Preface / Introduction

Three articles to give you some inspiration on your way to becoming a writer.Learn from a master! "'I've been workin' on my rewrite, that's right.' An open letter to a young friend who wants to be a scribbler." "A commentator's anniversary, three years, one thousand articles, more than two million words, one man's work, his vocation, his bliss.' "The two secrets to power writing -- reciting, rewriting." "Reflections upon the completion of 350 articles of commentary in the current series; what it takes to write commentary worth reading."

Table of Contents
1. Reflections upon the completion of 350 articles of commentary in the current series; what it takesto write commentary worth reading. 2. The two secrets to power writing -- reciting, rewriting. 3. A commentator's anniversary, three years, one thousand articles, more than two million words,one man's work, his vocation, his bliss.

4. 'I've been workin' on my rewrite, that's right.' An open letter to a young friend who wants to be ascribbler.

Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You

Reflections upon the completion of 350 articles of commentary in the current series; what it takes to write commentary worth reading.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant It is still dark outside my brilliantly lit Cambridge, Massachusetts office at 5:31 a.m. Eastern time, September 14, 2011. I am happy not only because I have just a few minutes ago completed my article of the day... but because this is the 350th article in my current series. Today's article was a series of way out on a limb predictions about the 2012 American elections; prognostications at once cheeky and magisterial. Quick, can you say President Rick Perry? It occurred to me upon the completion of this article that I owed it to my millions of online readers, to posterity, and to myself to explicate my view of what constitutes superior commentary and how to provide it. Incipient commentators will want to know... and it is always a wise idea to record your side of any given matter before successors mangle, distort and rearrange the facts. Where my commentary is written. My office is situated across the street from Harvard Law School, a place of renown amongst whose graduates are the current president of the United States, the chief justice of the United States, and 5 of the 8 associate justices. It is a place where words matter and where students are instructed in the writing of limpid, precise, meaningful prose. It is a powerful example to have before oneself every day, and I strive to maintain these standards and be guided by them. The actual room in which I write is unique. It resides on a piece of property originally owned by the Reverend Charles Follen, Harvard College's first professor of both the German language (1825) and of gymnastics and physical education (1826). His abbreviated career at Harvard ended in 1827, perhaps because of his advanced political opinions. Professor Follen was a reformer, an apt example for me. He wished, of course, to bring the latest advances in German pedagogy to Harvard... and he was also a rabid abolitionist at a time before such a viewpoint was acceptable. His views were so extreme they affronted his colleagues and neighbors who were undoubtedly pleased when a boat on which he was traveling from New York foundered on January 14, 1840. Dead prophets are so convenient... and it is safe to name myriad roads and places after them, as they memorialized the deceased Follen who no longer roiled the peace of their comfortable consciences. But here's what's important about Follen as far as I'm concerned. He had rage about the status quo, an acute desire to change and improve it, and moral superiority. All are useful to the commentator, and the spirit of Herr Doktor Follen envelope and reinvigorate me. I call this room the "Imperial Webcast Facility" and that is accurate, if a trifle grandiloquent. I used the word "imperial" for several reasons. First, it was a major subject of mine at Harvard, where I studied principally European history (from 1969), taking the M.A. degree in 1970 and the Ph.D. in 1975. Second, I call it "imperial" because of the portraits and signed photographs which inhabit this space along with me. These include the boy Phillippe d'Anjou (born 1640) who became Philip V of Spain. Just 17 when he was made king by the decision of Louis XIV, he became the longest reigning Spanish monarch ever. He was never actually called an emperor but as ruler of 1/6 of the globe we may confer this courtesy.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You His portrait by Henri Gascars, portrait painter to the Royal Children of France, Spain and England, is quite possibly unique... for when his Spanish majesty was a mere French duke he was of no importance whatsoever. Perhaps Gascars felt put upon painting such an insignificant subject; if so, I trust he kept his sentiments to himself, for King Philip was of a vengeful disposition. In any event it is a lovely picture of a young man elevated to rule by small pox and God's will. Two emperors of Austria hang near their earlier cousin of Spain, Joseph II (reigned 1764- 1790) and his brother Leopold II (reigned 1790-1792). These were just two of the many siblings of unlucky Marie Antoinette. Both pictures of these imperial brothers came to me in shocking condition, but the careful ministrations of my long-term London conservator Simon Gillespie brought them back to majesty. Joseph's portrait was by Josef Hickel, a well known painter who fathered an even better known painter son. It's an artistic rendering that does full justice to the aesthetic man known to history as sublime Mozart's patron. As for the painting of the Emperor Leopold, it is exceedingly rare because it shows him as Grand Duke of Tuscany, a training position for younger sons of the dynasty. The room is packed with one royal, imperial, grand ducal and noble artifact after another, including two signed photographs of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, assassinated in 1914 along with his morganatic wife Sophie, the proximate cause of World War I. The 1890 photo of the young Franz is on my desk where I can stare at leisure into the eyes of this man of destiny. It is part of the palpable history that irradiates this special room. But important though this is, it is not the most important thing in this room... ... that would be the essential tools of the imperium, the keyboard where I compose, the screen where I daily webcast... and the unceasing flow of commentary from the one to the other. These tools and the messages are all mine, but the arrangement owes much to the office of another imperator, Napoleon. When he was a young man on the make, Napoleon met the love of his life, Josephine, a woman made for love and pleasure who adored luxury and never minded the bills; someone, she knew, would always pay. That someone more often than not was her second husband, General Buonaparte. In 1798 he left his faithless wife to seek fame and fortune in Egypt. While he was gone inventing himself and his legend, she purchased a lovely country house neither could afford. She cared not; he was enraged... and so Malmaison, the estate where both were happiest, came to be. In it, the soon-to-be emperor had an office, not so very much larger than mine. In it were fine examples of the grand and grandiose Empire style, so imposing, including his desk and chair. Of course such artifacts are off limits, never to be touched, much less used. But I knew at once I wanted an office like this... and so, while the slothful guards took a long break I sat down in the chair, positioned myself just so and reviewed every millimeter, opened every drawer... then starred out the window to the verdant lawn on which the couple Bonaparte found happiness together as they strolled and loved each other. I was happy there, too... and mulled over what Napoleon would add to this room were he alive today. The answer was obvious for a man who spent his life communicating to manage and administer his empire... live 24 hour a day webcasting ... and so that is what I added to my international communications center and from which I talk to the world en masse and to every individual like you. Right now, there are over 100 people here... that number waxes and wanes throughout the day and night, but it is never without visitors. Now you must consider yourself invited for this is a place of culture, humanity, a progressive outlook and a can-do attitude, where learning is valued, http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 6 of 16

Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You solutions sought for grave social issues and personal dilemmas, and where the focus is always on uplifting, improving, enhancing... just like it should always be for every commentator... and is most assuredly the way it is for me.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You

The two secrets to power writing -- reciting, rewriting.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant I've been a published writer and author for six decades now. I've got 18 books and thousands of articles under my belt. As a result people are constantly asking me the "secrets" of writing that resonates, captures readers and gets your message delivered. Alright, you've asked me quite enough... I'm ready to spill the beans... Power writing Solution #1: Recite what you write. When was the last time you needed to write something with real impact? Something that made your point, hammered it home, and did so in the most clear lucid way? The correct answer is that the "last time" you did it was probably today, what with all the letters, advertisements, posters, reports, etc. you've got to write in your business. Is this how you approached the task? 1) Bad attitude. You hate writing, or at least your're doing a mighty good imitation of someone whodoes. Thus, you grumpily sit down at your computer, hold your nose, and resolve to race through this unwelcome task in record time. 2) The writing you produce under this "system" is just about as bad as bad writing can be. As aresult it's wordy, misspelled, redundant, diffuse... and that';s just for openers. 3) Yuck! When you see what you've got, you gulp. It's terrible, but fortunately not so terrible thatother terrible writers and readers will ever notice. Declining standards shroud any number of problems... Then take a good look in the mirror. Remember when you were young, idealistic in college, and that smarty-pants professor said you were either part of the problem... or part of the solution. Now you finally know what he meant: you can either keep producing the writing that has brought you so little fame and fortune... or you can apply Solution #1 to the problem. To excite, recite. When was the last time you wrote something, then read it aloud to yourself to see how it sounded and maybe to tweak it? Answer? Well, let's just put it this way, shall we? When was the last time you read anything you'd written aloud? Wasn't it that time in Third Grade where you been forced by Mrs. Noroski, the personification of evil, to read a poem she coerced you to write in the first place? Thus, reciting takes its place just before having a root canal. And nothing's going to change your mind, so there. Methinks the lady (and the gent, too) doth protest too much. Now hear this: you begged me for my secrets to power writing... and here's one of the two most important. You're just going to have move on, relegating that fiasco that constituted your one and only poetry reading to the recycle bin where it will surely find the oblivion which it so dearly merits. The absolute necessity to read your prose... if you care that it gets read. It's time for brutal honesty. You write to be read, to influence, to motivate readers to take action.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You Reading aloud, reciting, helps you achieve this objective... and you'll do it (stinker though it may be) because recitation means results... and improving results is what it takes to excel and prosper in our strenuous culture. First, BIG relief item. There's an audience of just one to these academy award winning performances: you! And unless you're the culprit, no one need ever know that you do this whenever you want the best possible content and the best possible content presentation. Here's what needs to be in your kit for this project: a printer, marking pens, and a surface on which to spread this masterpiece in process. Now add gumption and you're ready to go... You're looking for errors. Here are some places you'll find them: 1) Line length. Good writers, that is to say persuasive writers know that less is more. Thus, thelonger the sentence, the more likely the reader misses the point, and this will never do. If you find yourself taking another breath to get through the sentence in question, that sentence is too long. The optimum line length is 10-15 words, and you must cut sharply as a result... and so keep your readers. 2) Do the same severe pruning with your paragraphs. Short paragraphs are the best paragraphs; theyshould run from 6 to 8 lines. 3) Start as many sentences as possible with "you" (explicit or implicit). Whatever you write iswritten for just one person -- the "you" who is your present reader. That person must have your complete and total focus, because if that "you" stops reading, it doesn't matter what your message is, this all-important person isn't going to do anything about it. 4) Use action verbs. Here's the drill you want every reader to follow: your prose calls for action...your prose gets the reader to act. But this only happens when you take a machete to your passive verbs. They are torpid... impenetrable... movement killers. Just the way they should be and remain forever -- that is if you want your prose cited in the "Guinness Book of Records" under the category "execrable". 5) Make war on all purple passages. These you can easily spot when reading for, when uttering themyou automatically start talking like the divine Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), which means in the sententious idiom of late 19th century France! Your language should be clean, simple, efficient -- you know, the way it isn't now. Solution # 2. Rewrite. Wow, after scrutinizing your latest effusion per Solution #1, you're surrounded by items that have been ruthlessly removed. What now? Simple; my next sure-fire writing insight, viz. that the most effective writers are the most conscientious rewriters. In other words, the ones who do not merely spew words on the page, but who do what's necessary for maximum impact. This means you. And so today, at first light, take your latest writing project and go out into the pristine dew of day to recite it. Sure your neighbors will deduce that you have finally gone mad... but the many new prospects and customers you'll derive will leave them happy... leave you a paragon of prose... and richer.; oh, yes, a very great deal richer.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You

A commentator's anniversary, three years, one thousand articles, more than two million words, one man's work, his vocation, his bliss.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. This is an article of joy and celebration, of luck and commitment, of cold nights, nimble fingers on the key board, and of a wrestling with words, from which God willing emerges a case clearly understood, clearly argued, clear to all. It is an article extolling hard work and the rightful pride that comes from a job well done, that is to say a job that is based on unending, meticulous research, on precise words precisely rendered, on fairness, on boldness, audacity, and risk, for no commentator wishing to rise to reputation, eminence and renown can tackle only the easy subjects, the light and airy subjects that make readers chuckle over their morning toast, only to be forgotten at once and forever. This is an article about vision, about truth, about integrity and of tackling the difficult subjects, the subjects that rightly concern and alarm people of intellect and reason; people who rely on commentators to represent them and their desire for a better world. It is the commentator's task to rouse, motivate, anger, chastise, warn, engage, outrage, admonish and always to educate; it is his righteous task to point to where injustice lurks and where there is a worthwhile difference to be made... then summon the words in all their power, force, and majesty to make certain it will be. It is an article that reminds readers that "retirement" blights, eviscerates life and leaves one discontented, de trop, the intellectual edge gone, the need no longer apparent for getting out of bed to undertake something significant, noble, even sublime; saving a disconsolate child or a desolate nation the grand work which is our metier. In the beginning there was the word... and it was no doubt published as an article. I cannot recall a single day of my life when words and I were not in the closest possible communion, producing my first published article when just 5, over 61 years ago, then many thousands of articles (and many books, too). This is not to say, of course, that there were days, and not rare, when the words and I were not on speaking terms, each determined, before making up again, to cause infinite trouble and the kind of acute irritation only one who knows you well can connive and render just so for acute misery. The music. Before I go further into the arcane world of articles and commentators and my particular niche, I recommend you visit any search engine and listen to the film score of Orson Welles' 1941 classic "Citizen Kane" so closely based on newspaper king William Randolph Hearst, their spittle was deemed identical. Certainly the score by cinema master Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) caught the larger than life publisher, at once mesmerizing, grandiloquent, sophisticated, grand as a white-tie evening at the opera; his faults as magnificent as his carefully promoted merits... a commentator's dream come true... But then a seasoned commentator could take a grain of sand and using it as the seed draw forth the rich lands of Egypt and the Nile and their mighty and glorious caravans. That is what I learned to do day by day, word by word, article by article; eager to learn; eager to share. Scribbler, the early years. >From the eminence of breaking into print at the hoary age of five, it was all up, up, and away. A http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 10 of 16

Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You string of editorships in high school; the school's paper, literary magazine, and class book and... importantly... a weekly column. That column continued in college... and it continued after I graduated from graduate school. Life for me was an intricate game of dreaming up subjects of importance, researching and writing them, then sitting pretty "having written", as my mother said, the happiest state in the cosmos. When you add to this demanding agenda the fact that in those days I wrote a book a year (the text to be finished, significantly, by July 4, Independence Day), had a syndicated radio show, published the nation's largest card deck each quarter AND taught at a rotating roster of over 30 colleges, you may believe that life was hectic, needing efficiency, energy, precise timing, and the legerdemain that all true wizards possess, magic I had and to spare. 60, bone tired, art, and a man named Kosch. One more thing must be added to the agenda of "things that must be accomplished" and that was my burgeoning collection of European art and artifacts. This is important for several reasons, including fulfilling a lifelong ambition. As my collection grew (rather like how Hearst's grew, with exuberance, frenzy, and a wide net) it soon became obvious that I needed to remodel my home to accommodate my frequent acquisitions... and so began over 5 years of discomfort, dislocation, and disarray, which is to say the usual chaos, confusion and constant expense which are the true expertise of any remodeler and what may loosely be called his "craft". During this exhausting period I exhibited all the signs of a distressed individual enthralled by marauders, systematic fleecing being their goal and daily task, the host to be kept alive and trapped until the parasites have eaten everything. My blood sugar soared, my mood was as variable as New England's famously changeable weather, and when I had to move into a hotel for the last several weeks, I knew things had reached a nadir... Needless to say during this time of self-induced troubles, my writing suffered; there was much to write about but my habits were injured along with everything else. The man of words wondered whether the last one had been written. And then George Kosch entered the picture. George is a brilliant inventor of practical business and traffic generating software. He has a knack for knowing where the 'net is growing and therefore is able to invent the next sapient application... and the one after that; in short, he is just the fellow you want on your team if online profit is your goal, just as the third partner and co-founder of Worldprofit.com, Sandi Hunter, has demonstrated the patience of Job and the soothing touch of Mother Teresa in keeping customers worldwide happy and promptly served. One day George asked me if I would write a couple of articles for our promotions and blogs. My reply speaks volumes for my emotional state: no, I said. But George is a clever guy and he persevered... just write a couple, he said; you know you can knock them out fast. Here's where I shall be forever grateful to him... for he knew that I would only be truly happy marshaling words to influence people. Then he clinched the deal by saying I could write about anything... "Anything?" I asked with a whiff of suspicion. "Yes, anything," he responded... and the deal was struck which in time gave members of Worldprofit.com over 1000 articles on a huge number of subjects... 1000, I might say, and counting. In short, I was given at the precise moment I needed it, an entirely new career at once challenging, exciting, worthwhile and pace setting, inventive, developing new ways to use words and change history. Item: Ample space for developing a line of reason, nothing hurried, rushed or given the shortest of shrifts. As newspapers cut the amount of space dedicated to commentary, my articles, at least 1500

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You words, revived the personal essay so much a part of our glorious literature; supremely correct for the man who called himself The Master of the Lyric Words. Item: Worldprofit personnel, called Monitors, were taught to read the articles with meaning, eloquence, proper pacing and verve thereby reaching millions of people through Worldprofit's Live Business Center who heard therein the Master's masterful prose rendered by the most artful of instruments, the human voice. Item: A Writers Team was established, staffed by Monitors who assist me daily find critical facts and details; a team every writer that sees it envies. Item: Music was added to every article, thus enhancing the impact of each piece as well as its instructional value. Item: No punches were ever pulled. Where an article called for emotion, pain, even anguish and profound humanity, these were summoned and used. The goal at all times truth... the most difficult subject of all. Item: Images were added to every article, again adding a new dimension. Item: Flowers talked about their point of view; animals voiced their pleas for survival, as important to the planet as humans and given far less attention. All were real, not cartoons. Thus what they said was never sweet and superficial, but as vital and genuine as necessary to make their case as planetary co-voyagers, their sentiments as significant as ours. This, too, was new. As the articles began to appear, so did the warm response of readers worldwide, a response George Kosch monitored until he was ready to assist the process by inventing software that enables folks to create e-books in three minutes, video articles in less than a minute, and blog postings even faster. It was all Kosch, all Worldprofit.com, all good; all the content freely produced for and given to the members of our unique community. "The last of life for which the first was made." I am asked more often than most just when I shall retire. My answer comes from Edgar Allan Poe's raven, "Nevermore" and from the celebrated words above from Robert Browning, always quoted with reverence and affection by my mother. Under the circumstances to retire, having been handed just the task for which everything in my fruitful life has prepared me would be deeply remiss and completely irresponsible. Why unless held at gunpoint would one stop the benefits of a broad education at several of the world's most famous universities; worldwide travels; a practical affability that makes human contact easier and more productive; words without stint and proven ability to add more to the language... ...all this diminished upon traditional "retirement", cast aside, along with great gifts and tools to stay always and forever young in mind and out look, always grateful to learn, even more grateful to share with readers who have given the emoluments of interest, intelligent response, and praise sufficient and lavish. It is indeed all good, a garden worth tending for all the days of my life, for the benefit of all, whether they know it yet or not. Envoi.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You

'I've been workin' on my rewrite, that's right.' An open letter to a young friend who wants to be a scribbler.
Author's program note. I saw the way you looked at that photo of me on the back of my first book. I looked so young, well-scrubbed, brushed and combed, so smart with a dollop of profound sensitivity about the mouth, supposing I was ready for anything, not even knowing the questions needing to be answered, much less the answers themselves. ' While your father, who is the best friend you'll ever have in this world (just help him show you) uttered the expected pleasantries to ascertain how I was faring on Spaceship Earth and what mischief I was bringing to the world these days, I really looked at you in that disconcerting way I have. Your eyes, that fleeting look offered nothing less than the first real confession of your young life. And it was nothing less than a revelation and best kept under cerebral lock and key for infrequent reminding. You saw that picture of me and understood, if only for a minute, that I had once been as young as you are today, as young and determined, fortified by ardor and bold audacity. You saw me... and thought about yourself, as one does. It was no longer my photo on that cover... it was yours and the magic of the photographer's craft mixed with the total fire power you packed into that glance made for an image to make the indolent world sit up and take notice. You had arrived... you were ready to astonish and awe... you had something to say and the words to say it... and were determined the world should hear it. And then you heard your so decent, ever practical father say, "Look at the electrical outlets, son. Dr. Lant was just telling me they're solid gold.", and he gave one of them a good smart tap reiterating the words to ensure you understood what he'd said. Words per se might mean nothing to your dad, but words that produced the dazzling ostentation of gold electrical outlets were well worth the understanding. The man who could throw away good money on self-indulgent lavishness was a man worth knowing, and that's a fact. And so I was... ...and so I did what folks blessed with the riches of knowledge must do to justify their existence... they must share, and not just insipid platitudes either, but as much naked, undeniable truth as their youthful auditor can stand, and even more. For in such a conversation we elders transfer our civilization and learned achievements to the only people who matter at such a time, our successors; the people we must instruct or lose the best of who we are. And so I, notoriously brusque and impatient. resolve to speak to you slowly, with care and thoughtful consideration, but mostly and above all else with the unvarnished truth, so help me, God. A curriculum for young scribblers, things no one but a successful writer can tell you. Every word in this intimate and necessary epistle between the present and the future which will, and all too soon, be the present some day, is vital. Every word is honest and such may disconcert and even affront you and your painfully young and ill-informed ideas. We must both understand that I know far more than you do; a thought you might not like or even acknowledge... ... this could be construed as arrogance and crippling conceit... on your part. It is certainly insensitive. Still we must both recognize that there is an urgency about our need to understand each other and a deep fear almost palpable, that I (or any writer of my generation) shall forget to tell you something of significance or, worse, that having told you something of such significance, you will not heed it, to the detriment of each generation's master plan for keeping the whole thing rolling along and of constantly increasing utility and knowledge. I now take this opportunity to introduce you to another writer, brilliant lyricist, heart touching songster, a master poet, hence meticulous word handler. His name is Paul Simon (born 1947), and if you are round about my age (67 this year) http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 13 of 16

Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You word handler. His name is Paul Simon (born 1947), and if you are round about my age (67 this year) you would have grown up with his shibboleths, whimsies, condescensions, cleverness, never convenient truths, admonitions, larks and bombastic, hummable moralistic rages all just a radio dial away, always master of the searing truth so difficult for so many to see and acknowledge, but critical if we are ever to inhabit the Promised Land, or even find the direction to it, staying thereafter on the adamant and always challenging path. Simon's song "Rewrite" (from the 2011 album "So Beautiful Or So What") should be required reading (and immediately accessible posting) by every writer, aspiring or otherwise. It is about a young writer who confides in the auditor just what his version of the writer's craft is all about. "Every minute after midnight, all the time I'm spending/ Is just for workin' on my rewrite, that's right/ I'm gonna turn it into cash." But Simon knows, and we elder statespeople of the writer's craft know, that Simon's writer is delusional. He's not a writer, he is a seeker after big bucks. If he can't conjure what he needs from "where the father has a breakdown", he'll do it by substituting "a car chase and a race across the rooftops/ Where the father saves the children and he holds them in his arms. "This isn't writing." master stylist and writing pioneer Truman Capote once sniffed. "It's typewriting," that is to say bogus, facile, insincere and superficial. If you're destined to be a writer, you must do better, lots better, and I am doing you the favor to tell you what that is. Memorize the dictionary. Your writing is laboriously assembled and crafted from the words you know. The more words you know and use, the better and more completely you can render human reality... and, make no mistake about it, that is what all writers do, good, bad, or indifferent. We tell what happens to humans... everything that happens; their struggles, their dreams, their aspirations, their love affairs that end in misery, the ones that end in tears and tribulation, the ones that start in love and end in sublimity and awe. Every word we master and use enables us to tell the more complete and accurate truth about the reality we know and can, in nuanced measure, describe more accurately once we have the words at our command, when we finally understand what love really is and can do. We can, we must work to do this because it is only when we have the words that we can even attempt to write the whole truth and nothing but the truth...and, it is only when we have truth that writing transcends the mundane and allows us to approach God who is the embodiment of truth and the ultimate destination of every writer whatever story he tells. On your dawning love affair with words... and the truth they reveal and convey. How many words do you know today? To the extent to which you mean to write, the correct answer is "too few, far too few." This is not merely a fact; it is a declaration of immediate commitment and lifelong purpose. If you mean to write, you must here and now pledge yourself to words, for only then can you succeed in achieving your objective. Thus, pledge yourself to learning just three new words every day. "Just that?", you say Yes, just that, which means just this. Open the dictionary (whether online or off; I use both). Take a 3"x5" card and write the word you have decided to embrace.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You Put it on your tongue, taste it, savor it with the understanding that if you can incorporate it into your very essence you will be a better person, a smarter person, a person with yet another puissant tool, the better to achieve your objective, and ultimately your grand goal. This is how you craft yourself. This is what you must do to be the world-changing eminence you can become... leaving the rest behind, those who might have been but without such effort they will never be. Now use the word in a sentence or two. Do not just have the word, employ the word. The actual word and its part of speech should go on one side of the card; its definition on the reverse. These are now your flash cards. Treat them with the importance they deserve. You have now taken the first step. You have told yourself what you mean to do... and you have begun to do it. Now continue. If this is your avocation, your mission, then do it, and it must become your destiny. Envoi. Too often Paul Simon has come across as sanctimonious, condescending, hectoring, superior, aloof and dismissive, but not in this song or this album, to which I listened with the felicity of an open mind and ear. Now in his late sixties, he sounds like an engaging and completely charming adolescent, and for that I say, " 'Thank you/ I'd no idea that you were there' pleased to meet you' ". Go to any search engine and listen to him all over again.

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Thinking of Being a Writer. Some Words for You

Resource
About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. , providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Patrice Porter http://20WaystoProfit.com.

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