Writing a book? Frank H: Blogging is the way to go!
Frank A. Hilario
October 25, 2011
(1) Writing to sell to customers online - You use your blog to market products or services. You use Internet marketing tools and techniques to drive customers to your blog. That's what my son Jomar does; he can teach you if you like.
(2) Writing to impress clients online and get projects offline - You use your blog to market your writing skills to clients, to show off how creative a writer you are. That's what I do; I can teach you if you like.
(3) Writing to please and pace yourself - You write and upload to your blog one article at a time - thinking of a book at the end of 4 to 6 months maybe. I'm doing that in my dedicated blog The (Insight) Story (blogspot.com), to come up with 2 books, one on Creative Writing and the other on Unorthodox Management. You should be so ambitious!
If you haven't realized it, blogging is a good way to write a book - slowly but surely. And I'm not the only one doing it now.
If you visit Charm Dogma's self-titled blog (blogspot.com), you will note that it's getting to be a good collection of short pieces that are publishable together into a book. In other words, Charm Dogma is not consciously writing a book; she is simply writing independent little stories with little lessons thrown in and, when there are enough of them, say 100 pieces, they will make a book. She now has 15 posts, enjoying them all, and counting:
(1) Book 7: Looking Up!
(2) Within reach?
(3) The Irony of Love
(4) Happy Mother's Day, Mom!
(5) The Cup
(6) Coffee
(7) Sight of Orchids
(8) My Weight and I
(9) First Gift of Flowers
(10) Looking Straight Ahead
(11) Dirty Socks
(12) The Big Picture
(13) Letters to and from the Wounded
(14) Somewhere Else
(15) Chicken Tocino.
For Charm Dogma and any other creative writer, writing of the many mini pieces is not only necessary but crucial. Each story is a little challenge met, a small victory scored. As the pages are being written, so is the book. I shall call this book writing by incremental gratification.
Book writing by incremental gratification? Actually, I may have invented the concept and the process on 04 February 2007 when I uploaded my "The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop," blogspot.com), as this was the very first essay that began my yearly book contract with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India and headed by Director General William Dar. Here are my 4 ICRISAT books already published, each one worth for me US $5K:
(1) Team ICRISAT Champions the Poor (2007)
(2) The SMART Revolution: ICRISAT Partners In Research For Development (2009)
(3) Exploiting The Power Of Science, Transforming The Semi-Arid Tropics (2010)
(4) ICRISAT Innovations Shape The Future Of Drylands (2011)
The contents of those books were all published in my blog iCRiSAT Watch and in the American Chronicle online.
Thinking of more books, on 30 July 2011, I began thinking online about a double book that I would write webpage by webpage. One book was on Creative Writing based on historical but uninspiring data and information. I was going to call this book The PhilRice (Insight) Story. It just so happens that I have also finished 15 chapters of this book (see The (Insight) Story, blogspot.com):
(1) A PhilRice Story. The book that made me cry
(2) Insights as They Come. Writing The PhilRice Story, 101
(3) Managing as a metaphor. Writing The PhilRice Story, 102
(4) Management & Creativity. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 103
(5) Split personality? The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 104
(6) It takes a genius. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 105
(7) Repeatable success. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 106
(8) Guardians of Destiny. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 107
(9) Chief of the Tribe. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 108
(10) Those Very Good Years. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 109
(11) Tobacco & Marcos on fire. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 110
(12) Paradigms shift. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 111
(13) Working students at UPCA. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 112
(14) Learning social graces. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 113
(15) Hard work & determination. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 114
The other book I plan to write is on the Unorthodox Management of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) as seen in hindsight (see The (Insight) Story, blogspot.com). This will come later. Santiago Rigonan Obien (SRO) had managed PhilRice beginning when it was still largely on paper until the international papers were talking about it with respect. I am now going to call the management book PhilRice Rising.
The initial and main source material for writing The PhilRice (Insight) Story and PhilRice Rising, about the management of PhilRice under the hands and mind of the 1st Director of this Institute, is his own autobiography, SRO: Dare to Build (2004, Muņoz, Nueva Ecija: PhilRice, 324 pages). The book covers the years 1987 up to the date SRO had to submit to compulsory retirement on his birthday, 28 July 2000. It was SRO who led PhilRice in its march toward being a world-class science agency.
So, my iCRiSAT Watch is a website dedicated to coming out with my essays that go into my books on ICRISAT. My The (Insight) Story is a blog dedicated to coming out with my essays that will go into a book on Creative Writing. I have just created the dedicated website PhilRice Rising and have uploaded an article consisting of excerpts from staff feedbacks on SRO as manager (25 October 2011, blogspot.com).
In Charm Dogma's case, I was the one who suggested to her to do it piece by piece by piece. You know, every time you watch your own little piece goes up your own website, you are encouraged the more. This is writing a book by incremental inspiration.
The thing about incremental gratification or incremental inspiration is that it is always non-threatening, non-urgent and satisfying, and therefore, ever gratifying. Of the writing of books by such method, may there be no end!
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