Brand Power

So, my friend, super smart and intuitive, asked me a pretty simple question. “What is your brand?” He asked while preparing me for an interview with a local newspaper. He and some other friends were prepping me for a meeting with the Arts and Cultural Affairs editor for The Desert Sun. Interest had been growing for my new play about to be performed by Script2Stage, a local theatrical group. It was a great venue for my newest play as it had been for my last one that had been performed there. I was lucky to get in with over eighty plus submissions for just eight programming slots.

I always thought promoting ‘Widows Waltz’ as a play was easy enough. It had a great storyline, a lot of local interest and the right atmosphere for its performance. On the other hand, the idea of talking about myself as the playwright seemed daunting and a real challenge. So, when my friend asked me the million-dollar question, I answered him honestly by saying: “I don’t know. The ideas just come to me.”

“Not acceptable” was his blunt but honest response. “Audiences don’t want to hear that your ideas just came out of nowhere,” He snapped. “They want to know who you are, how you got started writing, what your plays are trying to say, and frankly, why they should care. In other words, just what is your brand?” With a barrage of honesty like that, I had to take one deep breath and it got me to thinking. Just what the heck is my brand?

My hesitancy to promote myself as a brand probably comes from the discomfort I feel with the vapid abstract packaging that so many in this industry wrap themselves up with. When I answered my friend that I didn’t really know where my ideas came from, I was being honest but only on a cursory level. Given a little more thought and reflection I could probably make a pretty clear assessment of where these ideas of mine come from. The easy and most honest answer is everywhere.

At its most basic core, I am a storyteller, plain and simple. The format, genre, style, and depth of my stories are all dictated by the ‘meat of the material’ and how far I want to devour it. Plays have less bulk than novels but call for more from the participants. Children’s stories are easy as long as there are simple messages contained within. Poetry is easy if you’re willing to be brutally honest with yourself and share your soul with perfect strangers.

To a degree my writing defines me; who I am, what I care about and where my head is at in that particular moment. I don’t write for others. I don’t write to become popular. I don’t follow trends (even if I could recognize them) and I frankly don’t give a ding-dong if people agree with me. I share what’s on my mind and hope that I might connect with someone out there and give them a reason to read what I’ve written. If they like it, feel good, inspired, educated, or simply feel it was with their time, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. It’s really as simple as that.

They say the devil is in the details; maybe yes, maybe no. The details certainly explain some things about my subject matter and yet leave others in the clouds. I am eighty years young (because it sounds better than old). My wife and I spend half a year in California because it suits us and defines us at the same time. I started writing in lieu of retirement because retirement would have shortened my life span by decades. I write in different formats and genres because I could never, ever, just write about on subject matter, even if I wanted to. My mind doesn’t work that way, never has.

My personal narrative can best be found in my weekly blogs. They are probably the best way to communicate my personality, attitudes, and feelings about things. They are the portals through which I can explore my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It’s all there; unwashed, unclothed, and free of restraint. So, if I have to have a brand, it’s buried someplace in those weekly ramblings.

I guess, in the end, those details, shortcomings, strengths and flaws all define what my brand is. An older gentleman (liberty taken there) who has to write almost every day, spends winters in a warm place, writes what he wants to write about, has trouble marketing his own products and couldn’t and wouldn’t stop even if he wanted to. Yeah, I guess that’s who I am.