Timothy's Thoughts

F acebook is an interesting place. It's the kind of place where you can know what your friends are thinking, even before they think it. There’s one particular fellow I have followed on Facebook and Twitter who often talks about his experiences with various companies and often he does so hoping that someone from that company will see his comment on rectify the problem. I suppose I got drawn into this concept somewhat, but every time I’ve tried that, I’ve felt guilty and have wondered how this fellow has felt comfortable doing that. I don’t know why it took so long to sink in, but doing this is essentially gossip. Yeah, we might think that we are motivating the company or person to “do the right thing,” but it still amounts to gossip. If we are going to talk about a bad customer service experience online, shouldn’t we first exhaust our opportunities to resolve the issue before telling others about it? It’s one thing to warn people about a company that is consistently bad or has a...

B oy meets girl. Boy courts girls. Boy and girl live happily ever after. It’s a standard sequence of events in a typical romance novel. Of course, it is usually dressed up a little, along the lines of: Super rich oil man meets poor school teacher. Super rich oil man takes poor school teacher on whirlwind tour of the world. Super rich oil man and poor school teacher live happily ever after. The direction of this story is clear in that we want to move the characters from sad and single to happy and married, but if we were to follow this outline, we would have a boring story. No one wants a story about someone getting everything he ever wanted. Let me amend that. I can think of one bestselling novel that is written exactly that way, but it is the exception rather than the rule. What we want is a story about overcoming adversity. The thrill of victory is proportional to the struggles we faced in getting there. But consider what happens if we rewrite that story as Super rich oil man and p...

W riters seem to have this plan that after they sell their book they’ll be able to walk into the boss’ office, lay their resignation on the table and walk out. The fact is that few writers are able to do that. I’ve heard that among full-time authors, the average annual income is $31,000. You could live off that, if you had to, but I don’t think that’s what most writers have in mind as they dream of their future success. There are other things to consider as well. If you are self-employed, you have to pay your own benefits. If you want health insurance, you will have to pay for it. Your retirement plan may also take a hit. Even if all your company does is match half your contributions to a 401k, quitting your day job and taking a pay cut will hurt your plans for retirement. I hear people complain about their day jobs a lot. It is part of our culture, but the fact is that most people like what they do. They may not enjoy it all the time, but there’s something they like about it or th...

W riting is hard, or so I’ve heard. It seems easy enough. You simply put pen to paper to fingers to keyboard and let your thoughts flow. It’s great when that happens. So what’s so hard about writing? For me, writing gets hard when I’m writing along and I realize, “this is boring.” When we write, we begin with a theory for the story. When the theory works, the story flows from the fingers. We write scene after scene and it keeps on going. When the theory fails, it is difficult to write. If we’ve diligently outlined our story, we know we need the scene, but it’s boring. The characters aren’t moving the story forward. They’re just sitting around waiting for something to happen, something to respond to or they’re talking about something that they’ve already discussed or no change is taking place. The conflict is minimal. It’s boring. What’s the Theory? The theory for a story is all those decisions we make before we begin that we think will present the story in the best way. One of the bigg...

S ocial networking, is the topic from the 20 questions for leaders that Michael Smith of ClearView Baptist Church in Franklin, Tennessee asked Mike Hyatt Can you explain the impact, if any, that social networking and Web 2.0 has made on your organization or you personally? I hear that Web 2.0 is dying as a term. It is probably just as well, but the stuff it is will remain for a long time. A few weeks ago, we had a student in our Sunday school class who was absent. When I got home, I sent her a simple little message on Facebook saying something like "Missed you in class." I encounter people on a daily basis on various blogs that I will probably never meet in person. I spend far more time with social networking than I probably should, but I have yet to see any significant change in our church because of it. E-mail has finally caught on. It seems like our committees are doing more work through e-mail these days than we are doing when we meet face to face. I know Robert'...

E ditor’s Note: This week, rather than give you a behind the scenes look at my books, I thought I’d give you a look at a little of my thought process as I write by telling you a story. Before I write page one and before I draw an outline, I often begin with a story concept that looks something like the one below. This particular story is unlike any of my books, but it is one I’ve enjoyed contemplating. Deep in the blackness of space, a cargo ship is underway toward a planet on the other side of the galaxy. On this trip, the ship is also a passenger ship of sorts. Few cargo ships make a such a long journey without taking on a few paying passengers along the way, but this ship is loaded with stasis pods—hundreds of them. Most are medical patients who have picked up a deadly decease on one planet or another. They have paid a great sum of money for the hope of a cure on a distant planet. A few are travelers who prefer traveling in stasis to spending months in space. Some of the pods bear ...

F orm letters are a fact of life. I suppose some people hate them. That seems to be the opinion of some literary agents anyway. They refuse to send a response of any kind. But me, I love form letters. No one expect busy people to respond to write a personal response to every piece of correspondence they receive. For that matter, most people don’t care if the response is personal, as long as they get a response. We know that some of the mail we send never gets past the secretary and the response is either a form letter or written by someone else.So maybe there isn’t much to love about that, but what I love about form letters is that occasionally one will come that is a little different. It is a reminder that we aren’t just another face in the crowd. The other day, I received an e-mail from a particular library saying that they would like to have copies of my books in their library and asking if I had copies I would be willing to donate. I gladly sent them a copy of each of my books....