Gary's Brilliant Career (Cont'd)

Last weekend, I talked about some of the actions I took to move from "GBS, Corporate Citizen," to "GBS, Independent Trader." I encourage you to read through those columns if you're contemplating a similar move.

However, at the crux of my move was the confidence that I could "just do it." Of course, I had a pretty good methodology, and I had a solid foundation, in terms of both family support and an adequate starting nest egg. Still, at the core, I had confidence I could succeed as a trader. And that trait, more than any other, is still the difference between success and failure. (Sidebar: It's the loss of that confidence, by the way, that ends up dooming most traders in the end...)

So, what's this have to do with Saturday and Sunday's discussions? That is, how to become a writer? Well, if you overlay this weekend's columns with last weekend's you'll probably note plenty of similarities. But I'll let you draw your own conclusions as I take you through my story.

As background, I was neither an English major, nor journalism major in college. The fact is, I really didn't do much of any writing throughout my academic career.

But I wish I had, because good writing requires clear, precise thinking, along with a feel for flow and cadence. Not surprisingly, those are many of the same things necessary to become a good trader.

So, with that in mind, how did I get started as a writer? Actually, I was driven by the desire to make a buck, and to that end, I had the notion that a golf newsletter (this was pre-Internet days, mind you) would be a swell way to make a pile of money. You know, write it once, sell it 50,000 times!

Ha! If only it worked out that easily. Still, I was convinced a golf newsletter that was edgy, controversial, and that wasn't afraid to call a spade a spade, would soon garner a wide audience, and identify me as the "only golf writer willing to speak the truth."

This was in direct contrast, by the way, to the state of golf writing at the time: plain vanilla and, frankly, boring. Oh, OK, that's also the current state of golf writing, save for a couple of writers who served as my mentors!

In any event, I was a one-man band with this newsletter. I decided to make it a four-pager and publish twice a month. Along the way, I became vice president of direct marketing, A/R manager, head of operations, sales executive and editor-in-chief.

But, above all, I learned how to write. And I learned what everyone who ever puts pen to paper should remember: At the very minimum, make your writing something that you, yourself, would enjoy reading! Forget about what you think the "rules" of good writing are. Forget about trying to impress people with your 1 million-word vocabulary. Instead, make your writing sound as interesting as your speaking. Let your personality shine through. Yes, content is important. Yes, structure is important. But, that's all lost on the reader if they page out after just a few sentences!

And how do you get good at it? You write every single day! You write when you feel like it, and you write when you don't. You experiment with being serious and analytical. And you experiment with being humorous. But, mostly you write long enough and hard enough until you enjoy seeing your words on paper as much as you enjoy hearing your own voice. Like finding a trading methodology that suits you and only you, you want to find a writing style that shouts out Gary B. Smith, and not F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Anyway, back to my story. Now, why golf? Because I was a golf nut. Heck, I was reading seven golf publications a week, and that was before I had any inkling of actually writing about it. So, you know the old saw about writing what you know about? Absolutely true.

Of course, like most newsletter writers, I started out slowly, but within a few months had nearly 300 subscribers. Along the way, though, I'd send out my homemade publication to the established golf journals and sports magazines, praying they'd give me one little mention.

That never happened, but something better did. I received a call from the golf editor at Sports Illustrated who wanted to know if I was interested in writing a weekly column for their new "Golf Plus" insert.

Honestly, this was a huge break. No, that's understating it. It was a huge break. He wasn't asking me to be a fact-checker, or reporter, or even staff writer. He was asking if I wanted to pen my own weekly column. That's like appearing in your high school class play one day, and getting a call from George Lucas the next day asking if you want to play Darth Vader! So, yeah, that was a gigantic stroke of luck. And, truthfully, if that hadn't happened, you might not be reading these words now.

OK, enough for today. Sunday, the leap from SI to TSC, some things I learned along the way, and why, even if you're not a writer, you should write every day.