V as in Mark Twain's VALENTINE TO VIRTUE and VALUABLE lesssons in how to succeed as a writer

{Photo in public domain}

 

Ghost of Mark Twain back again.

Seeing as how I started out the week, it seems only fitting I end it.  so here is my

VALENTINE TO VIRUTE
 

Now, I don’t claim to have all the virtues – only nine or ten of them. 

I just picked up M. de L.’s new French dictionary just published in Paris, and it defines virtue as

“a woman who has only one lover and don’t steal.”

And in that sense I have just fallen plumb in love with a new gal:

the Cinderella of tech, Sophia Amoruso.
 

‘Who’s she?’, you ask.  Why, she’s the slyest little thing that looks like a Goth princess but with a side order of Tom Sawyer wiles.

She started Nasty Gal, an eBay page that sold vintage women’s clothing.

Last year, Nasty Gal sold nearly $100 million of clothing and accessories — profitably.

That’s right, children: an eBay page –

an eBay page to sell some of the vintage designer items she found rummaging through Goodwill bins. She bought a Chanel jacket at a Salvation Army store for $8 and sold it for $1,000.

She found Yves Saint Laurent clothing online on the cheap by Googling misspellings of the designer’s name, reasoning that anyone who didn’t know how to spell Yves Saint Laurent probably didn’t realize his value.

She styled, photographed, captioned and shipped each product herself and sold about 25 items a week. She named the eBay page “Nasty Gal” after the 1975 album by Betty Davis —

not the whisky-throated film star Bette Davis, but the gleefully sexy singer and style icon Betty, whose brief marriage to the jazz legend Miles Davis inspired the song “Back Seat Betty.”

And if all that ain’t virtue, I surely do not know what is.


Now, don’t feel bad that you ain’t as virtuous as my new darling, Sophia Amoruso.  Most folks are as virtuous as they can muster, according to their lights.  But with many I guess their lights are a little dim.

Virtue has never been as respectable as money, but my new love has both, don’t you know?

Sophia, my new darling, has given you struggling writers
valuable lessons in how you can succeed in your own dreams.

What do you think are some of her lessons?

Here are some thoughts of my very own.  Don't laugh, children.  I get them every now and then:

It is important not to limit your perspective about what you are trying to create to the mere medium you are creating it for.

As a novelist you are not creating a book, filled with paper pages that have ink on them.

You are creating a media franchise.

Whether it is a successful one, intentionally, or unintentionally, is up to you.

How did Sophia do it?  How can you adapt her ways to your own?

Think arresting title ... perceived value versus real value ... desires draped as needs ... the psychology of the folks viewing.