My first foray into self-promotion

September 28, 2016 / pakramer / 4 Comments

Last week, in preparation for a coming conference, I decided it was time to make some business cards. At past conferences, I was always happy to accept someone’s contact information but rarely gave out my own. If I did, it was on a scrap of paper that I tore from my notebook. This needed to change.

As I am also trying to grow some contacts in the writing and publishing community, I chose to make my business cards similar in theme to this website (writer & research scientist). I had quite a lot of fun designing them, though I’m sure a professional would’ve done a much better job.

So here comes the part where you roll your eyes. As I was checking out of Vistaprint and preparing to pay for a stack of 100 business cards, a little advertisement popped up showing my logo on a coffee mug. “Would you like to add this custom mug to your order?” it said.

Well duh. It looks awesome. I clicked yes and sure enough it was added to my order. But then another advertisement appeared. My logo and title on a pen? Who wouldn’t want that?

Five minute later, I confirmed my order of 100 business cards, 1 custom mug, 2 pens, and 1 custom mouse pad. A week later I received them in the mail.

I know, I know, I fell for a common marketing ploy. In my defense, I really needed all of these things… sort of.

But the whole experience got me thinking. Why not use these same types of services for selling my novel? I could print pamphlets, posters, mugs, t-shirts, etc. So that is my plan when I finally get published.

If you clicked on this link in the hopes of getting tips on self-promotion, I apologize, I am not nearly experienced enough to give advice on that subject (yet). To give you an idea of this, today I made my first tweet (cue gasps of disbelief). You can follow me @PhilipKramer9

How do you promote yourself and your writing? Do you have any advice to share?

My publications (so far)

September 27, 2016September 27, 2016 / pakramer / 7 Comments

It wasn’t until midway through my first novel that I began to think about publication. I was in my early twenties, and didn’t know anything about it. Like most writers, I slowly began to educate myself on the different types of publications and the process of becoming published. After nearly ten years, I still have a lot to learn, but I am happy to say that since I began taking writing seriously, I have gained a bit of practical experience in publishing.

Publishing my own words and ideas is a very fulfilling process. It isn’t the same as relating your day-to-day experiences to friends on Facebook. Face it, nobody really cares what you ate for breakfast. This fulfillment comes from communicating an idea, an emotion, a complicated theory, a story, or some other form of insight about the world that few people would have readily come to on their own. While writing is fun, I am not one of those writers who claim to write for themselves. Words were made to communicate, and communicating with yourself seems a little pointless to me.

Ideas are like viruses and words are their genetic code. When someone is exposed to an idea, it sometimes takes hold, and that person becomes a carrier, propagating that idea to other hosts. I want my ideas to reach people, to spread, to replicate like a virus. Not all ideas are dangerous, and some can change peoples’ lives for the better.

Here are a couple of the ideas and stories I have already released into the world. Many of them will not spread, but I hope they will affect (infect?) some people eventually.

My stories.

Speaking of viruses, the latest of my published stories was about a virus that destroyed people’s self-control and drove them to violently seize anything they desired. The possessive irrationality would not leave them until they had what they wanted and hid it away in a secret hoard. The young protagonist must fight to survive among the Hoarders, but even the uninfected are not to be trusted. This short story is called Want, and I published it with my writers group, Alabards, as a part of a horror anthology.

In the first book of our anthology series, I published a short story called Blue and Green Horizons. This story is about a man who had become a paraplegic in the past year due to a sky-diving accident. He has very little memory of the incident, recalling only the blue and green horizon as he leapt from the plane. He still has no idea why he deployed his parachute so late. The story takes place on a trip to a friend’s wedding. They are taking the train because he doesn’t feel comfortable on planes. When the train derails within a tunnel, he is the only one who can save the other passengers, but first he must fight his own insecurities and come to terms with his disability.

Off-kilter and Off-kilter2 available on Amazon

This isn’t my only experience in the area of self-publishing. For the past few years I have been printing beta-reader novels through Lulu. The only difference is that I chose not to assign it a ISBN or make it available to anyone else but me (technically it’s never published). I highly recommend this method for beta-reading as it allows the readers to see the book in their hand and in a professional format. If you choose to self-publish (I haven’t decided yet), then it will also allow the readers to comment on format and cover design. I also suggest inserting a couple of questions at the end of each chapter in the beta-reader version. This will allow the reader to jot down their impression for each chapter rather than try to recall everything at the end. I am currently preparing my novel Quotidian this way. It will be ready for beta-readers early next year. Please contact me if you wish to be a beta-reader.

The working cover and title for my latest book. Seeking beta readers.

My laboratory notebook.

A couple years ago, I was in my last year of graduate school and I got fed up with the laboratory notebooks currently available. I liked to outline my experiments by making a flow-chart first, then I would write down the protocol, and then I could record and paste the results. No one laboratory notebook was organized in such a way and nor did they have dedicated spaces for a table of contents, title, dates, signatures, etc. So I decided to make my own.

The back and front of each page. Available on Amazon and Lulu

After designing the lab notebook and ordering several for my lab, I reached out to the founder of several private schools in Atlanta. Her science lab needed just such a lab notebook. I made a few changes to the format and added her school’s logo to the cover (a cover that can easily be personalized and decorated), and so far they have ordered hundreds of copies for their kids. “They are a staple to the program now,” she says.

The lab notebooks I made for the Midtown International School in Atlanta, GA separated by class and filled with the kids’ science experiments.

I would encourage all writers with some knowledge of self-publishing and book formatting to put that knowledge to work. You can make calendars, planners, cook books, etc, for your own personal use or to sell. There is no reason why anyone should be confined to publishing novels when they have all the skills necessary to dabble in other publishing formats.

My research.

I was surprised to discover that my day job also provided me with practical publishing experience. Throughout grad school and my post-doc, I have been constantly constructing, writing, editing, and then publishing research papers. Science writing is very different from fiction writing in both style, tone, and wordage, but it still requires extensive planning, editing, and communication with editors and publishers.

My largest published work is my dissertation. Anyone who has ever written one will agree that the formatting is almost as tasking as the writing.
While my 20ish articles and reviews are something many will likely never read, they are at least reaching other researchers who can build off my research findings and theories to help probe a little deeper into the mysteries of biology and disease. According to ResearchGate, my publications have been cited nearly 200 times in other publications since 2013.

Take home message.

With that, I will leave you with one last consideration. Building your publishing presence is just as much about quality as quantity. Just because you have written something doesn’t mean that it is ready to be released into the world. I am proud of each and every one of my publications, but I still see a lot of room for improvement. Many of my readers will see it too. So unless you are confident that you know how to format a book, design a cover, and edit a story until it gleams, I suggest you take the time to learn how or to consult with professionals. Otherwise your reputation as an author will be marred by your haste to release your stories and ideas into the world. For example, I never could have created the amazing covers that grace the front of our short story anthologies, so I reached out to an old friend and graphic designer who had the skills and eagerness to take on the project. Thank you, Matt.

There is a common mentality among authors and artists to keep everyone ignorant of the project until it is ready to be released. Perhaps it is a fear that other people’s opinions or meddling hands will corrupt it in some way. These works most often fail because nobody has any stake, interest, or investment in the project. Getting beta-readers, cover designers, editors, and other writers involved in the project, even to a small degree, will link them to the project. These people will be the ones to help market the book once it is published because they can proudly say they read it before anyone else, helped edit it, etc. It can only benefit the author to bring others into the fold, especially if it means a more polished and marketable product.

Aweology

September 14, 2016 / pakramer / 2 Comments

The science of awe.

According to a review of one study, awe-inspiring sights elicit global activity of the autonomic nervous system, but shuts down parts of our parietal lobe, which contains our sense of self and our own boundaries and those of the world around us. In short, our brains are broadening their sense of scale, trying to encompass the vast and beautiful world. This is perhaps why awe also makes our own problems and worries seem insignificant in the grand scope of things. This same review cites a 2012 study showing that awe alters our sense of time, making us feel like we have more of it to spare, and even motivates us to spend more of that time helping others.

We also use awe to describe a sense of fear. This is also a process involving the autonomic nervous system, causing our heart and breathing to speed up, and in some cases, freezing us in place even as danger barrels toward us.

Becoming numb to awe.

Last month I was sitting in the middle seat on a flight to Atlanta from Seattle. I fly a lot, but certainly not as much as the man sitting in the window seat next to me. At one point during the flight, he lifted the blind and peered out for a few seconds before starting to close it again. The one and only time I spoke to the man was to keep him from closing it and to ask if I could take a picture. How he could have peered out the window at such a sight without taking the time to appreciate it was beyond me. The picture barely does it any justice.

The ability to recognize beauty and feel fear is something most of us have. Unfortunately, it is also something we can become numb to with repeated exposure. In my novel, Quotidian, the day is repeating, but not just any day, the last day, the end of the world. The characters experience danger and destruction every day and have ceased to be awed by it, and even death has become something routine.

Make their jaws drop.

From a sun setting over a field of flowers to the plume of a radioactive mushroom cloud, these sights, like so many others, can inspire awe. But there are different levels of awe:

There is the kind that makes your jaw drop and stare speechless for a time.
The kind that gives you chills.
The kind that deserves a nod of appreciation
And the kind we assign to everything else that barely warrants noticing (in the words of Emmet from The Lego Movie: “Everything is Awesome!”)

It is important to aim for the mind-blowing sort of awe in writing. Why? Because readers have become so overstimulated, that anything less than that will barely register. This concept is important for writers to grasp. If our target audience experiences the same conflicts, the same wonders, love stories, horrors, scifi dramas, etc. they will lose that sense of awe.

Some strategies.

Nowadays it is difficult to create an original plot.

Rather than racking your brain for a new story to tell to awe your readers, try presenting a similar story in a unique way. As my brother is fond of saying, “do it in a way that nobody has ever done it before.” This can be as simple as changing the tone or mood of your story, or changing something about the world, or show things from a new perspective. For example, the scene of a large open field is boring until you put on a pair of glasses that invert your view of the world, and suddenly it feels like you could fall into the sky. This can reawaken your reader’s sense of awe even thought the primary plot and conflict is little different from others they’ve seen before.

My own strategy is to open the reader’s eyes to the inner-workings of things. It is only when you understand a magician’s act, that you can appreciate the complexity of the sleight of hand, the talent, and the training involved to pull it off. It is the same for sci-fi. Only when you truly understand the hazards of space travel do you become awed by the accomplishment of traveling to and landing on another planet.

As I was trying to describe this awe, I realized I didn’t need to, I’ve already written about it. This is an excerpt from my second book of The Abyssian series:

“There were two types of awe, I surmised. One that was inspired by the unknown, the majesty and mystery of the world the God-of-All had built for them. This was a powerful sort of awe, I knew, I had felt it before and could see it kindling in the eyes of those praying around me. The second type of awe was wholly different, the opposite in fact, but no less powerful. It was an awe of knowing, at least in part, how the world worked. From the weather, the formation of mountains and seas, to the inner workings of the human body, it was an awe of knowing how this last had managed to survive and even thrive among all the rest. It was this awe that I felt burning in me as I stared at the cluster of men and women who had managed to carve out a peaceful and quiet existence from the stones of the cold and unforgiving northern mountains.”

No matter your strategy, it is important to chase the awe factor. As Brandon Sanderson says, “err on the side of awe.”

Can you think of any other strategies to awe a reader? I’d like to hear from you.

The science of motivation

September 6, 2016April 28, 2017 / pakramer / 4 Comments

I have trouble with motivation. Usually this problem manifests when my obligations mount, and my time does not feel my own. But when I do manage to tackle an item on my to-do list, a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction spurs me on to the next with renewed determination.

That feeling of pleasure and satisfaction is the result of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, which is released from the ventral tegmental area in my midbrain to the nucleus accumbens. This Mesolimbic pathway is otherwise known as the reward pathway, which reinforces the positive behavior, and encourages me to ‘want’ to be more productive. It is a process critical to reward-based learning and the survival of our species.

This feeling is far more rewarding if the task I wish to complete is something I am passionate about. Take a whole novel for instance. I completed my first novel while sitting in a coffee shop. While the other quiet patrons may have observed a man leaning back in his chair for a lengthy stretch, I was covertly raising my fists into the air in triumph. Of course, the feeling did not last long, not when I realized how much work still needed to be done, but I set to it with renewed vigor.

Here are some tips to help you complete your works in progress (WIPs).

Use baby steps.

It’s important to work up to your larger goals, and not tackle them head-on. Standing before a mountain is far more daunting than taking it one ridge at a time. You can think of a novel as a series of scenes, or short stories, with each chapter an accomplishment in itself. Motivation will build as more and more of these accomplishments pile up. You can give yourself additional rewards for reaching these milestones, like a night at the movies or a particular food you enjoy. This will positively reinforce the hard work you’ve done up until that point.

But sometimes, the reward stops working, in which case, you are officially an addict going through withdrawal. Indeed, many drugs target dopamine or mimic it in some way. And like all addicts, it takes a little extra reward to get the same sense of pleasure. With planning, you can slowly build up the rewards, making each better than the last until you’ve completed the novel. For the record, I do not advise taking actual drugs.

Find a routine.

Momentum is inarguably, the best way to get somewhere and to keep moving once you’ve arrived. Seeing your word count rise day after day, will not only keep you motivated, but keep the creative juices from stagnating. Setting a routine for yourself, one that matches your own pace, will help you speed through the processes. However, it’s important not to take on more than you can handle, or you can quickly burn out, and the act of completing your novel will seem more an obligation than an aspiration. Take NaNoWriMO, for instance. I’ve heard from many writers that the month is indeed motivating, but can leave you never wanting to look at that particular novel again.

Gain some perspective.

Oftentimes we need validation, assurance that the success we are striving for is in fact momentous, worthwhile, and anticipated by our peers and loved ones. The more worth you pile onto your WIP, the more liberated and accomplished you will feel by the end of it. So it’s okay to daydream about all the success you are going to have, even if those dreams are unlikely to come true.

It’s also important to surround yourself by people who are invested in the outcome of your novel, who can make your hard work feel appreciated, and who encourage you to write more. If you are looking for critiques for your writing, it’s sometimes best to wait until the novel is complete. If a less that positive critique comes back, it can make all your hard work feel pointless and a waste of time. If you still want critiques before you finish, it’s important to ask your critiquers to tell you what you’re doing right. It isn’t in peoples’ nature to dole out praise, but if it’s honest, it is equally if not more helpful than constructive criticism.

Piggyback on a troll.

This is not an actual literary term, but one I made up for lack of a better way to illustrate the concept.

If you need more motivation to complete your WIP, make it a secondary goal to something much more important to you, such as your sense of ethics, values, or loved-ones. Most of us are easily motivated to right a perceived wrong, deal out justice, or confront someone/thing that has offended us or our sense of morality.

And this is where the troll comes in. If you don’t know about trolls, I will do my best to summarize it. Trolls are people who post hateful or inflammatory comments on the internet or other form of media just to elicit an emotional response. Most of the time, trolls just want attention. You can spot a troll’s blog, for example, by the sheer number of outraged comments they have following each post. They love drama. For the record, I have zero respect for trolling, but I make an exception if the only one you are offending is yourself. If you set up your WIP with a moral challenge or dilemma for your characters, you can often trick yourself into seeing the story through to the end just to make sure it ends satisfactorily, and that justice is done. In short, troll yourself. Of course, this works best when you don’t work from a concrete outline and have to discover how the story ends by writing it.

Believe in yourself.

I felt like this post was about to take a turn on cheesy lane when I typed this section’s title, but it bears repeating. If you don’t believe you can do something, you will not have the motivation to try. If, for example, you don’t think you can learn a language, you are never going to attempt it. Again, it is important to surround yourself with people that believe in you. Don’t be afraid to fish for compliments if that is all that stands between you and finishing your WIP.

Finish your work.

This is the last and most important point. Don’t expect to be swept up by motivation halfway through a draft. It is almost always going to fail at some point and become a slow slog to the finish line, but it’s an important line to cross. Once you’ve experienced the pleasure of completing your first draft and then publish, you will have gained all the confidence you need to start your second WIP.

I’m sure there are many more points to cover, but I have run out of ideas, and ironically, the energy and motivation to think more on the subject. But at least I am finishing this post!

This is a really good article that covers many of these same points, and coincidentally, it is titled the Science Behind Motivation.

Please leave a comment if you have more tips to share on how to stay motivated and finish your WIP.

The Write Right Rite

August 22, 2016 / pakramer / Leave a comment

This isn’t a post about homonyms, it’s about the rite of passage we all must take in order to become better writers, to write right. Contrary to popular opinion, people aren’t born great writers. Anyone can become a talented and successful writer so long as they possess the following traits:

The passion for reading and telling stories
The creativity to come up with those stories
The dedication, patience, and persistence to write, edit, and market those stories
The willingness to read, practice, and learn the craft
The humility to learn from your mistakes and accept criticism and feedback

If you are reading this, then you will likely agree that these last two traits are crucial to any writer who wants to improve. In the beginning, most writers are blinded by their own accomplishment, that act of putting so many words down on the page, that they fail to see their own deficiencies. OMG, they say, I am doing what all those authors in bookstores are doing, I am writing a novel. Once I finish, my book will be right up there with theirs. It is not their fault; they simply don’t realize how difficult it is to become a successful author, and their friends and family all insist it’s a work of art. They don’t know that they have just embarked on a life-long journey of self-improvement. Who knew that writing was considered an entire craft? How hard can it be? They’re just words, right?

If only it were that simple. Pretty soon these fledgling writers will leap from the cozy nest they were born in and try to soar to the starry heights of the literary skies. Unfortunately, many of them will plummet to the ground, their little wings incapable of bearing them up. Those that do rise will find that a cruel tempest lies between them and their goal. Once the reality sinks in, many writers will give up and lock their stories away where they can no longer embarrass them.

It takes a lot of courage to face your inadequacies as a writer and choose to stay in it for the long haul. And it won’t be easy. Today’s authors are encouraged to find their own unique voice and original story lines, yet produce writing that meets the standards of the industry. It is a narrow path to walk. If you stray too far from the norm, you will be criticized or ignored entirely, but if you adhere too firmly to the standards of the genre, you will be accused of chasing trends and your work will be viewed as derivative. Today’s author must stretch the limits of the genre’s boundary in order to find their niche.

The quickest way to learn the craft, is to do your research and seek writing advice. At one time or another, most writers will join writers’ groups or participate in online writing websites and forums, or follow blogs (cough…this one… cough). There they can absorb the hard-won wisdom of writers who have already been through the process. All writing advice is subjective, however, since it comes from an author with their own unique voice and target audience. What will work for one person may not work for another. The advice may still be useful, as it has already gone through the extensive process of trial and error. Learning what advice to accept and which to disregard is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome as a writer.

You can read all the advice in the world, but it won’t make you a better writer without practice. It takes time and effort to produce quality writing. Consequently, many writers consign their first novel to the bin, proclaiming it their ‘learning or practice novel.’ Like most rites of passage, this one is particularly discouraging and painful, but is often necessary in order for writers to improve their writing. In a recent newsletter, one of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, admitted to having written ‘numerous books,’ many of which were ‘very weak,’ before he sold his first novel.

Someone once told me that writing is a practice in shoveling a mountain of ‘crap’ (she didn’t say crap), and that every time you write you decrease the height of the pile. Only when the pile is gone, will the writing be free of ‘crap’. However, there will always be writers who do plenty of writing but are incapable of facing their inadequacies, who won’t listen to advice, strive to improve, read books, or learn about the craft. They will continue to churn out undeveloped stories and poor writing, and accuse the world of not understanding them. These unfortunate writers, don’t see the mountain of ‘crap’ they are standing on, and instead produce more of it in order to look down on the world from an even greater and loftier height.

Have you ever recalled a memory, but rather than experiencing it through your own point of view, you look upon your actions as if from third person? I am no psychologist, but I like to think this happens because, subconsciously, you can no longer identify with your former self. Something in your values, your mentality, your self-image has changed. You should strive for this feeling with your writing. If you can look back on something you wrote 5 years ago and see no way to improve it, then you are not doing it right. Writing as a hobby or as a career, requires continuous learning. Read more about the craft, learn more about what your audience wants, read over your reviews or go in search of critiques. There are always ways to improve, and as writers, we should use every opportunity to produce quality and enjoyable writing for our readers.

The science of curiosity

August 19, 2016 / pakramer / 2 Comments

Know naught but for naught but knowing.

I came up with this phrase when writing Agony’s Fire. Apart from its pleasing symmetry, I felt a strong connection to its message. Knowing for the sake of knowledge’s sake, is the very definition of curiosity. But where does curiosity come from? Almost everything has an obvious evolutionary imperative, a reason why it has come to exist in us. For those without an obvious reason, it has either lost its usefulness and has yet to evolve out (e.g. appendix, wisdom teeth), or exists because it can (provided no significant disadvantage to our ancestors), or both. But curiosity is not useless or indifferent, it gets people killed just as often as it saves their lives. Why then would we have evolved to have it?

I posit that curiosity is the feeling that compels us to solve problems with the ultimate goal of controlling our environment. The only way for us to have control over our environment is to learn about it. A baby explores the world by touching and tasting everything, for that is the tried and tested method of knowing if something is good or bad for you. If it tastes good, it is probably edible, and if it doesn’t burn or sting you, it is probably safe to handle. Other senses are not so discerning, but all have evolved to help you learn about your environment and solve problems. Curiosity helped our ancestors do more than decide which food was good to eat, it helped us discover medicines, and drove us to strike rocks and sticks together to make tools, fire, and even music. It gave us power to dispel darkness, to shelter us for the elements, and to hunt and ward off predators.

Like the possibility of a predator in the darkness, uncertainty will keep us up at night, make us sick, cause depression, and age us beyond our years if we don’t answer the question that plagues us. This physiological response to uncertainty occurs when the stress hormone, cortisol, is elevated for long periods of time. Acutely, this hormone will improve pain tolerance, tissue repair, and stimulate cognition to help overcome problems during a fight or flight situation, but the body cannot be sustained at that level for long without consequence. Endorphins are also released during stress to counteract its effects. Endorphins are partly responsible for making you relaxed and feel-good after stress (runner’s high), reduce your sense of pain, and improve your mood. This is the bodies reward for solving a problem. Interestingly, the problem doesn’t necessarily have to be solved in order to have this effect, the individual just has to believe that it is. The placebo effect is thought to be caused by endorphins, making a patient feel like their aliment is being remedied when they are in fact taking a sugar pill. Even more interesting is the fact that many people do see improvements in their health. That is the power of the mind.

I believe this is partly why we enjoy reading. Not only are we attaining knowledge, true or not, we are receiving the benefits of problem solving while in the comfort and safety of home. Curiosity is what keeps us reading from the start of the conflict to the resolution, much as it compels us to resolve conflict in our own lives. This is perhaps why most story arcs look the same and why deviations from the standard ‘shape’ do not perform well. Giving a reader too much conflict and too little resolution will prevent them from feeling the physiological benefits of problem solving. This is perhaps why cliff-hangers, which fail to bring the major conflict to an end, will leave the reader unsatisfied. On the other hand, having too little conflict will keep their stress from rising in the first place and have the same unsatisfying effect. If you fail to heighten the conflict much at all, they may not even experience enough curiosity to keep them reading.

As writers, we must capitalize on the emotional turmoil of our reader, enough to make them invested in the outcome of our story. We must stimulate their curiosity, but not so much that they are chronically or unduly stressed. We should help them learn about the world, and exercise their problem solving skills through the adventures of our characters. In the end, we can hope they will be flooded with endorphins and feel a reader’s high.

Specialization is for insects

July 31, 2016July 31, 2016 / pakramer / 3 Comments

Generalization vs. Specialization

A couple of years ago, I came down with a severe case of gold fever. Having no time, funds, or capability to go digging for gold in my back yard, I contented myself with watching the Gold Rush on the Discovery channel. In one memorable episode, one team was certain they’d discovered the site of an ancient waterfall where they believed a large deposit of gold was buried. Another team had just purchased a large claim of land and was eager to strike gold of their own. Both teams had vastly different strategies. The first team tried to dig straight down to the gold, while the second team arduously stripped away the trees and soil to expose the “pay dirt” beneath. While the first team was able to reach gold the fastest, they quickly dug themselves into a hole from which they couldn’t escape. The second team took much longer to reach bedrock, but when they finally did, they had acres of gold at their feet. It is fitting that the term for the soil between the surface and pay dirt is called “overburden,” for this is something we must all dig through to reach gold, in whatever form it may be.
I have observed these two techniques in both writing and scientific research.
I have seen many writers give the advice to “don’t worry about editing, write a crappy first draft.” Sure they will get to the end much sooner, but what will they have learned about writing? They may have a manuscript in hand within a few months, but they’ll have to spend many more months editing, and years to rid themselves of all the bad habits they’ve picked up along the way. That is a very deep hole to climb out of. When you approach writing methodically, taking time to learn about the craft, discard bad habits and pick up good ones, your manuscript will be much easier to edit and publish, and all subsequent manuscripts will be much easier to write.
In science, some researchers will study one disease for the entirety of their career. This has its advantages, but what will happen if you learn all there is to know about that disease, or if the funding for that type of research shifts, or if a cure is developed? The same goes for researchers who only ever study one protein, one gene, one pathway, or specialize in one technique or instrument. You might reach the gold first, but where will it leave you? At the bottom of a hole with no choice but to crawl out and start digging another one.
We might think specialization is the only way to penetrate deeply into the unknown, but when you approach the problem from all angles, clear away the overburden a little at a time, you will encounter fewer obstacles, and have much more room to move around and pick up whatever gold nuggets you see.
And maybe one day we will be able to break through the bedrock.
In the words of a great science fiction writer:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love