Tag Archives: Success

LIKE ME, YOU’RE PROBABLY A BIT LAZY TOO

Yes, I’m the first to admit. I’ve got a bit of a lazy streak in me. You probably do, too. That’s okay, though, because we humans are naturally programmed to be lazy. It served the biological survival of our species well which is exactly what Mother Nature intended. So blame her for you and me having a natural inclination to sack on the couch, swill beer, (wine in my case) and sleepily abuse the remote.

Laziness has roots in our survival instincts. A long, long time ago, our ancestors didn’t have to think long term. They had to remain focused on the here and now so they could react and survive in case they were attacked by enemies, animals and, well, by nature herself. Conserving energy was paramount to ensuring survival when attacked.

Now, in the modern age, when survival isn’t a top priority, this instinct prevents some of us (me and probably you) from engaging in, or get going on, things—projects—that don’t bring immediate results. We won’t delay our gratification and we subconsciously justify it through procrastination. The reason for human laziness is carved deep into our brain structures. We’re hard-wired to sit on our behind and do nothing unless we really have to.

Another reason for people’s laziness is they haven’t found their own true path. They haven’t developed a dream—a big dream—of what they want to achieve in their life. They haven’t found the soul—the true passion or the fire within—that’s paramount to pursuing that dream, taking massive action, and making that dream a success.

What is success? I just Googled Merriam-Webster that said this: The accomplishment of an aim or purpose. I found another good quote that puts “success” into clear perspective: Accomplishing something you really want to accomplish in the world and getting others to support it and agree that it’s of value.

I’ll share something with you. I have a dream that started in April. A big dream. A huge dream. A monster dream. (Yeah… I know… dreaming big in the middle of a big pandemic…) And I’ve found a passion in my soul that I’ve never felt before.

Yet, I’ve also found a bit of a lazy streak I didn’t want to admit existed. I feel like a push-me-pull-you. In one sense, I have a burning desire to create this dream into a success. In another, I have a reluctance to get my ass in the chair, my fingers on the keys, and do the work.

I’ll tell you what my enormous dream is but, first, let me explain how I got onto this lazy human topic.

———

Bill O’Hanlon says he’s the laziest successful person he knows. And Bill knows a lot of lazy people who’ve become successes. Who’s Bill O’Hanlon? Bill is a success guru who wrote A Lazy Man’s Guide to Success. It’s a short and free pdf of 59 pages, and I loved it.

Bill, by the way, is a psychotherapist, author of over thirty books, and a highly sought-after motivational speaker. He’s been on Oprah, spoken internationally many, many times, and is an all-around genuine guy. He runs a website called the Possibility Land, and I found him quite by chance when I was looking for a DyingWords topic.

I’ll sum up Bill O’Hanlon’s Lazyman’s Guide to Success real quick by stealing right from the man himself:

If you are really impatient and don’t have the time or the self-discipline to read my entire guide, here are the Cliff’s Notes formula for success:

  1. Find your soul: the aliveness, energy, passion, and uniqueness that the world has tried to squeeze and shame out of you since you came out of your momma.
  2. Get a dream, a vision, or a direction by following what turns you on or what pisses you off (or both). It’s best to choose one that makes a contribution to the world and is not just about meeting your personal needs.
  3. Take action towards realizing that vision.
  4. Notice whether the actions you have taken have produced results that are moving you towards your goals or dreams. If so, do more of them until you get there. If not, do something different.
  5. Take massive actions, make adjustments based on your observations of the results, vary your actions, and do not stop until you arrive at your destination. I don’t mean that each action you take must be big or bold. You may start with a small step, but start.
  6. Do not be distracted or dissuaded from action by your feelings. Do not attend to or go with your feelings unless they are feelings that help you move forward. Have faith in yourself and the universe, especially when things look bad.
  7. Create more and more evidence in the world that your dream is real so that others will believe in it too.
  8. Keep moving toward your dream – no matter what. Persistence can be powerful.

———

Not a bad formula at all, Bill. Not bad at all. “Find your passion. Build a dream. Take massive actions. Have faith. Keep moving toward your dream – no matter what.” You gotta like that advice. One problem, though. Humans are naturally lazy.

Okay. This big dream I have that I’m slowly acting upon? It started in April 2021 and was hidden behind a mask. Literally.

I had the idea of creating a new crime fiction series based on the old hardboiled/noir detective stories of a hundred years ago that were so, so popular. What’s old is new again, right? I see a resurgence of hardboiled headed right at us and almost nobody’s doing it.

That got my soul energized, and I planned out a series while out on long, soul-soothing walks. The concept, characters, and storylines came from here, there, and everywhere within my imagination. Soon, I had an imaginary city built in my mind—a dangerous city filled with heroes and villains and corruption unbound.

I was on a Zoom call with a film industry acquaintance regarding a non-scripted project on a historical multi-murder case I worked on. We wrapped that up for the day, and he asked what filmmakers should ask content producers (aka writers), “So, what else ya got goin’?”

I told him, “I have this dream for a hardboiled detective crime fiction series. The logline is a modern city in crisis enlists two private detectives from its 1920s past to dispense street justice and restore social order. A leading lady and leading man team involving time travel. It’s called City Of Danger.”

There was a long pause till he said, “Reeeally… This is exactly what we’re lookin’ for.”

To make a long story short, City Of Danger is well underway. The video/film rights are verbally optioned to a major netstreaming company—call me stupid for not taking cash up front but, on some forceful advice from an entertainment-specialist lawyer, I’ve left my mean streets and perilous avenues open until I fully understand my product’s potential and its optimum value.

Creatively, my soul was lit like the Rockefeller Christmas tree mixed with the Times Square New Years Eve Ball and my passion gushed like an open Bronx hydrant on a blistering day. I began taking action—massive action— in making this dream a reality. What I didn’t foresee was how much work this project will take, how much energy it’s bound to sap, and the laziness wildcard.

To begin with, I wrote a business plan. It’s comprehensive, and it’s put me in a much better position to go forward with how the City Of Danger business will be built and run. Yes, a business. A money-making business selling products in the entertainment industry. This is an entirely new, stand-alone venture that’s outside of DyingWords and my other commercial publication works.

I began with the end in mind. I had artwork produced showing the two main characters against the backdrop of a dark cityscape. I began a dedicated website for City Of Danger that’s a work-in-progress and always will be. And I renovated my writing studio with part of it recreating a 1920s private detective office.

All this was about getting in the zone—the headspace—so I could think like the characters think, talk with the characters, and let the characters tell me their hardboiled stories so I can write them out. Call it method writing, if you will. Or, you can call it plain escapism fun.

The hard work started immediately when I committed—in writing—to creating City Of Danger and making it a success. I realized I knew almost nothing of the hardboiled genre. Why were the greats like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and Elmore Leonard so great? I went back to school and studied them.

Along this past seven month’s journey, I questioned my ability to successfully pull off something so big that I knew so little about. I took a page from Tiger Wood’s playbook where he described his comeback to win the 2019 Masters. Woods completely took apart his game and rebuilt his swing, his putting, his chipping, his mental attitude, and he looked back at everything the historic Masters champions did to win a green jacket.

I did much the same—rebuilt. I rebuilt myself as a writer. I read a lot on writing craft. A lot on the business of writing. A lot on mental attitude. And a lot on who the writing masters of hardboiled detective fiction really were, as well as how their great stories were structurally built and emotionally told for massive audience reception.

I read about screenwriting, and I took screenwriting courses. I studied what hardboiled genre films, like Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, made it big and what similar-themed TV shows were a success.

Success. There’s that word again. Success. I have my focus on success with City Of Danger, but there’s one huge obstacle to overcome daily. That’s my tendency to be a bit lazy at times and not do the work. The real work. The writing work that makes a dream like this a success.

Yes, I’m the first to admit. I have a bit of a lazy streak in me. You probably do, too. That’s okay, though, because we humans are naturally programmed to be lazy.

———

Footnote: The pilot episode of City Of Danger is set for release in June 2022. It’ll start as an ebook series, released one episode each month, with intentions to follow with print and audio versions. The netstreaming side is an entirely different venture—currently in the hush-hushed shadows. I’ll keep you posted. 😉

WHY FIFTY SHADES IS PHENOMENALLY POPULAR WITH (some) WOMEN

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy never was, and never will be, nominated for Pulitzer or Nobel literature prizes. But you can’t argue with Fifty Shades’ incredible commercial success as ebook, print, audio, and film products. It’s been ten years since author EL James released this tale of tension between virginal Anastasia Steele and billionaire bad boy Christian Grey. The passing decade hasn’t stopped the intrigue surrounding the story series. That’s due to the one main reason why Fifty Shades is phenomenally popular with (some) women.

I admit something. I’ve never read the books or seen the films. And I’m not going to. I have absolutely no interest in getting involved in bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, or sadism and masochism (BDSM). The only things I’m ever going to tie up are my shoes, and I can get all the pain I need by accidentally pricking myself with the pin from a Remembrance Day poppy.

The reason I’m writing this is curiosity. I got curious about Fifty Shades’ phenomenal popularity when bumping into a fellow writer the other day. She asked what I was up to—my work-in-progress or WIP as it’s called in the accounting biz. I told her about my series-in-development, City Of Danger.

“Wow!” she said. “Cool concept. Who’s your target market?”

“Educated women, like you, looking for a thrill who’ll pay the bill,” I said.

She giggled. “You could have another Fifty Shades of Grey on your hands. Just add some sex. Kinky sex.” Then she winked and walked away.

She got me thinking. When I got home, I asked Rita (my wife), “Did you ever read Fifty Shades of Grey?”

Rita gave me the over-her-shoulder look. “No. I don’t want to read a badly-written piece of smut.”

“Do you know anyone who has?”

“Melissa read it.”

I smiled. “Melissa would. What’d she think?”

“She liked it.”

“Because…”

“She said it was pornography for women. Mommy porn.”

So down fifty grey rabbit holes I went, researching this popular (some) women’s phenomenon. Part was to unlock the secret of success—how I could cast its spell of marketing magic over the City Of Danger. Part was because I had a DyingWords blog post deadline looming, and I needed an interesting topic. Fifty Shades fulfilled both.

First stop was at Amazon to check some figures. Zon’s stats say the print and ebook versions sold over 150 million copies and that was as of October 2017. If EL James, whose real name is Erika Leonard, made two bucks profit per book (like I do) that put her in the 300-million club not counting film, audio, and translation rights. Not a bad return on a writing investment.

Amazon reviews and ratings count. Trust me. I have twenty products published on Amazon and a few 1-Stars to prove it. Fifty Shades of Grey, the first in the series, has 56,514 ratings/reviews for an average 4 out of 5 stars. 59% are 5. 11% are 4. 9% are 3. 7% are 2. 14% are 1. Amazon doesn’t allow Zero-Star ratings or I’d be able to tell you about mine.

My experience with reviews and written ratings is there’s a love/hate relationship between the reader and the writer. If readers go, “Meh… it was okay…” they rarely bother to mark up a score. The lovers will gush out a praise and carry on reading your other books, while the haters will bitch-slap you and leave.

Seeing as Fifty Shades, Volume One, has 59% of 56,514 people loving it, that’s 31,647 and a half people who didn’t think it was a badly-written piece of smut. I know from my Amazon stats that maybe one in a thousand downloaders leave a rating and far less leave a written review. Takeaway here is Fifty Shades of Grey has something big going for it.

I had to have a look. I clicked Look Inside and read the opening. It starts with Anastasia looking in a mirror. Reflection like this—says every writing guru who ever gurued writing—is a bad way to hook a reader. I moved past this because, in my experience, writing gurus should be making money by writing intriguing books rather than guruing others on how to write indigesting books.

My next impression was that 50SOG (as the interwebbers call it) is in first-person, present-tense. It’s not my style but, then, I’m a Frederick Forsyth fan, not a Fan Fiction fan. Moving on. Dialogue? Passable. Characterization? Anastasia developed right away as a main character. Plot? I could see this was heading somewhere that might be interesting. Editing? Impeccable.

There were a lot of written reviews, so I skimmed the best and the worst:

5-Star: So why give a terrible book five stars? I teach a human sexuality course at a college, and this book is an EXCELLENT example of poor communication, disrespect between romantic partners, and toxicity in a relationship. It also demonstrates some of the false beliefs about S&M that society holds. Honestly, it reads like the author has never been in a healthy S&M relationship. Safe-word much? These are great examples for my students, and we mock the book openly in class.

1-Star: No, just no. When I downloaded this series to my kindle before leaving on a long European adventure, I was reminded of the old saying “if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you?” I like sex. And god help me, I liked Twilight. Mostly I loved Wuthering Heights, the book that inspired Twilight and then, this. But, Christian Grey is too young and one dimensional to be that twisted. Even to be a billionaire—it would help if she actually interviewed one. Anastasia is a simpleton, through and through. One thing the book gets right—these two really belong together. I tried to turn off my intellectual understanding and proceeded to take it at just porn-level—but even the love scenes failed to titillate. I only weep for all the trees that were destroyed due to this book.

5-Star: My preferred reading is non-fiction – biographies, history, then if I must – novels based on history. I don’t read romance novels nor watch porn. 23% into this book on my Kindle I was ready to terminate reading it but the author slips a joke in at that point and I got hooked. I’ve read books #2 and #3 a couple of times. I’ve read 50 SHADES a dozen times (and currently); for me the book is like cocaine to an addict. It’s very enjoyable. I think everyone from 17 up should read the book and could have a much more satisfying life through their sex life. I also think that some Lit student(s)/journalist should do a study of hospital emergency rooms inquiring into what might be book related incidents since 2012 when the book came out. Bottom line – enjoy cautiously.

1-Star: I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about and bought this a while back. Started reading it and was not impressed. Mommy porn, for sure. Not at all well written. Ridiculous premise. If this guy lived in a trailer in the woods, no woman would go near him. But because he’s a wealthy man, somehow he’s considered mysterious and sexy. It’s shocking and disturbing that’s such deviance is considered entertaining especially since it essentially deals with sexual slavery.

I left the Amazon page without One-Clicking. My curiosity was satisfied that it was a professionally produced product and the terms “badly-written” and “smut” are entirely subjective, although I highly respect Rita’s taste and judgement. After all, she married me thirty-eight years ago and made it work for both of us.

I jumped to Google. Tap. Tap. Tap. Why… fifty… shades… grey… phenomenally… popular… women. The SERPs served me well—problem was there was so much stuff to wade through and find out the main reason why Fifty Shades was so phenomenally popular with (some) women.

I first focused on the series history and its publishing progression along with marketing management. What I read was a one-in-a-longshot. Sometimes the stars align with a big dose of dumb luck. If they didn’t, as in this case, Fifty Shades would have long been run through the Amazon crusher.

50SOG started as Fan Fiction. I’ve never read anything from this genre and wasn’t exactly clear on what it was. Wikipedia, the Queen of Hyperlinks and who has never let me down, says this:

Fan fiction or fanfiction (also abbreviated to fan fic, fanfic, fic or ff) is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity as fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can both keep the creator’s characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form of fan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional (and sometimes non-fictional) subject. Common bases for fan fiction include novels, movies, musical groups, cartoons, anime, manga, and video games.

Fair enough. Before Erika Leonard was EL James, she wrote fan fiction under the penname Snowqueen’s Icedragon and posted her episodic first run of 50SOG on fanfic websites under the title Master of the Universe. The series took on a huge following of cult-like loyalists.

I need to stop for a sec and say something about Erika Leonard. This was not this woman’s first trip to town. She was already in her forties and worked as a film producer by day and a sharp marketer by night. She knew exactly was she was doing by building a fan base—a repeat audience who would keep on buying her episodes and recommend them to others over the internet. It’s now called “word-of-mouse” rather than “word-of-mouth”.

To quote EL James (Erika Leonard) in an interview where she spoke of her shock at the success of the books, “The explosion of interest has taken me completely by surprise,” she said. James had described the Fifty Shades trilogy as, “My midlife crisis, written large. All my fantasies are in there, and that’s it.”

Ms. James/Leonard drafted the 50SOG trilogy on a classic and a current pop-culture phenomenon. She used Beauty and the Beast along with Twilight and replaced damsels and uglies and vampires and werewolves with a straight-laced virgin and a rich guy with some serious sexual issues. Voila! FanFic fans loved it, and the series went viral in internet circles, being read on subscription web pages.

The mainstream was watching. Traditional Publishing is always looking at who’s making money by setting a trend. The first to pick up on 50SOG was a small Australian publisher who bought the rights and put the series out as ebooks. The publisher, Writer’s Coffee Shop, had limited marketing funds and relied on book bloggers to boost sales through word-of-mouse.

E-sales grew and Writer’s Coffee Shop released paperbacks that sold like iced drinks on a blazing day. Part of the success was marketing brilliance from Ms. James/Leonard. She designed her own covers and was adamant that her then-current publisher (and future publisher at Random House) stay away from the cheesy romance tropes of a ripped hunk clutching a hot chick.

If you note Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed, you’ll see monotones with a tie, a mask, and a pair of handcuffs. The covers are quite discreet and tasteful. That’s in my opinion, anyway. They allow women of status to comfortably read the books on the tube and not feel some sort of public shame.

Fifty Shades grew astoundingly fast. From May 2011 when it was published by Writer’s Coffee House to March 2012 when Random House acquired the rights, the start of the series broke the million-seller mark. Big hitters like The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, NBC’s Today, and ABC’s Good Morning America gave it coverage. 50SOG even graced the covers of Time and Newsweek.

All press is good press, right? It certainly was in Ms. James/Leonard’s case, and it wasn’t long before she was fabulously paid by the film industry. Ten years out, she’s a wealthy, wealthy lady.

So that’s the story of how the Fifty Shades trilogy became famous. But that doesn’t answer the question of why it was phenomenally popular with (some) women. If you rabbit-hole the interwebs, like I just did, you’ll find every self-appointed expert offering their psychological opinion.

You’ll find psycho-analysis of erotic fantasies being primly inbred into human females where they might get physically penetrated by males but do the opposite mentally. You’ll find suggestions that 50SOG lets the bored housewife, who’s on the verge of divorce, sneak away into an imaginary world where she can be just a little naughty without getting hurt… or caught. You’ll find the words “curiosity”, “experimental”, “liberating”, “limit-pushing”, “exciting”, “taboo”, “exotic”, “erotic”, “escape”, “submissive-underneath”, “dominance-on top”, and “delightful wish fulfillment”.

You’ll find the viewpoint that people—(some) women, of course—can’t stop talking about 50SOG, and that it’s presented in a socially-acceptable manner as somewhat of a scholarly study of sexuality. Then, there are the critics who describe the series as beyond banal, actually dreadful. But one thing in common, few wanted to be the last one to read Fifty Shades of Grey.

My conclusion of why Fifty Shades of Grey was phenomenally popular with (some) women? I think Melissa got it right. Fifty Shades is pornography for women. It’s Mommy porn, and I don’t judge those who read it.

STEPHEN KING’S SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE SECRET TO SUCCESS

When it comes to being a master of the commercial writing craft, few authors are more successful than Stephen King. The “Horror Guy”, who King calls himself, has tirelessly worked for over sixty years. He’s produced more than fifty novels and countless other pieces in a non-stop career during which he almost died from substance abuse and a nasty vehicle accident. “Prolific” is an understatement when it comes to labeling this writing machine, and there’s a surprisingly simple secret to Stephen King’s success.

Yes, the secret to Stephen King’s success is surprisingly simple. It’s a concoction beyond natural storytelling talent, which he has in spades. It’s a mix beyond craft knowledge and prose perfection. And it’s a blend beyond something else—something most writers simply won’t do in their lives. Yet it’s a simple success secret which Stephen King slyly shares if you follow his work.

Before I disclose Stephen King’s s simple success secret, let me tell you what triggered this post. I’m a big Stephen King fan. I’ve read a lot of his stuff—From A Buick Eight is my mind-blowing favorite—and I know many readers can’t Stand him (pun intended). Certainly, he’s verbose compared to James Patterson, but I’m on Team King all the way, even though Team Patterson outsells him.

I connected with a lady who recently retired from the same police force I served with. I didn’t know her directly, but I worked with her dad in the RCMP years ago. She made a career as a detective with Vancouver’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (I-HIT) and was their high-profile spokesperson for a long stint. Now this fine lady has a keen interest in beginning a crime-writing career, and she was silly enough to turn to me for advice.

I see piles of potential in this unfolding writer. She has the proper package required to be a commercial success and a household name in crime fiction circles, just as she was in the true crime world. Part of our long talk was me recommending resources to study. Stephen King’s On Writing—A Memoir of the Craft was at the top of the list.

Stephen King. Where do you start to explain his success secret? First, Stephen King is self-made. He didn’t come from writing royalty, and that story of him working nights at a laundry and throwing Carrie in the trash isn’t bullshit. His wife, Tabitha, rescued the manuscript and submitted it to Putnam and the success of Stephen King—writer—began.

Stephen King is coming on to 74. He still writes every day that he can and that includes Christmas and his birthday. Mr. King still finds time to read—lots of reading time—and he generously gives what he has to spare in helping others to develop their writing skills. That includes unfolding writers like my retired detective friend who I hope has redlined, yellow highlighted, and made black ink notes in an On Writing copy as I have.

In prepping this post, I reread On Writing. Or, I should say reviewed my red lines and yellow bars along with black ink notations. I’ve paged this prize at least a dozen times as I’ve built my skills, and I’m now at the point that I can legitimately call myself a commercial writer who’s achieved international bestselling status.

Call me a bragger. Just don’t call me a bullshitter, and I attribute my achievements much to Stephen King’s simple success secret which I’ll keep you in suspense from while I do a quick review of what’s in On Writing and why these pages of gold are so, so valuable for anyone who wants to make it in the commercial storytelling world.

Mr. King wrote On Writing in 2000. At least that’s what the copyright page says. That would have made him around 52 which is 11 years younger than I was when I decided to take writing stories seriously.

On Writing opens with this quote in the foreword: “What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it’s done. It’s about the day job; it’s about the language.”

It’s about the day job and it’s about the language. Commercial writing is a job. It’s bloody hard work that requires a writer to show up every day, sit down with their ass in the chair, and put their fingers on the keys—not just when they feel like it or when they think the muse calls. And it’s about using those keys to transcribe language into a crafted story that’s saleable to a mass market.

Like Stephen King has been doing tirelessly every day for 60 years.

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.”

On Writing is a short book by Stephen King standards. It runs just shy of 300 pages, but those pages contain sage quotes like these:

“You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

“It’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close this book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.”

“Simple sentences worked well for Hemmingway, didn’t they? Even when he was drunk on his ass, he was a fucking genius.”

“I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Good writing is about letting go of fear and affectation. Also about making good choices about the tools you plan to work with.”

“I love this job. I want you to love it, too. But if you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well—settle back into complacency and be grateful you have even that much to fall back on. There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust over your typewriter or computer. He lives underground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think this is fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist (what I get from mine is mostly surly grunts, unless he’s on duty), but he’s got the inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn the midnight oil because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.”

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others. Read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

“Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mindset, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or your word processor.”

“A radio host once asked me how I write. I answered ‘one word at a time’. Day in and day out. Not surprisingly, it’s that simple. It’s the secret to my success.”

In my humble opinion (IMHO), Stephen King’s surprisingly simple secret to his success as a commercial writer is tirelessness. He’s tirelessly written one word at a time for over six decades and shows no sign of letting up. Long live the King.

———

Post note from Garry: There is a book karma god or some kinda benevolent page muse out there. I published this piece on Saturday, 20Feb2021 and on Sunday, 21Feb2021, I went into a used bookstore in Parksville on Vancouver Island. What did I find? A first edition, hardcover of On Writing in pristine condition. SCORE! Start the f’n car! Even the dust jacket had no fading or marks. I’m going to have this baby framed in a shadow box.