If we are honest with you, how could I possibly be smart enough or wise enough to give you and me one of THE BIG SECRETS IN LIFE?
How can anyone know what THE SECRET is?
Yet, let's take a shot at it. First, may I be bold enough to say that almost nobody under seventy knows what THE SECRET is. Fortunately, I am over seventy!!!
All kidding aside, what is the SECRET BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE?
Let us start with a premise: You have to look at the character of a person to evaluate whether they know A SECRET OF LIFE OR NOT. Are they:
* developed beings, integrated and whole?
* do they exploit others by lying to them or selling them a job?
* do they prove they are successful by leading integrated lives?
* to they practice what they preach and have positive results?
* in their own sphere of influence with those they know to they make a positive contribution to their lives?
* do those who claim to have THE SECRET also deal effectively with the NEGATIVES of life, THE GREAT TESTOR?
You can make your own list. These are the guidelines I have used in my life developing myself and interacting with other people of note.
Shall we add one more? Let's!
ARE THE PEOPLE WHO PROCLAIM THE SECRET MAKING A LOT OF MONEY OFF OF OTHER PEOPLE BY PROCLAIMING THEIR SECRET?
Are they using money and prosperity as a chief measure to you that their secret works?
Here's the flaw in such reasoning.
A true to reality life principle works because it is effective. Does your Proclaimed Secret make lot's of money for the few or for the many who buy your hype and your product? Being successful for the few is just by chance out of the many. A few make it and many don't. It's just like the guru phenom. The guru makes it and buys Rolls Royce's. The followers remain poor and inadequate sinners while the guru or pope is seen as glorious and realized. The One and The Many again. Don't think that because a few look successful that the many will also who also practice THE SECRET.
THE SECRET IS EFFECTIVENESS IN LIFE!
Did you know that? It's my secret. When I was in school and university I could almost always get the highest grades when I wanted to and studied hard enough. It was fun. It made me feel important. It gave me a sense of ego, that I am different and better than the rest of them.
For some strange and evil reason school systems foster this approach by giving better grades to the few over the many. They foster competition and egocentricity. It took me awhile to realize that getting the best grades was a false measure of life. School and the educational system is not the real world. The academics who run that system are in retreat from the real world, unless an occasional professor gets out there and invents useful things and services that working people truly need to better their lives.
If you can be EFFECTIVE in life in various ways then you put your mouth where your words are. Do your words fall on shallow ground, like the educational system of artificial rewards and punishments? Or do your words fall on fertile ground of hard work, commitment to excellence and positive results for the whole team and not just its leaders?
This is a general essay about the quality of life and how to live its real issues and solve them positively. Now we take the focus to writing as a serious endeavor.
WRITING THE NOVEL OR SCREEN PLAY AND SUCCEEDING AT IT
We can give you no magic formula here but we can take a strong position in the right direction that has worked for us.
THE SECRET IS EFFECTIVENESS IN LIFE AND IN WRITING
We don't care so much what you have to do to get there, but you should do almost all your actions to problem-solve effectively.
YOU MUST PROBLEM-SOLVE REAL PROBLEMS AND CREATE PRODUCTS AND VALUES OF EXCELLENCE TO PROVE EFFECTIVENESS IN LIFE.
THE SECRET IS EFFECTIVENESS.
Effectiveness is when what happens consistently is what we intend to happen. When the scientists produced the first atomic bomb they were not sure from their physics knowledge what would actually happen. Would the chain reaction of splitting atoms form a reaction in all matter and almost instantly destroy the world? Or would the bomb explosion be localized to only the radioactive materials in the bomb itself. The bomb worked and now physics as a valid body of truth is confirmed forever. It is not just theoretical but practical. The scientists produced what they intended to produce.
In any field, ask how can you become effective and solve at least some of the problems in that field?
In writing the novel it is the same situation as in physics. Can we produce the bomb? Can we create something that can almost instantly kill millions of people and end life on earth as we know it? Shall we try to prove that humanity can indeed do this? No, because the proving would kill the scientists as well. No one wants such pragmatic knowledge at such a great price!!!
Can we then in a lesser field prove what makes for a successful novel?
Do the successful novelists know what makes for their success in writing novels that sell?
Does Danielle Steele know consciously what sells her novels? Has she told anyone? What is her great secret of effectiveness, for she is the most successful living author on earth with over 500 million of her books sold. Yes, I read that as a fact somewhere, and I believe it, having analyzed one of her books.
Not only does Danielle Steele write exciting books but she has THE SECRET. It is not what current New Age Sales People try to tell you THE SECRET IS, which seems to be, THINK POSITIVE AND YOU WILL DRAW POSITIVE ENERGY TO YOU.
The secret for the successful novelist is:
CRAFT: CRAFT! CRAFT! CRAFT!
Not talent alone. Not writing good sentences. Not having a great writer's imagination only. Not being a celebrity and that is what sells your books. Not having media publicity and so that makes you a best-seller writer.
CRAFT SELLS BOOKS.
CRAFT IS THE SECRET OF EFFECTIVENESS IN THE NOVEL WRITING BUSINESS.
That's how we see it from this end. I have a university masters in English Literature, and another one in Psychology, but neither university taught me how to write novels. They taught me how to analyze novels. They taught me how to analyze people, not how to construct great characters.
Yet now the world is different in the new century. There are a lot of writing craft courses and books out there. We have utilized a lot of the best in making our huge collection of over 2000 writing tools and helps. We did it to learn how to write effective novels ourselves. We pass on to you, also a writer, the same writing craft tools and prompts that we are using ourselves to improve and make dramatically effective our own novels and other things we do like articles and podcasts.
CRAFT KNOWLEDGE USE IS THE SECRET OF EFFECTIVENESS IN WRITING A SUCCESSFUL NOVEL.
Don't believe me. You want to just sit down and write, like one editor at the Writer's Digest Forum maintains? Well, go ahead, do it your way. You will do it your way, anyway. But if you want to become effective as a writer and stand half a chance at success, you will learn your craft from beginning to end.
Be sure and study well the fifty leading writing craft books that I have. Be sure and take some creative writing courses to see how little the instructors know about writing. Read and analyze all the great novels you want to, and still fail to understand how to write an effective novel. Mine the blogs on creative writing and drown in the ideas of failure express there by so many people.
No, yes, if you want success, make sure your writing at its final stage is effective writing. If it does not demand to be read by readers then it is not effective writing and it will never be read because you DON'T HAVE A GOOD STORY, and YOU DO NOT USE EFFECTIVE CRAFT KNOWLEDGE TO TELL YOUR STORY.
I have 100,000 words of my novel. I have 350,000 books sold in eight languages. I have one a best seller, The Dream Cards, at 110,000 copies sold in eight languages around the world. This is no bragging. This is reality testing. I am trying to write well because I love writing and because I want to be successful in real terms at it.
My latest research? It is my podcasts which got 63,000 listeners in the first year. During that same time the podcasts that got me the most listeners was the Prologue to my Jesus Novel at around 4000 listeners. A number of other podcasts are almost up there with this number, such as my Loving Laurie podcast.
Yet the top one is The Prologue To The Jesus Novel. I put it there to get response, to test the market. I put this podcast out in two parts to get public response from strangers. Could I gauge the interest in the subject matter, and would people actually listen in large numbers?
This is the testing of EFFECTIVENESS.
EFFECTIVENESS FOR A WRITER IS GREAT STORY WEDDED TO GREAT CRAFT IN WRITING IT.
We stand behind our comprehensive collection of writing craft tools. We were astounded that only one writing craft book had a large collection of writing tools and the others didn't. We were astounded that our writing course instructors did not give us writing tools but simply readings from novels and memoirs to comment on, and also made banal comments on our own work. Ho-Hum!
If you want EFFECTIVENESS in life, learn the necessary craft that goes with your field. If you want to be a successful lover, don't just go for experiences. Go for quality. Go for excellence. Learn from the best teachers who know their love craft. Learn! Problem-Solve! Create Excellence.
To do this you have to be effective in life, do you not?
We wish you all the success possible to you in life!
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