Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year's Eve

By Lee Pound

It's New Year's Eve and rather than write a completely fictional story or something from the past, I thought I'd reflect on the new year and what it might mean to all of us.

First, on a personal level, here in Southern California, we are not going anywhere. Today was cold but beautiful with snow-covered mountains as a backdrop. Tomorrow morning, as I predicted a few days ago, will dawn clear and cold for the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl football game, which by the way I attended in person last year with good friend and writing partner Ed Philipp. (Not this year though.)

It's not that we aren't social. We are. In fact we are hosting what is becoming a traditional New Year's Eve party at our home for a few close friends. No booze, just lots of fun. As I write, my wife Sheri Long is getting ready for it and I will join her in a few minutes.

One milestone tonight: I finished editing the Adapt or Perish book. We will have review copies out the first of next year. It's exciting. We expect it will help a lot of people cope with the new economy.

What's coming up next year? First of all, the Go For the Gold seminar with my business partner in the seminar business, Arvee Robinson. Then who knows what else. Some launches, lots of list building, and maybe speaking at and showing up at a few events.

Looks like the economy's improving so the horrors of the last few years are almost behind us. I look for an incredible year next year.

If you see a great year coming up, leave a comment on this blog.

See you in 2011.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

‘Twas Christmas Eve and the Stores were a-Bustle

‘Twas Christmas Eve and the stores were a-bustle
As shoppers jockeyed to grab that last gift.
Buyers locked in a last minute tussle
As through the goods they did sift.

The registers rang with almighty strength
And all through the store the lines grew in length
The credit cards flew, the packages multiplied
Until at closing time the relieved customers sighed.

Busily that night, while the kids watched TV
Parents rushed the presents to wrap, wrap, wrap
Afraid that under the tree no packages the kids would see
and in one great frenzy unwrap.

Then Christmas Day dawned, crisp and light
The tree decorated and brightly lit
The kids eating breakfast, filled with anticipation bright
While the parents around the tree do sit.

And what of that day, with its promise so great
What of the packages, created with such sweat
What of the day’s meaning, carrying such weight
After all, this was just another calendar date.

And all through the day, packages were opened
By families with subtle messages unread
Performing a ritual on which societies depended
For their ration of daily bread.

And what of that message, which few bother to hear
Of redemption, peace, love and acceptance
A message that resonates past its two thousandth year
If the world would but give it a chance?

All the hustle and bustle, the mad rush to the stores
Makes so little sense to those people and their chores
Where the message of family and community
Still resonates with seeming immunity.

Let’s return to that message, let’s forget the commercials
Let’s take care of each other in the way we do best
Each parent and child, each uncle and aunt, draws on wells
Of love to make this Christmas the merriest!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

A Christmas Wish

Tomorrow (or today, depending on when you are reading this), is Christmas Eve. It’s a time when families all over the world gather to observe the birthday of Jesus over 2000 years ago. It’s also around the time when many other religious traditions observe their winter holidays.

No matter which tradition you observe, this is a time to take stock of the past year and to look at what you anticipate for the New Year. Will you business grow, your personal life glow, your headlong rush slow, or your customers crow?

How many people have you helped accomplish one of their life’s dreams? How many will you help next year? How many people helped you accomplish your life’s dreams? How many will help you next year? How many have you given thanks to?

When we open our hearts and give our best to others, we will find that the best everyone else has will flow to us.

Many of you had a difficult time over the last year. Many had wonderful business success. Whatever your situation, whatever the future holds for you, just know that all is right in your universe and that every reverse is a lesson that will lead to future success, every success is a giant step to the results of your dreams, and every gift you receive and every gift you give is a sign of thanks for all that you have.

Take the success you have and build on it. Act is if your dream were already here. Take the actions the person you want to be would take. Take them with deliberation, planning, lack of fear, and with a focus on the person you are working with. If your clients are successful, so will you be successful.

That is my Christmas wish for you. Give to those who nurture you. Thank those who give you business. Honor those who thank you. Above all, honor your commitment to your source of inspiration, motivation, and love, whatever or whoever that source may be.

May you have a wonderful Merry Christmas and the Happiest of New Years!

Friday, December 10, 2010

It's Good to Get a Royal Trashing from Time to Time

Back when I was working with Sol Stein (former owner of Stein & Day Publishers and one of the top New York publishers of the 20th Century) in the Chapter One writing group in the early 90s my first year was an unmitigated success. My novel A Gathering of Strangers was a hit with Sol and the rest of the group. One of its scenes even appeared in Sol’s video Stein on Writing, released in 1992.

As that season came to an end, I started thinking about my third novel. Buoyed by the reception of the first novel, it seemed that I could do nothing wrong. I came up with this great idea about an archaeologist in the Mojave Desert who has all sorts of crazy things happen to her. I thought it was fun and strange all at the same time. I wrote and edited, wrote and edited all summer and fall. Problem was I still didn’t know how to tell good writing from bad.

The next January, Sol reconvened the group in Laguna Beach with a few new faces but the same stringent teaching. At the first meeting, I proudly gave the first few chapters of my new manuscript to him and over the next couple of weeks waited for a response.

No response came.

After three weeks of silence, I asked Sol if he had read my chapters.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s not up to your usual standard.” He held up the green ink pen he usually used to edit manuscripts. “There’s so much green ink on it I didn’t want to give it back to you since I still want you to be my friend.”

He clearly didn’t like it and didn’t want to discuss it further.

I went home that night and thought deeply about that book. One key point here is to not fall in love with your work. Something critical was wrong with the book and I would have to fix it. I took another look at my main character and realized that she wasn’t strongly developed and that all the events were just happening around her. The book was written for the events and not the character.

I started from scratch and decided to have the most important characters around her tell me who she was from their perspective. I started with her grandfather, then her grade school teacher, a local newspaper reporter, her new boyfriend, and a few others. I wrote them all in the first person and then added a chapter in the first person from my main character, Angela. I had five first person characters in five chapters.

The next week, I printed them out and at the Monday night meeting handed them to Sol. I figured it would be either very good or very bad.

I waited. That Friday I got a message from Sol to bring a copy of chapter two to the next meeting. He didn’t say why, just bring it.

At the meeting he had me pass the copies out and then asked the group what was different about the chapters. They agreed it was good but had no idea why.

Sol said, “This is an example of a skill we haven’t talked about in this class, the use of voice.” He went on to discuss how the distinct voices of the characters made them real individuals, not just fictional characters. He told me later that when he read the chapters, “They were so good I almost fell off my chair.”

Okay. It was good. I finished writing the new draft and called it Satan’s Angel. It’s in print and available right here on my blog and website.

This was not the first time nor was it the last time something I spent a lot of time on got royally trashed. The experience at the time was not fun although it was easier in the sense that I never saw the actual trashing. To this day I have never seen that old marked up manuscript. Perhaps Sol thought there was nothing salvageable there and why bother to give it back.

All of the times this has happened to me, I’ve used it as a wake-up call that I was letting my skills slip and to ramp up my effort again. Each time that’s what I’ve done and each time it’s paid off handsomely.

I see so many people get a few words of criticism and quit. They are so thin skinned that they go into defensive posture and never listen to the valuable feedback they just got. Most writers, speakers, and business owners who fail have this problem. A trashing is a revelation that something is seriously wrong in your approach and that it must be cured if you are to grow.

Take it as that and you will come back to the fray better than ever. In future stories I will share some more of these incidents and how I reacted to them.

Next time you get royally criticized, don’t ignore it. Embrace it, make it your own, look at what is wrong, and fix it. You’ll be glad you did.

Monday, December 06, 2010

Secretariat - Film Story Vs Facts

We just saw the film Secretariat tonight. Yes, I know it’s been out for a while but we finally got around to watching it. It is the incredible story of the champion race horse of the same name, who won the Triple Crown in 1973. It’s also a great example of how to make a fact based event into a great story that evokes strong emotions.

It tells the story of how a housewife, Penny Chenery, took over a failing Virginia race horse stable and nursed it through very difficult financial straits while raising a young colt who would become the famous Secretariat. It shows how she stepped into the racing world as an outsider who had to win the Triple Crown of horse racing to save the farm and her star horse. It is a story of perseverance in the face of constant negativity and of the outsider who fights to win. It also features a trainer who was seen as a loser who comes back to become one of the biggest winners in history.

It has all the steps in the story formula: An attention grabber, a strong character who wants something badly, opposition, attempts to overcome the opposition, an eventual victory, climax and lesson for us all.

This story takes on much of its power by leaving out a number of important facts which would have diluted it if they had been left in.

For instance, the biggest bit of information left out of the film is that in 1972, when Secretariat was establishing himself as the greatest race horse of all time, Penny Chenery and her staff were running another race horse, Riva Ridge, who won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and almost won the Belmont, the third leg of the triple crown.

Another bit of information left out was that Roger Laurin, son of trainer Lucien Laurin, worked for the stable and that when he left, the stable brought in Lucien to train Riva Ridge and Secretariat. Since Riva Ridge is never mentioned, it is also never mentioned that Lucien had trained a near Triple Crown winner the year before Secretariat made his race.

A third bit is that Penny Chenery’s father Christopher, portrayed as being at the Virginia stables in 1970 to 1972, was in reality in a hospital in New Rochelle, New York the whole time. Penny took over the stables in 1968 and bred Secretariat’s mother twice, also not mentioned in the film.

If these items had been included in the film it would have more truthful but it also would not have been as dramatic a story. The presence of Riva Ridge in the story would have diluted the drama of Secretariat’s rise to stardom and would also have softened the story of Penny Chenery’s outsider status in the horse racing world. The movie portrayed Lucien Laurin as a stranger to Penny Chenery when in fact Lucien’s son had worked for them and he was well known to them.

A key lesson in this story of the Secretariat movie is that when you are telling a story, whether it is about yourself or about someone else, put in only the important facts, not all the facts. If you strive for complete accuracy you will dilute the story. Stories are streamlined versions of reality built for dramatic and emotional effect and should be treated as such.

Secretariat’s story was an incredible event in the horse racing world and was a dramatic experience for everyone involved. However, telling it with all the facts does not create a compelling story. When we strip out the extraneous facts, it becomes even more dramatic and includes an emotional depth not otherwise attainable.

And when we tell stories, we are aiming for that emotional depth above all. Remember that the next time you write your own story.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Secretariat - Film Story Vs Facts

We just saw the film Secretariat tonight. Yes, I know it’s been out for a while but we finally got around to watching it. It is the incredible story of the champion race horse of the same name, who won the Triple Crown in 1973. It’s also a great example of how to make a fact based event into a great story that evokes strong emotions.

It tells the story of how a housewife, Penny Chenery, took over a failing Virginia race horse stable and nursed it through very difficult financial straits while raising a young colt who would become the famous Secretariat. It shows how she stepped into the racing world as an outsider who had to win the Triple Crown of horse racing to save the farm and her star horse. It is a story of perseverance in the face of constant negativity and of the outsider who fights to win. It also features a trainer who was seen as a loser who comes back to become one of the biggest winners in history.

It has all the steps in the story formula: An attention grabber, a strong character who wants something badly, opposition, attempts to overcome the opposition, an eventual victory, climax and lesson for us all.

This story takes on much of its power by leaving out a number of important facts which would have diluted it if they had been left in.

For instance, the biggest bit of information left out of the film is that in 1972, when Secretariat was establishing himself as the greatest race horse of all time, Penny Chenery and her staff were running another race horse, Riva Ridge, who won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and almost won the Belmont, the third leg of the triple crown.

Another bit of information left out was that Roger Laurin, son of trainer Lucien Laurin, worked for the stable and that when he left, the stable brought in Lucien to train Riva Ridge and Secretariat. Since Riva Ridge is never mentioned, it is also never mentioned that Lucien had trained a near Triple Crown winner the year before Secretariat made his race.

A third bit is that Penny Chenery’s father Christopher, portrayed as being at the Virginia stables in 1970 to 1972, was in reality in a hospital in New Rochelle, New York the whole time. Penny took over the stables in 1968 and bred Secretariat’s mother twice, also not mentioned in the film.

If these items had been included in the film it would have more truthful but it also would not have been as dramatic a story. The presence of Riva Ridge in the story would have diluted the drama of Secretariat’s rise to stardom and would also have softened the story of Penny Chenery’s outsider status in the horse racing world. The movie portrayed Lucien Laurin as a stranger to Penny Chenery when in fact Lucien’s son had worked for them and he was well known to them.

A key lesson in this story of the Secretariat movie is that when you are telling a story, whether it is about yourself or about someone else, put in only the important facts, not all the facts. If you strive for complete accuracy you will dilute the story. Stories are streamlined versions of reality built for dramatic and emotional effect and should be treated as such.

Secretariat’s story was an incredible event in the horse racing world and was a dramatic experience for everyone involved. However, telling it with all the facts does not create a compelling story. When we strip out the extraneous facts, it becomes even more dramatic and includes an emotional depth not otherwise attainable.

And when we tell stories, we are aiming for that emotional depth above all. Remember that the next time you write your own story.