Author Archives: diggercartwright
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What tips do you have for young aspiring writers? Interview by learnfreemarketing
Writing takes a lot of hard work, patience, and dedication. Most of the time, writing is a labor of love, it’s a passion. You don’t get noticed overnight, and if you’re in it to get rich and famous, you’re probably going to be disappointed. You shouldn’t be writing because you think it’s going to make you rich and famous. You should be writing because you enjoy it and it’s a personally rewarding experience for you and it may bring joy and entertainment to others. If you end up getting rich and famous, good for you. I’m certainly not trying to be discouraging, but the fact is a lot of writers never get recognized, never get an agent, and never get published by a major publishing house. If you’re serious about writing, make sure you have a good story to tell. Make sure your manuscript is professionally edited and polished. You can’t throw something together haphazardly and say it’s ready to be published. You’ve got to make sure that your final product, your final manuscript, is the best that it can be. It can’t just be good. It has to be great. There’s a lot of competition out there. I think there will be something like 2 million books published this year. You’ve got to make sure yours is exceptional if you want to be successful. Then you have to decide if you want to go the traditional route of trying to find an agent to get your book published by a major publishing house or if you want to self-publish. There are pros and cons to both. A lot of people have made a decent living through self-publishing. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit and really want to take charge of marketing your own work, you might be a candidate for self-publishing. Here again, nothing happens overnight. You’ll need to be patient. You’ll need to be dedicated and disciplined. And don’t get discouraged if you’re not as successful as you hoped or if you get turned down by agents or publishers. If you believe in yourself, keep working on it. When you get bucked off the horse, you’ve got to get back in the saddle and keep at it. The same goes for writing. If you believe in yourself and your work, keep going. Write more and more. The more you write, the better you’re going to get at it. Listen to criticism; it can be helpful. You may want to take some classes or workshops to help improve your skills. But if you’re an aspiring writer, you need to be aware of the challenges, you need to believe in yourself, and you need to be patient.
http://www.empowernetwork.com/learnfreemarketing/blog/digger-cartwright-interview/
http://www.diggercartwright.com/Blog/Latest
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As an author of several mystery novels, what motivated you to shift gears with your latest project and write an inspirational book? Interview by “With Five Questions”
Actually, it wasn’t my idea to write my latest book, Conversations on the Bench. I was asked if I would be interested in writing a book about Sebastian, the central figure of this novel. What really motivated me to undertake the project was Sebastian himself and the story he had to tell. I only met him in person at a symposium hosted by the think tank that he had been instrumental in establishing. Over the next couple days I got to know him and his colleague, and I realized that he had a very fascinating perspective on life that was really the result of his own unique set of life experiences. The more I learned from my few conversations with Sebastian at that symposium and the more I subsequently learned from Robbie, the founder of the think tank, the more motivated I got about writing this inspirational book. It was clear to me that Sebastian’s story needed to be told. He had such a huge personality that you couldn’t help but like the guy, and I think everyone did. Everyone that I talked to had something good to say about Sebastian or had some story to tell about him and how he had impacted their life. He was always very positive and encouraging, and he was always there for his friends. He was just a remarkable individual and the more I got to hear his story, the more inspired I was. And ultimately, this entire project, Sebastian’s story, has really had a very big impact on my life, just as Sebastian himself had a big impact on the lives of people who knew him.
http://withfivequestions.blogspot.com/2013/05/meet-digger-cartwright-author.html
http://www.diggercartwright.com/Blog/Latest
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Could you tell us a little bit about the real life friendship that inspired Conversations on the Bench? Interview by “With Five Questions”
Robbie was a young college student when he met Sebastian in the mid-1990s. They met while both working at a hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Robbie was a full-time student studying finance, business, economics, etc. and worked full time. Sebastian had an educational background in economics and worked two jobs–tax investigator by day and hotel reservationist by night. They would spend hours talking about everything going on in their worlds and the world at large. And thus began a lifelong friendship. After Robbie graduated from college, Sebastian had some very poignant words of wisdom and anecdotes to share to help the young college grad get through some tough times. Robbie ended up starting his own successful business at about the same time that Sebastian was forced to retire due to health issues. That gave them the opportunity to spend a lot of time together, Sebastian mentoring Robbie and giving him encouragement, and Robbie integrating Sebastian in the business as much as possible.
They ended up starting a think tank, Thinking Outside the Boxe, to share their writings about any topic they could debate as well as their economic commentaries and research. As Sebastian’s health declined, Robbie was there to offer support and encouragement, just as Sebastian had been there for him. These two guys had this great brotherly relationship. Robbie even referred to Sebastian on many occasions as the brother he never had. And I think Sebastian liked that and really thought of Robbie as his little brother. He was there for Robbie to give him advice on women, relationships, business, whatever, and all the advice came from Sebastian’s own experiences. It’s the type of friendship that very few people are lucky enough to find in this life. It’s really just a heartwarming and truly inspirational friendship that I have recounted in Conversations on the Bench.
http://withfivequestions.blogspot.com/2013/05/meet-digger-cartwright-author.html
http://www.diggercartwright.com/Blog/Latest
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What are the unique challenges of writing nonfiction compared with writing fiction? Interview by “With Five Questions”
With fiction you can do just about anything. You can suspend reality, and the bigger the lie is, the more believable it is to some extent. With fiction, the writer is bound only by the bounds of his own imagination. It’s like an artist with a blank canvas. You start with nothing and slowly but deliberately fill the canvas and bring the picture to life.
Nonfiction is a little more restrictive. Nonfiction is sort of like paint-by-number. You’ve got a pre-established set of lines and you just have to paint inside the lines. You might get away with changing up the colors a little bit, but you’ve got to stay in the lines. Nonfiction is reality. You’re just re-telling what has already happened. Now, as an author you can take certain liberties and change up the scenery. Maybe you make it raining in a scene where it was a sunny day. Maybe the people involved don’t remember where a certain conversation that is being recounted took place, so you have to create a scene where there was not one. With a work of fiction, you get to create the people and everything about them. With nonfiction, you have to get to know the people you’re writing about and try to convey a factual representation of them as best you can.
With Conversations on the Bench, I was able to obtain the crux of the lessons and the conversations through interviews with one of the characters in the book. There may not have been a record of exactly when the conversation took place or who else may have been there or in what circumstance the conversation came up or exactly what was said in the conversation. So, as the author, going back to the artist example, I had a paint-by-number that had some missing lines. I had to create those missing lines, then fill in inside the lines with the right color and the right amount of that color. It was certainly a challenge for me going from fiction to a factually-based storyline. You’ve got to know the people you’re writing about pretty well. It took me time and a lot of telephone conversations to get the story from Robbie and get to the point where I felt comfortable that I knew him and Sebastian.
http://withfivequestions.blogspot.com/2013/05/meet-digger-cartwright-author.html
http://www.diggercartwright.com/Blog/Latest
Digger Cartwright 