any special training to become a writer.

Esme said that she just took a class at “the Y” (Yale University), but anyone with passion can write. Hearing this, Marge realized that she too could become a novelist. She had only one more question: ”If I write a book, will they tell me when it comes out?”

2. Enlist the support of your family.

Writing a novel is going to impact your family, so you need them to be on board with you.

On what Marge wanted to be her first night of novel writing, she was hoping that her husband Homer would watch the kids. But Homer informed Marge that he had just started a new job as an ambulance driver, with his first shift being that night.

A little more communication both ways would have been helpful in letting everyone pursue their goals.

3. Get inspiration from anywhere.

While pondering what to write about, Marge noticed a painting of a sailboat that had always sparked her imagination. As she looked at it, her imagination morphed the sailboat into a whaling vessel. Then she shouted, “That’s it! A novel about whaling! That’s something you haven’t seen before.”

4. Be aware of what’s already been done.

It turns out that there was already a kinda famous novel about whaling. When Marge read the title of the painting that inspired her, she said “Thank you, ‘Scene From Moby-Dick.’”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that her book would be accused of plagiarism, but it would be nice to know what’s already out there. However, it’s hard to know about everything. In high school English class, I wrote a short story that the teacher said was “Very Grapes of Wrathy, don’t you think?” But I had never read The Grapes of Wrath, and had no idea what it was about.

5. Don’t be a perfectionist.

If you try to write the perfect novel on your first try, the likely result is that you’ll never finish. Instead, try the NaNoWriMo approach, which advocates getting a rough draft done quickly, then revising only when the draft is done.

Marge sat down at her computer and wrote this:

“Chapter 1: Starts and Beginnings

Swim, swim, swim, thought the whale, flopping his floppers.”

It’s not exactly great literature, but the time to revise it is after the draft is done, not constantly.

6. Be careful about taking too many brownie breaks.

Immediately after writing her first sentence, Marge ran into the kitchen for a “brownie break.” While it’s important to take breaks as needed, your breaks will be more effective and better deserved if you take them as a reward for getting more than one sentence done. And eating too many brownies poses nutritional problems.

7. Watch out for procrastination.

This is related to the previous point, but more subtle. While it will be obvious when you’re eating too many brownies, it’s less obvious when you’re doing work that seems productive but isn’t really.

Having barely started, Marge stopped to write her acknowledgements page. After thanking “…Mayor Quimby, Disco Stu, and our fighting men and women overseas,” she returned to the novel.

She then wrote one sentence: “Temperance Barrows stared at the sea, like a dog stares at a ham.” Realizing that she had just finished her first paragraph, she decided it was time to run spell check.

These are things that need to be done, but don’t forget that almost all of your focus needs to be on actually getting the novel written.

8. Write about what you know.

Marge based her characters on people she knew, which made it easier to give them consistent personalities. She was also knowledgeable about her novel’s setting, which made it easier to create realistic surroundings.

Everyone brings their own experiences to the table, so try to get some use out of them.

9. Be careful about writing a real person into your novel.

It’s one thing to base a character on someone you know, perhaps borrowing their looks, occupation, or personality to inject some believable positive qualities into a character. It’s another thing to make the character so similar that the person feels like they’ve been put in the spotlight.

Controversy erupts when Marge created a character based on Homer’s bad side, revealing his flaws to the world. Fortunately, Lisa advised her to show it to Homer before publishing it. Unfortunately, Homer said he was OK, but hadn’t actually read it. It’s best to let your fiction be fictional.

10. Don’t make your characters too perfect.

While Marge shouldn’t have done that to Homer, it did have the beneficial side effect of adding some character flaws. When Temperance’s husband was perfect, there was no conflict, nothing to keep the reader interested. But when he became a jerk, things became interesting. (Especially when the character based on Ned Flanders became a potential love interest – see the previous point.)

11. Create an idea file.

After seeing the conflict arising from the deeply flawed husband, Marge says, ”This story is as dark as those new Milky Way bars. Ooh, that’s a good analogy. I’ll work it in somewhere.” She then writes this down for later, and continues writing.

Lots of ideas will come to mind when you’re writing. If you always stop to see how you can work them in, that will suck up a lot of time. But if you write them down in your idea file, you can keep going, knowing they won’t be forgotten. When you’re done with your draft, you might see that they’re no longer needed, or you might know the perfect place to use them.

12. Be prepared for criticism.

You may have fans. You’ll definitely have critics. The best review Marge got was Homer’s less than enthusiastic testimonial: ”The end of your book was the wake-up call I needed after falling asleep at the beginning of your book.” But she handled it just fine, and will hopefully use the criticism to improve.

13. You don’t ever have to stop writing.

If you like writing one novel, there’s no reason you have to stop there. As soon as Marge was done promoting her first book, she jumped right into the sequel, The Harpooned Heart II: Thunder Down Under. She started with “Temperance Barrows stared at the shrimp on the barbie…” Who knows where her imagination will take her this time?

Photo by dannysullivan

How To Write A Novel In 21 Days

I just wrote my first novel in 21 days. At 55,000 words, that’s about 2,619 words a day. While I’m not ready to release it to everyone just yet, I’m going to share some tips on how you can become a novelist too, at lightning speed. (Update 12/7/2009: My novel, Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York, is now available online.)

I did this as my first foray into NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November. Now in its 11th year, NaNoWriMo has become a popular international event (despite the “Na” part of its name).

The goal is simple: write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in the month of November. 50,000 words because it’s a nice round number towards the lower end of the novel range. And November because the founders wanted to take advantage of the miserable weather.

You can start planning beforehand, but you can’t actually start writing until November 1st. Other than that, there aren’t really any hard rules, although they suggest that you don’t just write the same word 50,000 times. They say that if you think it’s a novel, they think it’s a novel.

This year, there are 170,000 participants, and about 15% of the participants will “win,” or reach the 50,000 word minimum by the end of the month. There are no points for character development or interesting plots; if you write 50,000 words, you win. The premise here is quantity over quality.

While that may sound crazy, the idea is that most aspiring novelists fail to write their novel, not because they’re not good enough, but because they just don’t get the words written. They have this saying: a bad draft can be revised into a great novel, but a blank page can’t be revised into anything other than a blank page. And surprisingly, some NaNoWriMo novels have become bestsellers.

I wasn’t sure if I could even finish, let alone do a decent job. But I love the finished product.

I haven’t officially “won” yet, because their site doesn’t let you verify your word count until November 25th. When you do, you get a printable certificate, an icon for your website, and inclusion in the winner’s list.

Will I do it again? Maybe not. I’m really glad I did it once, but I found it extremely stressful. But for those who want to, here are some tips.

1. Decide whether it’s worth it.

This is a big commitment that will take over your whole November. While you can back out at any time, it’s best to decide up front whether you really want to do it. If not, then don’t do it. If so, then don’t make excuses.

2. Turn off the TV, log out of Twitter.

There’s no time to lose, and you can’t afford distractions.

3. Join a support group.

NaNoWriMo offers a built-in community, with forums and ways to connect with local groups. I didn’t use these features, but they’re great for people who need to be in touch with other people who are going through it. I did enjoy the occasional pep talk emails though.

4. Know that you can do it.

I’ve heard people say that they can’t write a novel because they’re not a novelist. Well of course you’re not a novelist, if you haven’t written a novel yet! But after you write one, then you will be a novelist. So get started.

5. Do your planning and research ahead of time.

While I didn’t have much of an outline in my head before I started, I had some ideas. I also knew the main characters – their names, and a little bit about them. And the stuff I needed to research, I tried to do it before I started writing. Once the clock starts ticking, you want to just go full speed ahead.

6. Don’t worry too much about quality.

This was a tough one for me, because I tend to write very slowly, since I want to make sure everything works out just right. But I knew I didn’t have time for that here. I’ll need to go through my draft again to proofread it (I already noticed I accidentally brought a character back to life by using the wrong name). And I’m sure I introduced some inconsistencies by starting out one way, then changing my mind.

These things can all be taken care of later. That’s why they call it a rough draft. Rest assured that bookstores are filled with novels that are worse than yours will be.

7. Pace yourself.

50,000 words in 30 days is 1,667 words a day (that’s almost exactly the length of this blog post). But if you target the minimum, you have a problem when you fall short. I wrote 6,009 words the first day because I was excited to get started, but I knew that wasn’t sustainable. I decided to target 2,000 words a day, a goal I hit consistently, though I found it to be quite a lot.

By sticking to just over 2,000 words a day, I was on track to finish on time, without a big rush at the end. When I first saw that I could finish before Thanksgiving, and then saw that I could finish in three weeks, I ramped it up a bit. But only on three days did I write significantly more than 2,000 words.

8. Resist the urge to edit.

If you have a tiny little tweak to make, go ahead and do it now. But if it will take a while, just write a note to come back to it later. It will be hard enough just to write everything once, and there won’t be time to write everything twice.

9. Write the kind of novel you want to write.

Don’t think that your novel has to be the kind of thing high school kids would study in English class. Some parts of my novel are beyond ridiculous, but that’s the way I wanted to write. So you write the way you want to write.

10. Make decisions fast.

On the first page, I found myself in the midst of a huge internal debate over the brand of bourbon that the main character should be drinking. Realizing that there was absolutely no time for hesitation, I knew I had to just pick one and move on. This happened many times, so I got in the habit of deciding quickly, and reserving the right to change things later (the bourbon did change, in the end).

11. Be aware that some parts are much easier to write than others.

I found writing dialogue to be really cumbersome. I like writing what the characters say, but I hate figuring out how to say that they said it (i.e., “Blah blah blah,” he said in an accent reminiscent of the Swedish Chef on the Muppets, “blah blah blah blah blah.”)

But when I was writing exposition (the main character reflecting on the significance of various things), the words just flew by. So when I found myself writing fast, I kept following that train of thought as far as it would go. That would help pick up the slack when the words came like molasses flowing uphill.

12. Have a word count safety net.

I had one particular scene in mind that could be as long as I needed it to be, because two characters were just talking about stuff while waiting for something to happen. I was saving it for the end. I thought I’d write the rest of the book first, and after I was done, however short I was of 50,000 words, I’d get the rest from this scene. It could have been 20,000 words if it had to be. As it turned out, I didn’t need any extra words, but it was nice to know I had a safety net if I did.

13. Don’t necessarily do it in 21 days. Or even 30 days.

This kind of goes against the whole foundation of NaNoWriMo, but I think some people are better off not subjecting themselves to this time constraint. NaNoWriMo gives you 30 days to write 50,000 words, which is insane. I wrote 55,000 words in 21 days, which is even more insane.

Keep in mind that the time needed to write something increases more than proportionally with the word count. A 50,000 word novel takes much more than 50 times as long as a 1,000 word blog post. Writing a novel is a really big deal. If it’s going to drive you crazy to force yourself to do it in such a short period of time, then give yourself more time.

60 days would probably give you a comfortable yet fairly brisk pace for writing a 50,000 word novel. I wouldn’t stretch it out any longer than that though, or you might never finish. Get a decent draft done quickly, then revise it.

How many words in a novel?

By the way, for those of you wondering how long a novel has to be, The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Award gives these definitions:

Novel: 40,000+ words
Novella: 17,500-39,999 words
Novelette: 7,500-17,499 words
Short story: less than 7,500 words

NaNoWriMo sets the minimum word count at 50,000, a nice round number that’s big enough to be considered a novel. And while that word count is on the low end of the novel spectrum, there have been some great novels around that length. Personally, I find most novels far too long. When I read The Lord of the Rings, I remember wondering “are these damn hobbits ever going to stop singing?”

For reference, here are some well known works (some of them shorter than novel length), sorted by word count.

Title	Word Count
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	26,059
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland	27,241
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy	46,333
The Great Gatsby	50,061
Brave New World	64,575
Around the World in Eighty Days	64,594
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone	75,000
Frankenstein	75,142
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	78,260
The Sound and the Fury	96,709
Nineteen Eighty-Four	101,052
Gulliver’s Travels	102,211
Walden	107,406
Pride and Prejudice	122,685
Dracula	161,774
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	191,000
Crime and Punishment	208,114
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	255,000

Why Breaking A Mirror Means Less Bad Luck Than You Thought

Is everyone here? I hope you all survived Friday the 13th. Yesterday was our third Friday the 13th of the year, which is the greatest number of times it can happen in one year. The next year with three Friday the 13ths is 2012, a year which now has yet another reason for people to fear it.

On Friday, February 13th, 2009, I wrote about why Friday the 13th is considered bad luck. There were many possible reasons, none of which sounded very convincing. But it shows that people can be afraid of something without having any idea why.

Now it’s time to talk about another superstition: that breaking a mirror gives you seven years of bad luck. I’m sure there are hundreds of millions of people who believe this. What’s interesting about this one is that not only is the superstition baseless, but what we’ve heard isn’t even the right superstition.

I had always heard that if you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck, simple as that. But I later learned that this wasn’t the original superstition. I’ve heard different variations, but I’ll tell you the one that sounds right to me.

The idea is that your reflection contains part of your soul. If you break a mirror while your reflection is in it, that part of your soul dies. But you get a new soul every seven years. So until the end of your current soul’s seven year lifetime, whether that happens in one year or five or whatever, you’ll be walking around with a damaged soul, and you’ll have bad luck.

This means that even if you believe the superstition, breaking a mirror is completely harmless if your reflection isn’t in it at the time. Granted, it usually will be, but it’s good news if you were holding the mirror away from you when you dropped it.

More importantly, you won’t get seven years of bad luck. It’s only until your age reaches the next multiple of seven, when you get a new soul. That’s three and a half years of bad luck on average.

There’s some bad news though. If a mirror breaks while your reflection is in it, you’ll get bad luck even if you weren’t the one who broke it.

Nobody believes in the original version of this superstition, though. At the age of 34 (one year before a new soul), someone will drop a mirror with a sheet draped over it (no reflection), and convince themselves that they’re getting seven years of bad luck.

But also, they’ll be standing in front of a mirror while someone else breaks it, and have no concern at all for themselves, not being aware that it doesn’t matter who breaks the mirror. If they don’t believe in that part, then they don’t have to believe in the other part.

How many people create a self-fulfilling prophecy of bad luck for themselves, because they believe in a superstition that never was?

Become A Freelance Superstar

Monika Mundell and Gobala Krishnan have just released a new ebook called Freelance Superstar: How To Quit Your Job And Make A Living From Freelance Writing.

While I hadn’t heard of Gobala before, I know that Monika has been making a living purely from freelance writing for quite a while now. I expected that she would have some solid information to share, and she certainly does.

This ebook is very professional and covers many different aspects of freelance writing, from finding a niche to setting rates to promoting yourself to working with clients to managing the many other aspects of your business. Anyone with basic competency in the English language who puts this information to use will be able to start making money very quickly, and with enough effort, making a living from it is possible.

What I find most useful about this ebook is the precise detail on how to find work. It gives an overview of 10 different job sites, along with pros and cons of each. It explains exactly how to apply for jobs, including email templates that you can use to make an effective pitch. And it includes detailed information on setting up a site for your portfolio, including 5 WordPress themes you can use.

My favorite part of Freelance Superstar: “Once you have grabbed the editor with a riveting intro, you can move in for the kill. The pitch is similar to a hunt; you grab hold of the animal with your teeth and refuse to let go until you taste blood or your prey is dead.”

Are you an aspiring freelance writer still looking for that first taste of blood? This ebook gives you everything you need to tear off the flesh of freelance success as it lays there bleeding to death, looking up at you with terror in its eyes and saying with its last breath of life, “You are now a freelance superstar.”

Breaking The Rules With Daylight Saving Time

Here’s a true story about how daylight saving time can point out overly conforming tendencies. (Note that it’s not “daylight savings time” – it’s about conservation of daylight, not a clearance event.)

The newspaper said it very clearly. “At 2 AM, you should set your clocks back one hour.” And so, she set her alarm for 2 AM, waking up in the middle of the night to set back every clock in her house at the scheduled time.

Yes, she followed the rules to the letter. But was that the best way to do it? Would the time cops have found out if she had changed her clocks the night before, or the morning after?

Not everyone is a natural rule breaker, but if you can’t take the plunge with your own clocks, perhaps that’s something to work on.