Remember, You're Selling Coffee

It's not only the little guys who sometimes lose their way. To my constant astonishment, so do the big guys. Even Starbigs. You know how many things they're into? In addition to the ever-proliferating coffee concoctions, in my moderate-sized mall store alone, they sell CDs, books, mugs, thermoses, coffee presses, coffee grinders, prepackaged coffees, desserts, packaged snacks, salads, lunch wraps, and breakfast sandwiches. And they've produced a movie, with the promise of more to come.

Surefire success, yes? No. Maybe the first sign to symbolize dilution of the Starbucks experience was that regulars complained the smell of heating breakfast sandwiches overshadowed the heady and comforting coffee aroma.[1] Last year, after a long stint of groundbreaking triumphs, unbelievably Starbucks sales and stock plunged and major competitors climbed onto the coffee wagon. McDonald's added espresso drinks to 800 locations, planning to get them into all 14,000. Dunkin' Donuts came up with a barrel-ful of flavored brews (Mocha Almond Hot Latté!).[2] Maybe DunkBucks doesn't quite make it, but the drinks are pleasingly similar and the prices deliciously low. Starbucks was threatened.

Chairman Howard Schultz quickly stepped in and resumed his reign of the beans. Returning to his former role as CEO "for the long term," he declared, "We must address the challenges we face and know what has to be done."[3] He knew that Starbucks, with all of its auxiliary goodies, had lost sight of its mission: "Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world . . . ."[4]

The changes were instant: Stores would again freshly grind the beans so customers could breathe in the coffee, some products would be excised, and even more tantalizing and innovative coffee potions would be developed.[5] And more-- in an audacious and buzz-worthy move, Schultz closed over 7,000 Starbucks shops across the U.S. for an intense, three-and-a-half-hour employee retraining in "the Art of Espresso." This unprecedented move, part of his "Transformation Agenda," was designed to "energize partners [employees] and transform the customer experience."[6]

Schultz's unflinching and instant actions in the face of a gathering downward spiral prompt parallel questions about our writing. What are we doing? What's our mission? Do we too need to make some immediate, bold changes?

Whether you're a novelist, poet, essayist, or short story creator, watch out for the equivalents of Starbucks' CDs, mugs, and sandwich wraps. Do you faithfully contribute to critique groups, message boards, chatrooms, forums? Do you post long thoughtful comments in online newsletters and articles? Do you exchange daily chummy emails with writing friends?

Fine. But-- these activities can fool you into thinking you're writing. They produce the illusion of writing, and you know at the end of the day, despite small satisfactions and back-patting compliments from colleagues, that you've been prancing around the edges and not plunging into the pool of your real writing.

Or, like Schultz recognized, are you diversifying too much? Despite your avowed genre preference, do you have thirteen projects going at once? I usually do-- personal essays, craft articles, two novels, chapters in three self-help books, four stories… Not to mention the drawer of file folders-ful of notes for several novels. We can congratulate ourselves on our creative fertility, but we also know we're flitting, not focusing.

With too much going on at once, Starbucks lost control and market share. What we can lose is equally valuable: time, motivation, momentum. We sit blankly staring at the pile, feeling defeated before we start. Or we peek at one project, do a little, then inch into another, dabble for a moment, and hobble to another. The result? We never finish anything and create only a huge, depressive headache.

Sometimes we find ourselves succumbing to another temptation that further dilutes our mission. As writer Gaie Sebold candidly describes, in the midst of our major project (the four-generation historical novel, the essay collection starting in fifth grade, the twenty-year memoir), we feel the irresistible urge to drop the entire thing in favor of the "siren song of shiny new novel." We can hardly stop ourselves from plunging in, abandoning the current "tarnished, dented, older work"[7] like used coffee grounds, no matter how much we earlier savored it. If we succumb to the enticement, we're likely to succumb again to that black overwhelm.

Recognize what you're doing. Starbucks became so enamored of the trap of wraps and the seduction of salads that it lost sight of its mission. Not that they can't sell a few snacks or you can't nurture a few concurrent projects, but the key is to remind yourself of your mission. Remember, said Schultz, we're selling coffee. And our writing mission? To complete the work we've embarked on.

When my mission threatens to vanish like a squirt from the aerosol can and I bump up against my piles of files, I know I need a reminder lesson in prioritizing, something like Schultz's marathon retraining. I force myself to choose only three or four (or four or five) "current" projects and make a small list-- this column, two queries, the short story needing revision. The list sits on my desk, always in reminding view.

Then, so I won't lose sight of the other projects I could easily veer off into at the drop of a post-it, I make another list. This time it's more long-term projects-- new essay ideas, half-started queries, three more story synopses, with approximate time targets next to each. When a project on the immediate list gets completed, another from the long-term list replaces it.

This method isn't unusual or inspirational, and it presupposes that you know your mission, carry its passion, and want more than anything keep acting on it. Schultz lives, breathes, and constantly tastes coffee. We all live and breathe our writing.

Neither does the list making stifle ideas that, often magically, come sailing through. They're to be encouraged, captured, cherished. This method harnesses them to make sure they're recorded. (Some writers keep a separate file just for new ideas until they make their debuts on the lists.) Like Schultz's retraining, meant to energize and transform, the list technique aims to restore your enthusiasm and reclaim your sense of order, priority, and control. It channels your creativity to the writing itself and leads inevitably to the elation of completing your projects.

As Starbucks put too much effort into selling its battery of non-coffee products, so we can market our writing to too many places. Maniacally, I used to send articles and stories to every writers' how-to publication I could search out and every fiction journal in Writer's Market. All I did was mail, email, and keep records of all of it. The more I sent, the more depressed I got. Of course, I wasn't writing anything new.

And then, providentially, I came across a piece of basic, almost simplistic advice. It was my private "Transformation Agenda" following Schultz's principle of paring down to concentrate more fully on what mattered.[8]

Choose only a handful of markets, says Jenna Glatzer in her book Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer. Focus on those you really want to break into.[9] Common sense, yes, but that advice freed me. So I made another list, this time of only six or seven publications for different genres. This list sits snug against my immediate projects list. Together they remind me I'm sending coffee.

If the head of the capitalistic coffee giant can admit Starbucks spilled the beans and lost its way-- and in full media view-- can we not also look into ourselves and acknowledge the same? If you're feeling overwhelmed and frustrated with all your writing projects, declare and define your own transformation agenda. Especially if you feel you're losing the passion and delight of your writing, it's time to sit back, sip a little nonfat no-whip, and remember, you're selling coffee.

9 Jenna Glatzer, Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer (White River Junction, VT: Nomad Press, 2004).

Noelle Sterne’s latest hard-copy magazine piece, on the many publicity avenues for children’s writers, appears in the June issue of The Writer. Writer, editor, writing coach, and academic consultant, Noelle holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature. She has published fiction, essays, poems, and writer’s craft articles in many magazines and online resources, including Absolute Write, ByLine, Children’s Book Insider, Writer’s Digest special issues, Writers’ Journal, The Writer, and the 2008 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market. Her children's book, Tyrannosaurus Wrecks: A Book of Dinosaur Riddles (HarperCollins) was in print for 18 years and featured in the first dinosaur show of the PBS television children's series "Reading Rainbow."

In 2006, her visionary short story, “Casey,” won an award and was published in the CrossTIME Anthology, Vol. V. This story was republished in 2008 in the Star Stepping Anthology (Wild Child Publishing). She continues to write and publish motivational and how-to articles for writers, with additional pieces scheduled in national magazines for 2008 and beyond.

Current nonfiction projects include a book based on her academic consulting practice, Grad U: How to Survive and Succeed in Graduate School, Get Your Degree, and Ease the Trip for Yourself and Everyone Who Has to Live with You; a book specifically for children’s writers, Give Great Children’s Presentations; and a collection of essays for all writers, First You Find Your Desk: Start Writing and Keep Writing with Less Agony and More Joy.