The Secret to Success

I know the secret to success. At least I think I do. But before you can truly embrace the secret, you have to define what success means to you.

For some, success means money. The more the better, right? I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to buy anything they wanted with no worries, travel the world and also have the opportunity to help others? I wouldn’t turn down a pile of money, yet I wouldn’t call myself successful because of it either. But, some would. And, to each his or her own.

For others, success means fame. The evolution of reality TV has made fame all the more possible for just about anyone, especially those who are willing to be exploited. So is it cool to be recognized at the supermarket checkout and asked to sign a tabloid? Based on the millions of people willing to share just about anything online, I think it may be. If being famous, or infamous, is how one defines success, I have no right to argue the point.

In truth, feeling successful is quite personal. Wait, so then how can the secret to success be the same for everyone?

Because it’s about a universal need we all have: to be happy. And, surprisingly, we can give this very feeling to ourselves. Imagine that? We don’t have to rely on others to do this for us. We can choose happiness, and therefore choose success.

Sounds easy, right? It’s not. Especially when life throws rocks at us at every turn and it we see no end in sight. What we need to know, is that we have the power to pick up the rocks and throw them back.

When something happens, go on and get upset, because you are human. And then brush yourself off and move on. Smile and choose happiness. The more you do this, the easier it will be. It’s amazing how successful happy people are, not just the other way around.

Want to be successful? Be happy. Start today. It’s easy. All you have to do is remember that no matter how terrible you think a situation is, it could always be worse. Then watch your happiness, and feelings of success, follow.

It’s not really a secret at all.

Let It Go

I hopped on the “Frozen” bandwagon over the weekend and I’m glad I did. Although there were times it reminded me of a Broadway show being played out by cartoons with humongous eyes, it also captivated me.

With the Oscar-winning theme song repeating in my head, I’ve come to understand why so many people are singing Elsa’s tune. It’s powerful. Who wouldn’t want to be their true self all of the time without any consequences? To be truly free is rare and Elsa made me want a piece of that freedom.

Except life isn’t a Disney movie, although it’s a nice thought. Balancing what we hide and what we reveal serves its purpose. We can tell a friend that their pants are too tight (if they ask) without saying they are fat. Finding ways to be honest and kind isn’t always easy, but it’s possible.

We may not have supernatural powers like Elsa, but we can still freeze hearts. We might not be able to build an ice castle in the mountains with our hands, but we can turn cold and shut people out. For certain, we can detonate unexpectedly and take those we love down with us.

If we know this, how can we change it? I think it’s less about hiding our faults and more about loving the real person in all of us. Celebrating our weaknesses as much as our strengths. Saying we are sorry. Committing to doing better next time. Being kind. Loving the people in our lives, not only when it’s easy but when it’s exceptionally hard. Being silent when we know the words might hurt, even if the words need to be said, and especially when we believe the words to be true. Putting the ones we love first. Admitting we will make mistakes, we will fail and we will let others down. And, it’s okay. We are only human.

We must embrace ourselves before anyone else will embrace us.

So as Elsa sings, “Let it Go,” in my head, I feel closer to the movie’s message: Let go of whatever holds you back from being your true self, but balance it with love. It means speaking our minds, respectfully. Digging deep to find the right words, not the words that make us right. We have one life to love and to be loved.

I, for one, have a long way to go. But when a Disney character like Elsa makes it seems so easy, I can’t help but wonder if maybe she’s right.

One Day at a Time

Being an avid reader, it is only fitting that I use my one hundred mile commute to feed my audiobook obsession. I dive into plots of murder and mayhem and families torn apart. Sometimes, I even take trips to other worlds where paranormal fantasies are reality. Anything to escape the stress of traffic. But today, I found myself deep in thought over a mantra I was hearing with brand new ears.

In the story I am listening to, the main character has a multitude of crippling addictions that drive him to the brink of suicide, and insanity. He’s on the verge of losing everything, including his life. Worse, he is in complete denial that his habits are actual addictions, even though he admits he can’t go a moment without thinking about them.

So when a recovering addict explains he’s been sober for thirteen years, the main character is astonished. He can’t imagine abstaining from drugs for one day, let alone over a decade. The recovering addict says it was easy. He has never committed to a life of sobriety, only to being sober for one day. He’s done it every day for thirteen years, and thirteen years later he’s still sober.

It made sense to me. After all, we only have one day – today.

My new ears took this concept and tried to translate it into action. We all know how hard it is to meet a long-term goal. Losing the extra weight and keeping it off – for good. Exercising until we are fit enough to run that marathon. The dream we are chasing is one we want so desperately but always seems to be one foot out of our reach.

I happen to be a person who is motivated by long-term goals. I don’t know if it’s because I like to torture myself, or because I want my experience to be so difficult that when I’m finally rewarded there is no doubt that I earned it. Yet even for someone like me, traveling down long and difficult roads gets exhausting. Sometimes you want to get out of your car and hop into a spaceship that transports you to your destination instantaneously. Or, maybe that’s my commute.

Like any worthwhile goal, novel-writing is a time-consuming and strenuous process. But with a newfound mantra up my sleeve, I’ll get some bits of goal reaching satisfaction along the way. If I focus on my daily word count goal alone, then reaching it will mean I’ve accomplished my goal (albeit short-term). Then, thirty, sixty or ninety (or whatever it takes) days later, I’ll have a completed first draft.

And when I look back, I’ll know exactly how I managed to write a seemingly impossible ninety thousand words. As you will with your goal.

One day at a time.

 

First Impressions are Everything

It’s true. You really do have just one chance to make a first impression. If you don’t make it a good one, you’ll never get another. What if you do a decent job? Will someone be apt to give you a second or third chance?

It’s possible. People are flawed. We make mistakes. We have struggles and life isn’t always easy. Sometimes, our alarm doesn’t go off and we run out of the house on interview day wearing two different earrings. Okay, that has never happened to me, but it does happen. Does it mean you don’t get the job? I guess it depends on the person interviewing you. They could look at your mismatched jewelry as a sign of your disorganization, or see it as a reflection of your humanity. People are forgiving many times when it comes to other people.

But what about when it comes to books?

As I plan my publishing strategy, I wonder about first impressions. Are they as important for books as for people? Will readers be forgiving with a book that isn’t edited well or a cover that doesn’t meet the mark?

I ask myself this question because while I’m a writer, I’m also an avid reader. I get through anywhere from 50 to 100 books a year and I’m pretty picky with my choices. It’s not to say I won’t give someone a chance. Everyone who has put in the time and effort to write a novel deserves a chance at true readership.

As a reader, I spend hours of my life (that I will never get back) on each story and I hope the author has put exponentially more time into making it as perfect as it could be for my reading pleasure. So if I’ve gotten through the first chapter and I can tell, and I’m not an expert, that it was not edited professionally, I will not go on. Unfortunately, the author will lose me as a reader. Which is a darn shame because I’m not only a person who spends a tremendous amount of time reading, I’m also someone who spreads the word and we all know how that goes.

With all that a good author does right, the one thing that will sell their book more than anything else is word of mouth.

So how do we get word of mouth to work in our favor as authors? We write the best darn book we can, we get it professionally edited and we revise, revise, and revise some more until it’s even better. After we’ve invested thousands of hours in writing and editing, it should be good enough, right?

Wrong.

How do I know this? Because I am a reader. Before I know if it’s been edited or not, I have to buy the book. And, the one thing that gets me to buy a book that hasn’t been recommended to me (word of mouth) is the cover. A striking cover will stop me in my tracks. A beautiful cover will make me want to read the pages inside of a book I might not normally pick up. And, it will make me want to read every book that the author with the fantastic covers has written. Assuming the other factors are there (good story, well written and edited) I’ll keep reading and recommending, and so on.

For authors, it can often times be about what they want for the story. But, really it’s not. It’s about the reader. Authors have to think like readers, which should be easy since we should be those people anyway.

As a reader, what would you want? You would want a striking cover to reel you in. You would want a compelling story with characters you’ll never forget. You would want to be forever changed when it’s over, looking at the world with new eyes. Will that happen with every read? Of course not. But authors owe it to their readers to try to give them that experience every single time.

As I prepare for the changes I’ll need to make when I get my manuscript back from my editor, I drool over the artistry of what my cover might be and I think of my future readers.

I want to make a fantastic first impression. I want my cover to grab them by hand and pull them into my story. Once inside, I want them to go on the ride of their life with my characters, only to end with a sense of satisfaction. And, curiosity. I am writing a series after all.

So go ahead and judge those books by their covers. I’m sure the authors behind them would be humbled if you gave them a chance. I know I would.

Quotable – Friday Fifteen

I love the feeling I get when words are put together in such a way that my outlook on life changes on a dime. Quotes are my fast track to that feeling and I’m sharing some of them with you.  Enjoy!

1.  “I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade… And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.” Ron White
2. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” Robert Louis Stevenson
3. “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” Elbert Hubbard
4. “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” Nido Qubein
5. “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” Isaac Asimov
6. “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” Mark Twain
7. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” Theodore Roosevelt
8. “My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.” Mitch Hedberg
9. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Mae West
10. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt
11. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill
12. “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”  Lewis Carroll
13. “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.” Albert Einstein
14. “Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.” Kurt Vonnegut
15. “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” Anne Frank

Share the quotes you love in the comments below 🙂

Building Fences

When I think of a place I feel the safest, a place of utmost privacy, only one location comes to mind. Home. Yet, it is the same place where I have often felt the most exposed.

The chain link fence in my backyard serves two of its three purposes. The first is for the safety of my dogs, Lola and Kona. It gives my fifteen pound beasts a place to run, play and, truth be told, do their business. With the exception of a few close calls, it has done its job and prevented their great escape.

The second is security. A structure forged into the ground and armed with a gated entrance may not be brick and mortar, but it’s more of a deterrent for potential trespassers than an easily accessed grassy knoll.

The missing third is privacy. I am more exposed in my own backyard than almost anywhere else. The see through construction leaves nothing to the imagination, which can be dangerous in a place where I am inclined to act most like myself. While it’s clear that anyone in visual distance has full access to my world at home, it doesn’t stop me from having coffee in my pajamas on the patio.  Any sense of privacy, even if psychological, is false.

The fact is that I’m on display.

Just like in my yard, there is a see-through fence around my writing. There, I pretend my fictional world only exists on a hard drive where I can keep it safe and secure. The deception living inside of my laptop allows me to be honest with my story, fully exposing my inner musings onto the page. Yet, the product of those musings is the very thing that bares my soul.

Writing is my chain link reality.

As it turns out, a six-foot stockade fence is scheduled to be installed in my backyard. I will finally be able to enjoy the privacy only someone hidden behind such a monstrosity could enjoy. I don’t have that luxury in my writing. I have to actively refrain from building fences. I must shred the chain links until my words become the inviting grassy knoll for all to trespass upon.

I’ve learned there are times in life when a massive stockade barrier is required. Possibly to protect a loved one. Perhaps to shield your heart. Maybe just for peace of mind. Many more times though, destroying the chain link is the only way to get to the other side where your pot of gold awaits.

After all, if you never take the risk, you will never reap the reward.

To cross my writing threshold, I intend to tear down each fence one panel at a time. As for my yard, I see many pajama coffee days behind a six-foot stockade in my future.  Hey, I have to pick my battles.

When picking yours, remember to build those fences wisely. I hear gold is a commodity worth having.

Luck of the Irish

Some of the best days in my writing life are spent at literary conferences and yesterday was no exception. As any writer will tell you, it’s lonely living inside our own heads and while we wouldn’t have it any other way, there is something to be said for sharing our insanity with people like us.

Conferences connect writers through a shared community, but they also open up doors. Unpublished authors can pitch their manuscript to agents and editors of publishing houses via face-to-face contact. They can attend workshops lead by NYT bestselling authors and leaders in the industry who are committed to sharing their knowledge on the craft, the changing world of publishing and the value of social media. Until yesterday, I had no idea that a full hour dedicated to writing compelling dialogue wouldn’t be enough. It’s a plethora of information that is both invaluable and overwhelming.

As the good writer I am, honing my craft and working terribly hard day in and day out, I was surprised to hear a recurring word throughout the day.

Luck.

It made me wonder. How much of one’s success is based on hard work? Where does talent fit in? What about luck?

I have to admit that considering luck to be in charge of my destiny scares the bejesus out of me. Because I’m a control freak. Not of people, but of my future. Anything I’ve wanted to accomplish, I’ve simply made the decision to do it and got it done. It’s not to say that it was easy. Most of my goals have taken years of sacrifice on both my part and the part of those in my life. I am often absent because I’m working toward this or that. Hard work – I got it covered.

Talent is subjective. Do I think I have some raw talent? Sure. If I didn’t, I never would have pursued a writing career. I also think we gravitate toward the things in life that come naturally to us. Writing has always been one of them for me. Does that mean I just sat down and wrote a novel? Far, and even farther, from it. I honed the little talent I had until it blossomed. I built upon the framework that I was born with, or had developed over time in my professional career and educational studies. I leaned on people and resources and, most importantly, used a fantastic editor. Yet, it took me a full three years to develop my voice. That’s an entirely different topic that I will eventually touch upon, but for now it’s about luck. Talent – I’m working on it and likely always will be.

Luck is the flame blowing in the wind. Luck is not about talent. Luck has nothing to do with hard work. It’s random. It’s a free spirit. Or is it…

If my success in writing is based upon those three things above, I guess I have a two-thirds chance of hitting the NYT bestselling list. By the way, the NYT list isn’t “the” barometer for success. It’s just my barometer. In addition to being a control freak, I dream big. Anyone that knows me can tell you that I have every intention of trying to control those odds. I refuse to give up one whole third of my chance to get those letters.

So what do I say to luck? With St. Patrick’s Day on the horizon, I tell luck the truth. I’m Irish. Because I am. In fact, I’m a whole lot Irish. Don’t let my tan skin fool you. I have about fifty plus cousins in Long Island baking Irish Soda Bread as I type. I may not wear green tomorrow because it clashes entirely with my olive skin, but I know where I come from.

What’s the takeaway from all of this? Work luck in your favor. For me, it’s being Irish. Next, it will be something else.

Do whatever you can to put the odds on your side. Follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before you and made it happen. Put all of your heart, your soul and your mind into your dream. Then ask luck to try to turn away from all of that.

Will I get my letters and join the NYT exclusive club one day? I have no idea. All I know is that I’ll do whatever I can to make it happen. I will not be leaving my entire one-third chance for success entirely up to luck.

Did I mention that I’m Irish?

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

As I prepare my manuscript pitch for an annual literary conference tomorrow, yet again, I can’t help but wonder if I’m in it for the long haul. Where writing is concerned, I have no choice. I’m simply not myself when I don’t write. I have to do it.  I need to do it. Anyone that knows me personally can tell when I’m not writing. I am, to put it mildly, a beast. My desire to tell a story wakes me up at the crack of dawn most weekends when I should be sleeping, sometimes it even happens in the middle of the night. Writing gives me no choice. I must succumb to its pull or embark upon my own personal madness. So for that, I am faithful.

What about publishing? Am I committed as wholeheartedly to passing through the traditional gateway, or do I think I can go it alone? The stomach knots that twist and turn in anticipation of another set of pitches remind me of how similar this dilemma is to relationships.

My frame of reference is skewed in this department because I’m lucky enough to be someone who still has both of my parents in my life. They are loving and wonderful parents and always have been. I’m also proud to say they have been married for a very long time. It’s a feat to admire, yet I know it to be no other way. Still, as I go through life I’ve seen many a long-term relationship end, including ones of my own. All the while, I’ve wondered if those who stay are stronger than those who leave.

I suppose, like anything else, it goes back to the heart of the relationship in question. I’m simplifying my example for the sake of argument, but generally one can ask if the relationship is primarily good and adds something positive or primarily bad and either adds nothing or takes something away. Anyone who has been in a long-term relationship knows it’s not all hearts and flowers. There are days you want to run screaming and other days you can’t imagine your life without that person. But what makes someone stay in it for the long haul?

Commitment is powerful. Especially when backed by vows, but if that was all it took then there would be no divorce. Now, I won’t even begin to pretend to be a relationship expert but in my experience there is usually something deep down inside, something almost innate, that keeps people in relationships over decades through the best and worst of times. A powerful and unwavering force locking them in place because there is no other way they would rather live. Let’s face it, life is tough and sometimes running seems like the easiest answer.  If your connection is truly real, staying through the tough times should only make it stronger. And if something has been missing all along, then staying could cause a life of regret.

I’ve always admired those couples, like my parents, who had lifelong relationships and until I met my husband, I never understood that kind of love and commitment. Even when it’s the worst you think it can be and it gets even worse, somehow that is when your heart is the strongest muscle you have ever known and the answer is clear. Stay. Stay. Stay.

So when I think of my pitches tomorrow and what it may bring for my writing career, I’m reminded of those who stay and those who go. Who’s stronger? I think both, so long as they followed their heart.

When it comes to writing, I plan to stay, stay, stay because I have no choice. It is my love. Publishing on the other hand, I’m not so committed to one route. I think I’ll let the chips fall where they may and keep my options open. I’m not afraid to go it alone. In fact, the thrill of such a challenge excites me. It’s not to say that I don’t want to be a member of traditionally published club. I just want to make sure that I follow my heart and have no regrets.

For now, I think I’ll leave it up to the stars.