<strong><em>Click image to browse Joe’s books on Amazon.</em></strong>
When I got my first job as an editor 52 years ago in February 1972, I had the great good fortune to be mentored by Joe Henderson.
Joe edited Runner’s World magazine in its first eight years and served as a columnist for 30 years. He defined not only its content, but beautifully represented the heart and soul of the running movement in its earliest and arguably its best years.
Joe was known as a writer’s writer. He was prodigiously productive and could work magic with a simple, straightforward style that used short, plainspoken words to maximum effect.
One of the first things he told me was to let my writing drafts cool down overnight. “You’ll go to sleep feeling pretty good about what you’ve written, and you’ll be amazed in the morning to realize how much work it needs.”
Joe suggested that I sleep on an article until I could rise in the morning and be satisfied with a few minor changes.
The second bit of advice Joe shared was not to talk about work in progress. First, because people probably wouldn’t understand or care, but primarily because yakking about an unfinished project punches holes in the bucket of inspiration through which it can dribble out and evaporate.
“Whoever guards his mouth and his tongue
keepeth his soul from troubles.”
— Proverbs 21:23
Years later, I was struck when Swami Kriyananda gave us the same advice. In a public talk in the 1980s, he said, “The energy you spend talking about a project will be subtracted from the energy that you could spend in actual accomplishment.”
Since then, I’ve noticed that professionals tend to hold their cards close to their chest when it comes to unfinished business.
Contrariwise, I can’t tell you how often I’ve witnessed greenhorns gassing-on about their latest wonderful idea for a book, and how they’ve hooked up with a famous literary agent, publisher’s editor, or celebrity who’s encouraged them effusively.
(Publishers and agents tend to encourage everybody. It costs them nothing, it requires no commitment, and it may actually pay off in the rarest of cases.)
“If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.” — Albert Einstein
Nowadays, the only time I talk about a book-in-progress is to briefly laugh and complain to Ishani, my closest friend and life partner, about the latest befuddling tests.
Once a book is safely uploaded and available on Amazon, I will open up about it. Generally speaking, I will try not to sound like a fat-headed self-promoting poseur. Instead, I will give folks the following realistic but encouraging picture of the book-birthing process: “Writing a book is like crawling on your hands and knees for fifty miles and licking the pavement all the way.”
And, well, I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? It takes a heap of time and energy to publish a book, and there really aren’t any good reasons to blow it all on unfulfilling ego balm.