mitts off rupert!

He claims he just loves newspapers. And with the acquisition of the 118-year-old Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch is finally close to realizing his dream of owning a global business brand.

Now he’s targeting the Financial Times. Analysts say he’s talking MySpace to attract new audiences, and the cross-revenue advertising dollars that come with them. And that he can afford to run several newspapers at a loss for many years to come, just to knock the competition off the block. In addition, Murdoch’s still running flat out to beat Google in the race for the world.

Well good for Mr. Murdoch … good for free enterprise.

But when that free-enterprise becomes a monopoly, what does that mean to the media at large, and to the information that we—the punters—are fed on a minute-by-minute basis? What does it mean to journalists (amongst whom I count myself) who still believe in freedom of the press: The code of ethics to seek and report the truth, to minimize harm, to act independently, and to be accountable—no matter what.

What does it mean to freeagents? To writers, artists, graphic designers, photographers who all end up working for the same half-dozen conglomerates, regardless of the name pasted on the front of the magazine, newspaper, DVD case, or book jacket.

As we see fewer independent media outlets, and we're cattle-fed monopoly-driven content, society becomes more homogenized, and cultures less diversified.

We have less choice about where we get our information, ergo, less choice about where we offer our services. And less freedom of input, equals less freedom of output. Less freedom of exchange of thoughts and ideas. Less learning. Less creativity.

(Remember the proletarians of George Orwell’s 1984? A severe example of machinations at work, I agree, but the story delivers a powerful image.)

So, all politics aside—because I refuse to be labeled by a blue ass or a red elephant—I say, enough’s enough Mr. Murdoch. Keep your greedy mitts off the Financial Times!

donkey overload

Everyone goes through it. Some more than others. And some handle it better than others. But with the launch of my new show, I can certainly relate to this poor donkey right now ... and I bet you can too!

how vain it is to sit down and write

I've always loved quotes and one of my favorites used to be: "How vain it is to sit down and write, when one has not stood up to live!"

My 12-year-old brother turned blue in the face, then chased me all over the house screaming bloody murder, after he found that quote scrawled in red ink across a blank page of his hidden journal. Thank goodness we ran into dad on the staircase …

Many years later, I still feel guilty for reading every private thought my little brother laid bare on those pages. But I've lost my need to pry and would never do anything like that now. (Honest, I wouldn’t!)

However, I've never lost my love of quotes, and thought I’d share a couple of current favorites that I keep around my desk.

• American writer Williamn Saravon encourages writers to experience life in all its glory! "Try to learn to breathe deeply; really to taste food when you eat; and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
• Robert Fritz tells us to think outside the box: “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”
• And for those moments when everyone else is an idiot, and nothing works out the way you want it to, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wisely reminds: “You can be pleased with nothing, when you are not pleased with yourself.”

What are your favorite quotes? Have you ever read anyone else’s journal? And if so, did you get caught?

jumping off cliffs

Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew …

Guillaume Apollinaire
Avant-garde French poet.

I don’t usually talk much about my work, too busy doing it; and I like to pour my energy into the process rather than explaining what I’m working on. But last month, after telling my friend in no uncertain terms (for the umpteenth time and for seven million reasons), “Not happening! Not going to do it!” … I went and did it!

When I took a break from the radio show at the beginning of this year, I intended to be hosting again toward the end of the year, and planned to take my time looking for a new executive producer (EP) to team up with. I wanted to wait until I found someone with a good match of goals, values, and vision; and was willing to be patient.

So even I was surprised, when early in May, I found myself calling several stations to talk about airtime and studio and production costs.

Information gathered, meetings held, discussions clarified, contracts reviewed … now all I had to do was decide. Did I want to do ‘it’?

Well I did want to do it. And without analyzing it to death, I trusted my instinct and took a huge leap of faith—with the stroke a pen, I became my new EP. Done. Dusted. Sorted.

I spent the next week on a roller coaster: It’s thrilling, scary. Exciting, daunting. Energizing, terrifying. Yeay! Aghh!

But life truly is what we make it.

No matter how you define success, there are many times in life when we have to be willing to leap without knowing what’s in front of us. We have to push through our fears, our doubts, and self-prescribed limitations. We have to close our ears to those who say it can’t be done and who try to drag us into their misery pit. We have to fill our minds with the belief that we can accomplish whatever we set out to do; and our hearts with the courage to do it.

So without further ado, I’m jumping right off that cliff, damn it, and building my wings on the way down. See you safely on the ground!

Others who jumped off a cliff (and kept on jumping!)

• Composer Oscar Hammerstein had 5 bombed shows lasting less than 6 weeks in total before Oklahoma! It grossed $7million and ran for 269 weeks.
• Author Tawni O’Dell had 6 unpublished novels and 300 rejection slips over a 13-year period before her first novel was published. When it became an Oprah book club selection, it made the New York Times bestseller list for 8 weeks.
• Admiral Robert Peary reached the North Pole on his 8th attempt.
• Stephen King got so fed up of receiving rejections on his novel Carrie that he threw it in the trash. His wife, Tabitha, retrieved it and sent it back out … we all know what happened next.
• Model/actress Angie Everhart was told by Eileen Ford that redheads don’t sell. Everhart later became the first redhead in history to appear on Glamour magazine and appeared in more than 27 films and now has her own show.
  

What cliffs have you jumped off? How did you build your wings? Maybe more importantly, what cliffs do you regret not jumping off?

procrastination

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants
to the seat of the chair. -Mary Heaton Vorse

Feeling a little overwhelmed this past month, mostly because of unrealistic self-inflicted deadlines, I found myself procrastinating (and still procrastinating) on a very important project. Important to Me, that is. No one else cares about that project. No one else is depending on me delivering the final goods. No one else will blink an eye if it never materializes. And that’s the problem.

When no one else depends on your delivery, without editorial deadlines or production milestones or scheduled review meetings, it’s far too easy to push aside the Important for the urgent or pressing “in-your-face” issues of the day.

And it’s even easier to succumb to the non-urgent issues of the day, such as going AWOL for a vanilla frapuccino and a chat with the barista. Or sailing off into the sun ( ... after all, it does rain here 300 days of the year!).

The irony is, that I most often procrastinate when I really care about a project—the perfectionist in me holding back until I know it can be perfect beyond a doubt—which, of course, is never!

I also procrastinate when I find a project dull or lacking challenge. Or if the project-at-hand doesn’t push my buttons. For example, I once scrubbed the entire house with a nail-brush and cooked a six-course cordon bleu meal, when I should have been studying for my upcoming six-hour registered stock broker’s licensing exam. The man of the house was thrilled, while my stress level soared through the roof knowing that I’d merely delayed the inevitable dreaded study of ‘puts, options, bonds, and living-wills’.

But that was many moons ago. And as much as I’ve procrastinated over the years—and still do—there are many more times when I’ve been so utterly absorbed by my work, that I forget to eat, drink, and sometimes, sleep.

At the end of the day, I always deliver. Always meet deadline. And I've learned that procrastination works for me as part of the creative process. I've learned that it’s good to sometimes allow a certain amount of time just to think ... letting fragments of ideas infuse, and thought patterns simmer, until that intangible 'something' kicks in and I’m at the boil raring to go!

So I’m not at all worried about my dalliances. And to prove that, by delaying the process even further, I looked up what other creatives had to say on the subject.
I discovered what I already knew—that at least in this area—I’m perfectly normal!

• Amy Holden Jones believes that all writers are good procrastinators. She says that the process is of writing is grueling, until her characters begin to come alive to her, and that’s when she develops a sense of connection with the project.
• Steven DeSouza, knows when he’s about to write because he becomes a neat freak, organizing his desk and tools until ‘it’ floods in.
• Leonardo da Vinci was known as ‘highly distractable’. He finished The Last Supper only after his patron threatened to cut off all funds. And he took 20 years to finish painting the Mona Lisa.
• Leslie Dixon says we all have what she calls ‘stalling mechanisms’. The phone, email, reading the newspaper. But she also believes that procrastination can be a tool for success; assuming you can control it and ultimately deliver the goods on time and in good shape, you’ll have the edge over those who can’t control it.
• Douglas Adams’ friend, Steve Meretzky says, "Douglas has raised procrastination to an art form. Hitchhikers Guide would never have gotten done if I hadn't gone over to England and virtually camped out on his doorstep."

And with that said, I must away and cease dilly-dallying the day. As Henry Ford said: "You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do." I'm starting to boil and that proposal won't finish itself!

So what are you ‘going’ to do? Do you procrastinate? When and why? And most importantly … how? Dish up now …