Saturday, April 2, 2016

On Writing Goals

My dad works hard. Really, really hard.

He worked hard as a student. (Ha, ha, that part isn't true. He wasn't a very good student.)

He worked hard for his father doing construction work.

He worked hard as a baseball player.

He worked hard as a teacher.

He worked hard as a coach. (He's in the Pennsylvania Hall of Fame as a wrestling coach.)

And when he left teaching to become a financial planner... you guessed it... he worked hard.

When he made that switch (from teacher to financial planner), it was a REALLY big move. He was going from something very safe and secure to a job where his family would depend on his production alone. His income would be entirely based on sales.

My father read a lot of books to prepare him for this transition. Many of these books were self-help and motivational business books. I was only fifteen at the time, but my father would pass some of these books on to me and I would read them.

One of these books was Rhinoceros Success, by Scott Alexander.


In Rhinoceros Success, Alexander teaches you to charge after your goals like... you guessed it... a rhinoceros.

The book is cheesy. Parts of it are silly. There are religious elements to it.

When I was in ninth grade I loved it.

One of the best elements of the book was the lesson in goal-setting. Alexander tells you to write your goals on a 3x5 card (one goal per card) and place them on the night stand next to your bed. You write your goals as if they have already been accomplished and every night and every morning the first and last thing you do is to read your goals and visualize them.

The visualization part is really important. You have to picture yourself already accomplishing your goal. So I did it. I wrote a goal out and put it by my bed and started visualizing success.

I had just finished reading the book, so only had one week to visualize my goal before the first track meet of the season. It was the spring of my ninth grade year at Unami Junior High School. I decided that my goal was to break the 5 minute barrier in the mile run (1600 meters for you modern types).

To make my visualizations more specific, I wrote out my quarter mile splits for the four laps.

1:08
2:25
3:42
4:54

And what happened when race day arrived?

First quarter - hit my split.
Second quarter - one second slow.
Third quarter - one second fast.
Fourth quarter - well, check out what my dad wrote in the bottom corner of my goal card...





I hit my goal on the nose. I ran 4:54 and broke the school record for the mile! Here I am doing it...




By the end of of the season I'd run a 4:45 mile and took second place in the league championships!


Why am I sharing this with you? Because it's time for me to become more goal oriented with my writing. If I want to be a successful author, I need to first define what success is, and then I need to set the goals to make it happen.

Wanting to be successful is different from doing the things necessary to make it happen.


Signing off. I need to get a 3x5 card.






Saturday, February 6, 2016

Promo Campaign

Today is day one of something I've never attempted before: a promotional campaign!

Last month (as most of you already know), I released Shadow of the Knight, the third novel in my epic fantasy series The Orb. Now it's time to kick the tires and light the fires and get this series airborne. 

For the next week books one and two (Eternal Knight and Child of the Knight) will be on sale for $.99. 

I have the following promoters lined up:

Today: me. Blog post, Facebook post, tweet.
Sunday: Book Barbarian (uh oh, Superbowl Sunday! Hope it doesn't burn me.)
Monday: Bargain Booksy
Tuesday: Ereader News Today
Wednesday: Books Butterfly
Thursday: BKnights
Friday: Open
Saturday: Open
Monday: Robin Reads


Hopefully the campaign will raise the visibility of The Orb and generate a lot of excitement for my novels. I'm very proud of my novels, and very happy with how they've done, but a guy can dream, can't he?

If you've enjoyed my novels please take a moment to let others know about the promotion. The $.99 price for the first two novels will only last for a week. And don't forget to review. Reviews are hugely helpful!

Here's a little bonus for you loyal blog readers... the original artwork for book four: