The Group Jazz Chautuaqua is marking its 10th anniversary and they're asking people who've taken part some questions about what they're up to. I answered their questions and thought it would make do as a blog entry for today! (Does this qualify as a bit of Wu Wei, Evelyn?)

What are YOU reading this summer?

I start more books than I finish, and lately I've been reading only very short books. I've just finished "Management of the Absurd" by Richard Farson. However, despite this, I've started two medium sized-books, "Good Business" by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi and "Authentic Happiness" by Martin Seligman.

Describe a book that had a big influence on you. When did you read it? How did you come to read it? (was it recommended or assigned? did you just stumble across it?)

"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. I read it about three years ago. I was half-attending to a TV interview with Jim Carrey and he (I think) used the words "The Power of Now". I wasn't really listening closely, but I got the impression that he and his interviewer were referrring to something they'd both read. It stuck in my brain and I looked it up on the net and bought it.

Reading it is like taking a cold shower when you're used to warm ones, and where the difference shocks but also, if you let it, delights you. His writing style manages to be in your face without the annoying vehemence of many books that instruct you in what to do. I find his voice compelling so that this is not simply a book "about" being in the present; my experience is of being brought vigorously into the present just reading it. More and more I seek the blend of Simple yet Profound that, for me, this book embodies. (Hence my increasing preference for very short books!).

Do you have a favorite book on writing? Or, what advice do you have for people who are thinking about writing a book?

I'm sure I SHOULD have a favourite book on writing, but I don't!

My advice for people should not be taken very seriously as I don't follow it myself nearly enough of the time to speak with any authority. But it would be: when stuck, separate

judgement and editing

from

production.

Give yourself permission to write anything and not worry for now whether its good or not. If that doesn’t work, give yourself the task of writing utter rubbish for 5 minutes. The worst obstacle for me is the blank sheet of paper. Once there are some words on it, however poor, there is something to edit and the task moves forward.

Bonus advice - if, like me, you tend to islolate yourself when writing, when you get stuck find someone to talk to about being stuck. Socialising the problem sometimes releases the block.

What are you working on now? (a new book? a new project?)

I'm doing a certain amount of "business as usual" and I notice how tiring I find it when work becomes routine. So I'm working on taking a current project brief and going back with something that has less to do with what the client says they want and more to do with what I feel like doing. It's a competitive tender so I feel fine about giving them a provocative choice.

I'm hoping to write a very short book about branding. Not a story about branding as told by the "experts" who claim to have the magic formula for success (very boring and phoney, I think) but an allegory about how brands really come into being as an act of collective improvisation...