Go where the fish are.

At the desk, 10:30 a.m. (what? I've been working!)

Last Saturday was National Great Outdoors day in Denver's City Park. Hoards of people swarmed the park to play. While a few of curmudgeons are sure the city sold out the park, I think it's really fabulous. Kids learn to fish in the ponds. They can sleep overnight in tents. It's a wonderful adventure in a gem of a park.

It takes days to get ready for the event. The amazing park people who make beauty every single day, work overtime to get the park ready. The National Outdoors folks do their thing and the Colorado Fish and Game people stock the small pond with fish. I mean really, what kind of a first fishing adventure would it be if a kid doesn't catch a big (8" I'm not kidding) fish. Right?

Everyone has a wonderful time.

Fast forward to early Monday morning and you'll find the park people on their golf carts to assess the damage; The can guy was thigh deep in garbage looking for aluminum cans; and cormorants were fishing.

Fishing is a bit of a misnomer. It sounds like the cormorants, birds that can fly and swim, were actually working. They weren't. Not after the Great Outdoors folks have been there. Hundreds of jovial birds were in the pond Monday morning. Juveniles birds were playing with each other while the adults stuffed themselves with big trout.

By Tuesday morning, the fish were gone and the cormorants had returned to their usual solo fishing in Ferril Lake.

I'm sure you're wondering, why is Claudia talking about birds?

We live in a time when people have firm opinions about a lot of things - "Don't work for free!" "You don't need to go to college! Look at Steve Jobs!" "Don't self publish!" "Don't blog!" I could go on but you know what I mean.

To me, the question is life isn't what's right but really, where are the fish?

I don't shift my ego in front of every decision so that I can determine whether this story makes me look fat or if it will sell in New York City or if that agent will follow my work or...

I look for the fish: What's a great story? What story do I want to tell? What stories does the world need to hear right now?

Where are the fish?

It's really quite simple and works every time. It's just not something I can shout about on Facebook and Twitter. ;)

Comments

[TWM]

Denver still has city workers..wow that in and of itself would be a treat.

Oh yeah that wasn't the point...seriously why change the way you have developed for delivery of your product to suit a business that is 95% ego driven and in general still recording record losses because people self publish, blog, and generally have taken back creative control of their own intellectual property. Maybe if the big publishing houses themselves had a little less ego and a bit more willingness to not treat every unknown as a sucker in a slush pile they'd not have put us in the position of becoming masters of our own destiny.

[OGClaudia]

We've had tremendous cut backs but nothing like you have had. The Mayor, now Governor, sold a lot of Denver's assets to oil and gas companies (Google Niobrara Shale field) and the parks to private businesses. So I guess we're lucky.

And yes, to my mind, the only reason to get involved with a big publisher is for legitimacy or other ego purposes.

I am the only master of my own destiny. I feel so lucky to live in a time and place where that is true. I hope to God that doesn't change in my lifetime. Right now, I'm not so sure.