Ruth van Reken

It is always a privilege to have a world expert to stay in my home. When that guru is also a writer, you would think things could not get any better, but yesterday, things  reached a peak. Ruth van Reken, co-author of the guide Third Culture Kids Growing Up Among Worlds and author of the autobiography, Letters Never Sent, came to visit and allowed me to open my home to a mixture of my students and writing friends for a pot luck dinner.

I should have guessed that something unusual was afoot when, for the first time in pot luck history, people  brought the same food! We had three lasagnes and two couscous dishes. The evening was destined to be a meeting of minds, with soulmates sharing soulfood.

Ruth is, to my mind, the ‘go to’ person if you want to know anything about children who grow up outside their passport country. A founder of the Families in Global Transition conference, Ruth now travels the world speaking to children, parents and teachers in international schools, sharing her wisdom.  She is a special person and instinctively knows how to hold a  room spellbound while she speaks. And, as I turned my back and busied myself finding space on the table for that third lasagne I found my sitting room had been transformed into a circle of chairs and, with Ruth as key facilitator, everyone was sharing their story.

There were 12 of us in the room, each unique and with our own story. Each of us was there because of our interest in Ruth’s subject, our desire to spend time with her, and because we love to write. Eventually, after what felt like five minutes but was probably two hours, Ruth decided to change the subject from our Third Culture stories and identities, to her writing journey.

As I mentioned earlier, Ruth has written two books. The TCK book is a how to book, a guide book and explains what it is to be raised overseas. Letters Never Sent is her memoir. She is the first to admit that the books are very different.

‘Some people are thinking people,’ she explained. ‘I am a feeling person.’ She went on to explain how writing Letters was relatively easy for her and how in writing it, she ‘sorted stuff out’.

‘Writing the book saved me a fortune in therapy,’ she said with a laugh.

‘But the TCK book was much harder to do.  I had to be give advice, tools and information. It was a mind book,’ she said. ‘Letters was a soul book.’

Ruth discovered that she needed to write the TCK book in a both different and unfamiliar way and along the way she learned something very profound.

Many people believe that, if you want to write about your life, then you need to be authentic, vulnerable even and exposed, but that for a practical guide book you can leave all that personal stuff out and get on with the content. Ruth and I agree that sure, guide books solve problems and are very helpful, however, it is only when you a guide book has case studies of real life people, in other words a human element, that the messages the book tries to convey can be absorbed.

Ruth discovered that, in writing the TCK book: ‘I needed to write from the mind, but that alone was not enough. I discovered that the book would  not work without a bit of soul too.’

That evening, a group of strangers, coming from places as far afield as New Zealand, Transylvania, Scotland and Slovakia, all shared their stories. It is only by first sharing our stories, by expressing our truths, that we can prepare for adding the soul we need to our writing.

At the FIGT conference last month I shared with you the many reasons why I attend this kind of event – a place where I can share, learn and network. I also shared with you that I learned something profound in a workshop led by Duncan Westwood, about resilience.

In the workshop Duncan asked us to think of something we did often and easily. I thought of blogging.

Then he asked us to consider how we felt when things were going badly and what we did about it. In other words how we coped.

I realised that on the days when I can’t seem to find the image I want, or when I fail to upload a video accurately, when I get in a twist sourcing the Amazon product codes and when I realise I left errors in the text after I have posted it, that I don’t beat myself up about it. I realise that when things go wrong I shrug my shoulders and allow myself to get things wrong now and again. I realise that it is in these instances that I give myself permission not to be perfect.

Oh how true that is! Look at my desk, above, for example. It is an absolute tip! And I simply don’t care!

A while ago I learned that creative people have ‘piles’ while practical folk prefer ‘files’. It’s OK. I can live with a messy desk. I can live with the breakfast things still in the sink when I start to cook the supper. I can live with leaving a piece of work at a point when it is 90% good enough, knowing that how ever long I tinker with it, it may never go beyond that 90% anyway.

Perfectionism can be a curse to the writer. It can prevent you from getting close to your dream.

I believe that it is better to finish a piece of work that we enjoyed writing, that shows our authentic selves and that could help someone else, than to keep that piece of work private just because it is not 100% perfect.

And what is perfect anyway? To me, a perfect piece of work is one filled with passion, resonance and authenticity. To someone else it may be something completely different.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather be prolific than perfect any day.

Sometimes it is easier to know what we don‘t want than what we do want, right?

Sometimes it is easier to know what not to do than what to do.

That’s why I wrote this, the first in a series of posts on writing life story, for the wonderful writer (and editor of one of my favourite books, Tales From the Expat Harem) Anastasia Ashman over at Expat Harem. It’s called How Not to Write Your Life Story.

I think it will help. Incidentally, this is also the title of  a special session I shall be running at next year’s Families in Global Transition conference in Washington in March.

To learn the don’ts rather than the do’s of writing memoir, head on over to Expat Harem today.

Jo Parfitt networks with Nina du Pre at Connecting Women Sept 2010, photo by Stephanie Ward

I like to consider myself to be a natural networker and realised this week that I have been on the board of a networking group for 12 years. In fact, when I think I about it, I first became aware of the importance of networking when I heard Donna Messer say the immortal words: ‘it’s not what you know but who you know that makes your business grow,’ at the WIN conference in Milan in the 90′s.

I have been writing for over 20 years and as a journalist I know that my articles and books are enhanced by the quotes I can include from the experts I have met along the way. Now that I focus on helping other people to get their writing published I always encourage my students to get out there and build relationships with people so that they can then approach them later for comments for their work.

As someone who has made a living from writing I am well aware that Donna Messer is absolutely right. The more people I know, the more I can write about. The more people I know, the more ideas I have. The more people I know, the richer my information sources, the more people I know I can ask. And when I know a lot of people that means that a lot of people know about me.

One of the best ways for a writer to build their network fast is to attend a conference where the speakers and workshop leaders will cover areas that they would like to write about . The best conferences are places where the delegates too provide a rich source of contacts and information. As someone who  specialises in careers, particularly portable careers for people overseas, I am a big fan of the Women’s International Networking Conference (WIN) and next month I will attend for the seventh time. Just three days among some of the most creative, fascinating women from all over the world will keep my muse and contacts book fed for a whole year. As someone who specialises in expat life I also attend the Families in Global Transition conference, and next year will go for the seventh time too. But I go one step further. I don’t just attend these conferences, I speak at them too. Standing up in front of an audience is one of the best ways of promoting myself and raising my profile. Better still, these conferences have bookshops too, where speakers can sell their books, so I take advantage of that too.

In the photo above, you see me at Connecting Women, a network I have chaired for 2 years and for which I have been on the board for 5. Last night I was the speaker too, speaking about, guess what? Networking!

If you are serious about getting published and making a living as a writer you need topics and people to write about, you need people to know about you and approach you with your stories. So, go on, get networking.

More book details here

I met Tina at the fabulous Families in Global Transition conference a few years ago. Then two years back she hired me to help her to tighten up and publish her book. The Global Nomad’s Guide to University Transition is much needed. I know because I have a global nomad child of my own, who has lived in five countries and headed ‘home’ to university in London this year. My son, Sam, wished he’d had this book before he left. Now those who follow in his footsteps, and their parents, can begin to understand the unique transition that takes place when a TCK (Third Culture Kid) goes to uni.

Here is my interview, yesterday, with Tina, whose book came out last week.

Buy the book here

Tina Quick is an adult TCK, well-seasoned traveler and mother of three, college-aged daughters. She is a cross-cultural trainer, writer and international speaker. She is on the Board of Directors of Families in Global Transition (FIGT) and serves as Chair Person of the Program Committee.

JP
The concept
Tell me about your book. What is it about? Can you describe it in just a few sentences? To show that a book has focus it is vital that it can be described briefly and succinctly.

TQ
This is a handbook for students who have been living outside their passport country but are either returning home or transitioning to another host country for college/university. Unlike their domestic peers, these global nomads must face a double transition – adjusting to a new stage of life as an independent young adult, as well as adjusting to a new culture, for even their home country will be foreign to them in many respects. This is something that takes them by surprise as they struggle to fit in, understand themselves and their peers and search for a place of belonging.

JP
Your motivation
Why did you write it?

TQ
In the five years following my family’s re-entry to the U.S. and, as a result of living in Boston which has over 200 colleges and universities, I found I was coming into contact with more and more college students who had lived the expatriate life. I kept hearing familiar patterns to their stories, some far worse than others, but too many were stories of silent suffering, sadness, loneliness or, in extreme cases, severe depression. These were young adults who had spent incredibly rich childhoods in other countries and cultures. They spoke a variety of languages, understood that there are many ways of doing, living and believing that are not necessarily wrong but just different from their home-country norms. They sported hidden diversity that made them good bridge builders, ambassadors and communicators. But somehow upon returning to their “home” culture, they found themselves misunderstood, weird, strange, standing out as being different, misfits in the very place where they had always imagined they belonged. Their stories and experiences, together with my own family’s experiences, convinced me that this population of repatriates needed to benefit from what those who had gone before them had learned along their journey.

JP
The need
Why do you think needed to be written? What will your book do for other people?

TQ
Third culture kids/global nomads are very different from most of the people they will be surrounded by on their university or college campuses. They need to understand that it is their life experiences that have made them different. If they learn how to live out those differences in a positive way, they will not only survive but they will thrive in their university setting.

TCKs have the double transition of not only having to adjust to a new stage of life as an independent adult, but to a new culture as well, for even their home culture will be foreign to them in many respects. If they understand what to expect as they go through the various stages of transition and are prepared for the quagmire of emotions that accompany each those stages, they will be able to get through it. They will come to understand that the roller coaster ride is not only normal but even expected.

This book will guide students to a better understanding of themselves, what their issues are and give tips, tools and strategies for dealing with those issues. Personal stories and advice from TCK students who have gone before them will pave the path for a smoother transition.

JP
Who will read it
Who do you think will read your book? What made you think that there was a market for it? Now that it’s been out for a while, what proof do you have that you were right?

TQ
- Students who are living outside their passport countries but are planning on either returning or relocation to yet another host country for college/university will want to read this guide book.
- The parents who will be preparing and supporting their students in this transition will want to read it and there is an entire chapter dedicated just to parental issues/concerns.
- Families repatriating with secondary school-aged children will want to keep this book handy for their transition as many of the issues are relevant for them as well.
- Even foreign students who may be leaving their home country to study abroad will appreciate many of the topics covered in the pages of this book. They will easily be able to transfer the information to their particular situation. The chapters on the stages of transition are especially relevant to them.
- School guidance counselors and educators will want to refer to the pages of this book as they prepare students for their transition.

JP
The promotion
It does not matter how good a book is, or how good your writing is if no one knows about it. What steps have you taken or do you plan to take to promote your book? Are you a speaker or trainer? Do you have a blog? A website? A newsletter? Do you use Facebook, Twitter or other social media tools? What about press releases and sending out review copies and free articles? Have you had any other ideas? Which methods do you think work best and can you give me any examples?

TQ
- I have a website with a page dedicated just to the book as well as links to the book page throughout the rest of my website.
- I have put it up on all my social media networking sites – a big for me is My.TCKid.com and all of the groups I belong to on it.
I don’t have a twitter account (and never will) but will have a friend tweet it for me.
- I have written numerous articles in online newsletters and magazines.
- I will be approaching newspapers- local, national and international.
- I will be approaching local, national and international bookstores.
- I am marketing it to college bookstore suppliers as well as directly to the bookstores.
- I have done radio interviews, webinars and podcasts.
- I am sending emails out constantly to any organization that has families living abroad and asking them to post my book on their website as a resource for those families as well as offering to do an article for any of their publications.
- I have written announcements of the book launch to various organizations that would be interested such as the Overseas Assoc. for College Admissions Counselors, relocation professionals, State Department and Family Liaison Office, International HR Associations, Missions organizations, Intercultural Agencies and so many more. They are out there. You just have to keep searching and asking other people to recommend others. I always ask a lot of questions.
- I will be presenting at various conferences and selling the book at the back of the room.
-I will try to sell my book at relevant conference bookstores even if I am not presenting.
- I am getting book reviews in relevant publications such as American Citizens Abroad, the European Council of International Schools and so on.
- I even sent Oprah Winfrey an email and told her about my book as an idea for either her show or her magazine. Hey, it never hurts to try!

JP
The route to market
How did you publish your book? What was your route to publication?

TQ
Self-published through a publishing agent – Summertime Publishing

JP
Belief in yourself
Self-belief can be a big problem for writers. How did you manage to stay confident in your ability and remember that you were good enough to write your book? How did you cope with the days when you thought you could not do it and that it was rubbish?

TQ
This is very personal, but I am happy to share it. I felt I was called by God to write this book. Every time I would begin to be full of self-doubt, a little sign of encouragement (and sometimes a big sign) like an email from someone or a conversation with someone who ‘got it’ would appear. I walk my dog in the woods everyday and in those quiet moments so many thoughts, ideas and inspirations would come to me. I knew, without a doubt, that I was meant to write this book. So many insights were revealed to me and I knew they had to be shared with a broader audience than what I could achieve through my seminars alone.

JP
Meeting the deadline
It’s easy to procrastinate, to blame writers’ block and to put off finishing your project. How did you keep yourself motivated? And how long did it take you to write it? What was your routine?

TQ
I gave myself a deadline and I worked feverishly to meet it or even beat it. I wanted these students to have this book in their hand for graduation. I put most of my life on the back burner, even giving up some of my regularly routines and activities. I knew it would only be for a few months, so it wouldn’t be too bad. Some days I had too much to do with priorities for the house or family and I gave up writing for that day. But then I would make sure I had huge blocks of time to just write.

JP
The biggest challenge
What was your biggest challenge regarding the writing of your book? How have you overcome that?

TQ
I was often confused as to the process, but I just kept asking questions.

JP
Getting feedback
I believe that getting feedback is really important to help you recognise when your writing is really good and to find ways of making it even better. How did you get feedback on your work?

I sent some chapters I was having trouble with to certain people who I knew would be truthful and give me some advice.
I gave a few chapters to folks to review and give me their opinion.

JP
The top tip
If you were to give advice to someone else who is thinking about writing a book based on their life experience what would be your number one tip?

TQ
If you do not have a publisher you may want to get your book project subsidized. There are many internet sites where you can fundraise for your projects such as KickStarter.com. Check it out.

More book details here

Whether you are writing a book and publishing it yourself, or finding a mainstream publisher, there is one tool that all authors must have in their toolbox. The ability to speak in public.

If you are already giving presentations or seminars to large audiences, then you need to exploit your talent and write a book on your specialist topic too.

Here’s why:

Ten reasons why authors must speak and speakers must write

1. When you speak to a group of people you get to ‘connect’ with everyone in the audience in one go – and that builds your network.
2. When you speak to a group you get the chance to sell your books to the attendees at the back of the room.
3. Back of the room sales  usually produce greater profit than any other sales channel..
4. Publishers are particularly attracted to authors who are on the speaking circuit, because this provides another sales channel for the book.
5. Authors can afford to speak for free more often if they can make income from back of the room book sales.
6. Speakers can raise their profile and are considered to be experts when they have written a book.
7. If you already have a presentation on your specialist topic, then turning a presentation into a book is relatively easy to achieve.
8. If you already have written a book on your specialist topic, then turning a book into a presentation is relatively easy to achieve.
9. It is easier to get hired as a speaker if you have written a book. Conference organisers will have more faith in you and your knowledge in your subject if you are published.
10. If you have written and published a book then you can rebrand it for different corporations and conferences and sell copies in bulk to all the attendees.

If I have convinced you of this,then, what’s next?

I have been writing and speaking, side by side, for 12 years now. Two conferences that are responsible for turbo charging my career are now looking for speakers for their next conferences. I plan to be there too . . . both have bookshops where speakers can sell their books. I do.

Women’s International Networking Conference, October, Paris, France

Families in Global Transition, March, Washington DC, USA

If you want to speak at one of these conferences and don’t have  a book to sell, get in touch with me FAST and together, we can make it happen.

Deadlines. Do you love them or hate them? Or, like, me, do you find them a bit of a mixed blessing? However you may feel about them, I think they are invaluable and I could not run a business nor write a book without them.

I just got a message from my friend Karine via Facebook. She came on my Release the Book Within workshop a couple of years ago and back then she was determined to write her book during her next overseas assignment to the Far East. She came back to the Hague a couple of months ago and today I got this message from her.

“Have you thought of doing supervising workshops where you would keep people like me, who try to escape their writing ‘duties’, tied to their chair under your professional tuition and supervision?”

Her message got me thinking. Firstly, I wondered if there might be a market for ‘supervised writing sessions’, where students are forced to write, in silence, in exam circumstances, while I pace up and down between the desks and frown in the direction of their papers. Perhaps not. Though, I realise that while that could be a solution for many a procrastinating writer, it’s not the way I do it myself.

I like to set my own deadlines and make myself accountable for failing to meet them. I don’t like someone else to set them for me. I like to do it myself. And this is how . . .

In the last ten years or so I have written a book a year on average. Each time I have set my own deadline. I have looked at my calendar nine months hence and identified a conference or event where I could speak and that could be a suitable place to launch that book. During this decade I have launched books at the Women on the Move, Women’s International Networking and Families in Global Transition conferences. I always submitted a speaker proposal for a workshop or keynote on a topic similar to my Work in Progress (WIP) and added details of the book launch in my bio for the program when they accepted. Lucky for me they did, eh?

Next, I would calculate back from that launch date, allowing one month for production, one for design and proofread and one for editing. Now I had no choice but to write the book in the six months that remained. So, I would divide up the chapters between those six months and ensure that my writing work came first. It would be the first thing I did at the start of each week or the start of each day and I would not allow myself to check my emails more than once until the Shitty First Draft (that’s Anne Lamott’s phrase not mine) was complete. I’d save the polishing and editing until I reached the very end of the book and the month allocated for that task.

So far, without exceptions, I have met every deadline and cracked on with my WIP.

As you know, I also mentor people to help them meet their deadlines and am available at any time to answer their questions along the way. I have several clients with books planned for launch at the next WIN (it’s in Paris) and FIGT (it’s in Washington DC) and this year Simone Costa Eriksson and Natalie Tollenaere were at FIGT with me launching Moving Abroad: The Mission of Detective Mike and The Art of Possibilities.

If, like Karine, you think that chaining yourself to the desk is the only option, perhaps you would like to consider my alternative solution this time? Speaker proposals for WIN open today and any moment now for FIGT. Think about it.

PS

I do miss deadlines too, sometimes. I promised everyone that my Write Your Life Stories home study program would be live by the end of April and it’s not quite there yet.

I hope you will forgive me for being a couple of days late.

By way of apology I’m selling the first 50 at €97 instead of €147 and throwing in a free critique of one piece of homework, worth €30, so watch this space if you want to take advantage of this one time offer.

It’s been a busy few weeks. Not only has my client, Simone Costa Eriksson’s book Moving Abroad been released but Natalie Tollenaere’s book The Art of Possibilities/L’art des Possibles has been published – in TWO languages. This is a first for me, to publish two versions at the same time. And it was a joy to resurrrect my French degree for the purpose. I met Natalie at Families in Global Transition two years ago and was impressed back then with the way she was combining being an artist and art therapist with coaching. These books are the result of her unique perspective and filled me with inspiration while I worked on them.

On September 11th 2009, less than six months ago, Natalie wrote to me:

“Between other things, as we chatted at FIGT in 2008, you told me: “if you have a book in your mind, write it.” “Yes you can,” you insisted (That was long before Obama). I looked at you knowing that you definitely didn’t know who I was to tell me something so absurd.

Do I have to blame you or to thank you? I’m not sure today.”

I too know how much doubt can creep into the mind of a nearly-author. I am delighted that in such a short space of time Natalie created her ‘twins’. It was an honour to be their midwife. Next week, at FIGT, once more, I shall be able to congratulate you in person.

Congratulations, Natalie, not many people write two books at once. Chapeau! / I take my hat off to you!

Find out more about Natalie at www.natalietoll.com