What are the 5 best ways of getting known in the speaking industry?

Getting known in the speaking industry does not happen overnight. You need to work at it bit by bit. The first thing to remember is that you are an unknown in the beginning, even if you possess the expertise required for the audience. At first you will need to speak to anyone who will listen. Second, you will need to get feedback on how well you did and what the audience liked and what they thought needed improvement. Third, do not take any of this feedback personally; use it as a tool to advance to the next stage in the speaking portion of your career.

Fourth, constructive feedback will provide the basis for making improvements to your talk. You will need to see where there is conflicting comments and make a judgment as to what should be the correct topic. Fifth, you should have every speaking session video-taped, or at least audio-taped. You will need to review everything you said, even the stories of failures and successes. This tool will enable you to make even further refinements. You can even tape yourself without the audience, but it is the audience reaction that you need to hear.

When you first begin, your audience is not likely to be well targeted. The reason is probably that you need to gain the necessary experience to more finely tune who they are. In the beginning you are after constructive feedback, and when you are able to implement the feedback and fine tune the presentation, you are ready to further define your audience.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people’s attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the “Networking Queen”. Blueprint for Networking Success: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprint for Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2005. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com

If a writer is to succeed he or she must take risks. What are these risks?

One of the first risks is the usage of time. If the idea of success is to write for one’s own satisfaction only, then writing is but a hobby, but if one is interested in being recognized as a writer, then other risks must be addressed.

The first one is the fear of rejectionrejection by peers, rejection by editors, and finally, rejection by readers. The first, can be the most important: if a writer presents his or her work to fellow writers and they are too critical, it can have a detrimental effect on the author, often to the point that the writer abandons his or her dream.

An important rejection is that by editors, but it must be realized that the editor has not rejected the writer, only that particular work. Many reason are possible: not appropriate, not needed at the time, overlooked, and many others. All writers have their work rejected so one must look for another market.

If the work is published, then the reader comes into play. Will they buy and read it? If they do, will they consider it or simply snub it?

Another risk is writing what you believe in. If the writer is to succeed, one must be convinced that what he or she says is important to them. Otherwise, the writing will lack sincerity and authenticity.

Once the work is written, it is important to get it out to readers and that can involve sending it to appropriate publications whether in the trade online or otherwise. Do not give up. If the writer believes that the work is significant then it must be placed before readers.

This mean that the writer must promote it with every means at his or her disposal, and many exist: newspapers, word of mouth, business cards, brochures, web sites, blogs, etc., to name a few.

Probably the greatest risk is believing in one’s self. Most writers have vulnerable egos thus it’s important to develop a positive attitude to one’s work. If the writer believes in his ability and effort then the battle is won.

Charles O. Goulet has a BA in history and a BEd in English literature. He has six books published, mainly historical novels.

His website is: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/go1c
His Blog is: http://go1c.blogspot.com

You may already have your web site up. You may be ready to create one. The biggest mistake most people make is that they don’t write their Web site to sell before they contact their web master. Here are five solutions.

Step One. Get Organized.

Just like anything else, you need to get organized first. What do you need to learn to put up an attractive, professional, book-selling site? Start a new folder called “Web Site To Do’s.” Include in a file called “My web site’s purpose.” What I can do for my readers, and what money results do I want? Make another file called “Sales letter for Book” and “Home Page Elements.”

Put these and other topics in your computer files and if you like, hard copy manila folders placed in your “Online Marketing File.”

Author’s Tip: Save only important papers or computer files, which include files on your book and its contents. Your Offline and Online Marketing Plans should be vertical and alphabetical in folders in hard files, or placed within a main computer folder, within which you place different related files.

Step Two. Know your web site’s purpose before you hire a web master.

Do you want to sell products and services, generate leads, generate interest for your book, establish credibility as the savvy expert in your field, improve communications, provide customer service, follow up on leads or sales, and get people to revisit your site to get more information that helps them make that all-important decisionto buy? While it’s good to offer a lot of free content, you must also remember your book is a business and you want to make sales.

Step Three. Preplan your Site for Selling

Think of your web site as your virtual office. You need to design each part of it to titillate and inspire your visitor to locate quickly what they want and eventually buy from you. It needs to be fast loading, and to be easy to navigate. You must know your site’s purpose before you design it.

What is the purpose of your web site? Sales? Build creditability? Show that you’re the expert? What do you want to sell? (All sites want to sell something) Answer these questions in writing now.

What visitors do you want to attract? (target audience)
Will your Web site have a theme? What is it?
What should be your visitors’ action and reaction once they arrive at your site?
What’s challenge or problem does your target visitor have?
What’s on your site such as your book to solve that challenge?
By the end of five months, what do you want to achieve? Money? How much? Clients? How Many?
What’s your technical expertise, and are you willing to learn something new, or delegate it to your inexpensive computer assistant or Web Master?

Step Four. Create an Audience Profile

Do you know who should visit your site? Which of these audiences are yours? -the targeted for your special topic, the one who wants special skills fast and easy, the general audience like The Chicken Soup series who want inspiration, or the online audiencewho are primarily business people, but want all kinds of information. They may want to make a home better designed, build a better relationship, find Mr. Possible, build business income, become healed, raise spiritual awareness, prioritize goals for financial or personal success, build internet marketing skills, and more.

Before you design a word, get a visual, and mental picture of your preferred audience. What do they want? Are they internet savvy? What magazines do they read? What do they spend discretionary money on?

Step Five. Write a Sales Letter for your book and any other product or service.

If you aren’t making the book sales you want, then you either don’t have a sales letter for each book, or your present one lacks pizzazz and motivation. This is the time to leave your “writer of book self” home, and bring out your “writer to sell your book” self.

Author’s story

My first Web site had twenty+ fine books and kits in personal growth, book writing, and marketing. Sales never went over $200 a month. To correct that, I created a new site that focused on bookcoaching to include the ten eBooks I wrote on book writing, self-publishing, online promotion, web copywriting, and marketing. For this second web site, I paid special attention to sales letters (without hype) for each teleclass, eBook, and bookcoaching opportunities to suit each visitor’s income and need.

Sales were $75 the first month, and in four months they reached $2265. The next year they went to $3000 a month. Four years later, sales are over $4500 each month, and I still work only ten months and take four vacations a year.

Your bookcoach learned it all the hard, slow way, but you don’t have to. Just be willing to open your mind to different skills you can certainly learn. You wrote a book, didn’t you? And you experienced a learning curve there too.

You have choice. Put a sales letter on your home page if you only want to market one thingyour book. Or, if you also want to promote a service and other books, put a strong headline on the number one benefit of each book or service on your home page and link it to your sales letter on another page.

Some experts write long sales letters because they think you need to give enough information to help your potential buyer make an informed decision to buy. For email promotion use shorter sales letters and for the web site, longer ones.

Yes, you can post your book on other web sites, but as an author/business person who is serious about promoting your book and creating a web presence, you will eventually want to create your own web site.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including “Write your eBook Fast,” “The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Targeted Web Traffic,” and “Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,” she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, “The Book Coach Says…” and “Business Tip of the Month” at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 165 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com.

“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is the “unique selling position” in your market? Luck will not propel you to success. Understand the “cause” of your market’s problem by knowing your target. Solving their problem is the “effect” they are looking for. Corporations have entire departments dedicated to finding out who buys from them so they can hone in on that market segment. They do that by profiling not only who buys from them, but who is their competition. Successful marketing campaigns listen to their market. It’s about connecting a hidden desire or an expressed desire in a market, a target market. Your job is to identify where those minds are, find them and then connect with them. You don’t have to be a corporation. It’s your job to do your own research and it’s available to you through your competition.

Singularly look at writing to one person rather than a group. When you get this one concept down, your copy will stick like glue to the reader because it’s just the 2 of you in the room. It’s a real easy thing to say “everybody is my target market” but it’s not. Your target market is only those potential customers who are suitable for your products or services. You really have to know exactly who you’re talking to so you can provide the solution to their problem. That’s why I demolish those roadblocks for you in my highly acclaimed workbook and audio CD, Red Hot Copy to Woo Your Target Market.

Copywriting is interactive between the reader and the writer. You want him or her to keep reading so you have to engage the reader. When you get in touch with your TARKET, that’s where you really make the sale. You need to know everything about who you’re writing for. In other words, start with the catch in the mind instead of the pitch.

Remember that it’s not about you. Eugene Schwartz, Copywriting Master says, “The creativity is in your market and in your product, and all you are doing is joining the 2 together. And the only way you can get the creativity out of your product and your market is to dig it out. And the only way you can dig it out is dig it out more than anybody else digs it out.“

International copywriting trainer, author and speaker, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero has been a freelance writer and journalist for over 25 years. Her words have made her clients hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now she focuses her vast experience on teaching others the skill of copywriting. Lorrie is the author of a highly acclaimed copywriting course, creator of the Red Hot Copywriting Bootcamp and founder of Copy Campus, a unique membership resource site designed to support copywriters and entrepreneurs on all levels. Visit her site to learn more at http://www.red-hot-copy.com.

Submitting articles once or twice a week can yield 15 or more subscribers to your own ezine each time. Read by thousands, even hundreds of thousands, your articles also bring people to your Web site to buy your products or services.

Knowing these benefits, you want to create and submit as many articles as you can. At times, you have the articles complete, but don’t have anyone handy to edit them. While it’s best to get at least two other edits from business associates, you can edit your articles yourself with a little help.

Use this checklist of the ways to edit your own work:

1. Start your introduction with a question or startling fact. You must hook your readers with something that reaches their emotions. Make it “you” centered.

2. Make your introduction only a few sentences. Your readers want to get to the heart of your book chapter or article fast. They want easy-to-read quick tips. Long stories can bring a yawn to your reader.

3. Make all of your sentences short. Since standard sentence length is 15-17 words, make most of your sentences under that number. Complex sentences and multiple phrases make the reading tougher. Make it easy for your readers to get the point fast.

4. Avoid dull, slow passive sentences. Start them with a subject, then follow with a verb to avoid passive construction. “The coach marketed her business and books through submitting articles online” is an active sentence. “The coach’s books were marketed online through submitting articles” is passive. Drop linking verbs such as “is,” “was,” “seemed,” or “had.” Replace them with power, active verbs. Instead of “she is beautiful,” you could say, “Her beauty compels you to stare at her”.

5. Aim for compelling, clear copy. Write for the 8-10th grade reader. Always think “What’s in it for them?”

6. Use specific nouns and names. General references don’t engage your readers’ emotions. Let them see the size, color, and shape. Rather than say, “Write your book fast to make lifelong income,” say “Write and finish your book fast so you can take that long vacation to a Caribbean island such as Tobago.” Money isn’t a specific pull, but a vacation is.

7. Let go of adverbs. Words like very, suddenly, and sparingly, tell instead of show. Use adverbs only at Christmas.

8. Let go of unneeded adjectives. Instead of a super-intelligent person, you can say a genius.

9. Appeal to the senses of sight, sound, and emotions. Telling is not an effective. Instead of “Buy this book today because it is so useful,” say, “Would you like to double, even quadruple your Online income in four months?”

10. Cut redundancies. Don’t talk down to your reader with too much repetition. Be willing to part with your “precious” words. The first edit usually reduces the words by

Information based marketing is one of the oldest and most effective techniques for bringing targeted prospects to your site and converting them into buyers. This is part of the reason that software, and distribution services that make the process of article promotion easier are so popular lately.

Though the various tools you can use to make the process of distributing your articles more easily are invaluable in getting your content the most exposure, that’s only half of the story.

Getting article marketing to work for your site lies primarily in two things:

The article you’re submitting, and

The preparation you do before you a single word of your content is written.

Since those two determining factors make at least 50% of the difference in bringing you success, let’s take a look at what the most common mistakes are in that area, and how to overcome them.

Mistake #1 - Confusing the Reason to Promote with Articles with the Reason to Write Articles

There are three key benefits to promoting an article - branding, lead generation, and as a corollary, online promotion, particularly as part of your optimization efforts.

Yet there is only one reason to write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If your article is not geared towards this as its primary purpose, you will fail to see the three benefits of promotion - because no one will want to read your article.

How many links you’re able to generate by submitting your article to hundreds of sites will matter little if you’re unable to get them picked up by publications, or read by people who search for information.

Sure, if you know what you’re doing all those links pointing back to your site will count for something in your search engine results - but remember that generating links to your site is only one part of optimizing your site for Google, Yahoo or MSN.

To overcome this issue, you’ll need to figure out how to get people to read what is in your article, and then click through to your site from your resource box. The best start to a solution is to produce better content.

In the end it’s a matter of choice. You can get a little exposure from increased link backs, on a very basic level, or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra work.

Mistake #2 - Starting The Article Promotion without a Plan

Not every article can fulfil all three purposes of promotion. Some will work better for branding, others can generate leads and increase sales. But if you don’t start out with a plan for what the function of your article should be, you’ll end up unhappy with the results.

To overcome this issue, before you write a single word, decide what purpose the article is supposed to serve. An article meant to brand you as an expert should display your knowledge. One for generating leads may need to be geared towards solving a very specific problem.

An article that gets published every where and helps to make you known is not meant to have the same level of exposure as hyper-targeted content geared towards a narrow group of people. Learning the difference will help you know what kinds of articles to write.

Mistake #3- Publishing Content That Doesn’t Help Your Reader

Maybe you’re thinking: “All I want is links back to my site - any visitors the article generates is gravy.”

Well guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. You can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with readers. And all it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience tenfold.

So if you want article marketing to work for you, write articles that publishers want in their publications.

This also means obeying the standard guidelines, running a spell check, researching a good topic to write about, or even hiring a writer to produce articles on your behalf.

Mistake #4 - Failing to Maximize the Promotional Opportunities of Article Marketing

You already know that articles marketing can help you generate additional links back to your site. But did you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from articles in a variety of ways?

You can mention your desired keyword in strategic places, though you should take care not to overdo this. Some people will also tell you to make use of anchor text, which can also is an effective method. However, you should know that the majority of directories and publications aren’t able to support this.

There are alternatives to this method that are just as effective, if not more so, but they require more space to explain.

It’s not just about the links back to your site either. Part of doing well with article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with large audiences, or gaining the ability to leverage other brands due to the quality of your work.

Better search engine results are great.

But by themselves they don’t put money in your pocket - there are a myriad of factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity to increase your income, not just the number of visitors to your site.

Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul

Tinu Abayomi-Paul is a Web Promotion Specialist who runs the Free Traffic Tips Blog. You can read part two of this article at http://www.freetraffictip.com/article-marketing and learn about three more common mistakes even veteran article marketers make.

1. No one else will do it for you.

2. No one else knows the stories of you life quite like you do. Do you want them to tell it?

3. This is an opportunity to share knowledge, wisdom and advice to those who would be inspired to
learn from us.

4. When we record something, we remember more.

5. By reflection and recording we are able to gain a deeper appreciation for all the surrounding
happenings that influenced our decisions and experiences.

6. A life examined and recorded is twice precious, first the experience itself and then the memories it
evokes when we read about it later.

7. Everyone has a story to tell. We each have a unique view of history from our own perspective.

8. There is an inner need in each of us to be remembered. To reflect and to see that our lives had
value.

9. We want to be remembered by descendants as a real person and not just a name on a tree.

10. If not recorded, the stories you learned from your grandparents will die with you.

11. The things you did as a child are as remote from children today as Mars is from the Earth.

12. You will be looking at painful memories of childhood with the eyes of an adult and realize that they
no longer have the power to hurt you.

13. You have the opportunity to leave a legacy for friends and family.

14. This is a way to celebrate your own life.

15. It allows family and friends to know you as an individual, not just the role they were familiar with.

16. By sharing how you overcame adversity, it may strengthen another who is facing a hard time.

17. It gives you an opportunity to not only examine events, but feelings and emotions.

18. It allows you the opportunity to say on paper what is sometimes hard to express in person.

19. By writing our stories, we can examine our life’s journey with a wider view.

20. It is very therapeutic to examine the past and then to let old hurts go.

21. It is the ultimate journey of self-discovery, even if no one else ever reads it.

22. You can pass down traditions, standards, beliefs or even recipes that have a great deal of meaning
within the family or community.

23. As you grow older and less verbal, it helps caregivers and others to see you as you once were.

24. You will be respected, envied and praised for doing what most people just talk about doing.

A recent survey taken of a group of elderly people indicated that their major life regrets were in not:

! Taking more risks-choosing the secure over the unknown and the unknown would have been fine..

! Reflecting more, taking time to stop along the way and decide who we are and where we are going.

! Contributing and sharing more feelings, thoughts and emotions with family, friends and community.

By recording your life story, which is a scary step to take, you can accomplish all three.

There is an old African saying that every time a person dies, it is as if a library has burned down.

Just do it, you will always be glad that you did!!!

If you are interested in getting the answers to these and other
questions about life story writing, please contact us at
judywright@artichokepress.com and sign up for a tele-class
and our FREE e-zine: “The Artichoke” - finding the heart of the
story in the journey of life..

©Judy H. Wright, Personal and Oral Historian - www.artichokepress.com

Writing articles is possibly the best way to generated free traffic to your site. A short article, submitted to a few places, creates permanent streams of traffic. Here are some of the ways articles bring traffic to your website:

1. Click-throughs from article banks. People read your articles at an article bank, and click on the link in the “author’s resource box.”

2. Search engine traffic. Search “cheap international plane tickets” on Google, and sites with my article will be in the results. Wherever the article is found, readers can click through to my travel site.

3. Other web sites. When my reports show a referral address I don’t recognize, it’s usually a web site that’s using one of my articles.

Article Submission - The Basics

Submit your articles to article banks and newsletters. Article banks usually carry “free-distribution “articles, meaning anyone can use them for a site, newsletter or blog. They just can’t change them, and they have to leave your link active. The link is in the “resource box,” where you say something about yourself and invite the reader to visit your web site.

Post an article once, and it can spread, creating permanent streams of traffic. Why permanent? Here’s an example: I get search traffic for “mexico real estate” on my site HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com because of an article I used. The author gets clicks through to her site, but I get traffic - and revenue - so I’ll never remove that article.

The Easiest Article Writing

Article writing isn’t just for writers. Online articles are short and less formal than magazine articles anyhow, but if you really don’t like writing, try a “list-article.” This is the most popular type of article online, which is fortunate, because it’s also the easiest type to write.

For a site about making money on Ebay, you could write an article titled “The Top Ten Sellers On Ebay.” A short introduction, a list with a sentence or two about each item, a bit about yourself and a link to your site, and you’re done. Write “Six Mistakes People Make On Ebay,” and we need to read that to avoid the mistakes, right?

Some article banks charge fees, but there are many that are free. There are also more ways to generate traffic with your articles. That’s this article’s “tease” to get you to the site.

Steve Gillman writes on many money-related topics. To learn more, and to subscribe for FREE to “Web Site Optimization Secrets,” go to: http://www.TheMoneyMakerSite.com

Dream that your book can be a number one best seller? Read books or visit Web sites that say they have your answers? — All you need to do is get their program, follow their advice, and the world is yours. Or, you think I’ll write it, but someone else can market and promote it. And that would be who? Publishers certainly don’t promote unknown authors.

Which author are you?

1. Individual dreamer. Naive, you don’t know what makes a saleable book, nor want to promote it. You often contact the Print on Demand companies who charge little on the front end, but over price your book and overcharge for your wholesale copies too. They make money. The author doesn’t.

2. An unknown seeking prestige writer. You know your book can beat the odds. You write a longer book like winners in your field, chase the traditional publishing dream so you will be respected, get on Oprah, and get a big agent/publisher deal.

Think again. These businesses accept 1-2% of the top submissions. Unless you are famous, you will miss out and spend a lot of time and money trying to get their attention.
Check with other authors whose publishing adventure went south. Know that even if you get on the shows, you don’t get a guarantee of selling books. In two years, one client went broke getting ready for Dr. Phil’s show (printed 20,000 books) and when he got on, he didn’t have enough money to write a good sales page for Phil’s Web site that was only up two weeks.

3. A businessperson who wants their book to brand their business and attract higher paying clients. You may want a publisher for prestige, but some of you will opt for a self-publishing approach where you will make all the profits. You know no one else will do it for you, so you spend time and money on learning how to write a saleable book as well as promoting it–especially Online.

4. An open-minded savvy person who knows there are multiple ways to write and publish a saleable book. You can leverage your success writing a print and eBook, and learn how to connect with the huge, Online audience, ready to buy books conveniently and fast on many topics.

You don’t have to publish the slow, hard, alone way. Educate yourself on self-publishing and its rewards that give many an author/business person like myself a healthy income.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Judy is author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell. She offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, “The BookCoach Says…,” “Business Tip of the Month,” blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 170 free articles.

===============
Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com.
Phone: 619/466-0622 — Orders: 866/200-9743

The greatest gift you have to give to yourself and humanity is the book, the song, the poem the artwork or invention that is locked away within your consciousness.

All of us have this gift that needs to come out. A one line peace of wisdom written on a napkin from the restaurant that comes from the heart has just as much value as a Picasso. Just the right words written by a street person living on the side of the road can have more impact on society than those of a trained phd that has been writing for years. A few scribbles written by a beaten women can change the way other women are treated. A short paragraph in a suicide note can save the lives of others.

All of us have something to write about when it comes from the soul. It has nothing to do with being a writer or a published author. It’s about letting it out and not holding it in, it is a release.

It doesn’t have to be about sad things or struggles either. It is just as important to write about accomplishments and successes. The urgency is the same and before one dies it is important for the ego and the soul to release this energy.

It is the fear that stops one from doing so. I have talked to many people over the years who have confided in me that they have always wanted to write a book. All of them have been afraid to do so. They claim they don’t have the knowledge or skills and they worry about being laughed at or ridiculed. Who would buy my book of poems, my “how to” book, or my child’s story book. There are so many other books, great books and authors and these people devalue themselves and their work before it is even started.

I have to remind them that it doesn’t matter about skills. It is the idea, the experience, thoughts or philosophy contained in the root of the book that is important. Even experienced authors have people that help them published a finished work. I personally don’t know of any writers that have completed their books from start to being published by themselves. Lack of skills is the least important aspect of writing. Getting your thoughts on paper is the only reason for doing it. Once that is done, it doesn’t really matter if the book is ever published unless that is the motive for doing it.

The important thing to note here is that you are writing for yourself and your life has value no matter how you have lived it. Others will gain from the wisdom you have achieved in your life, even if it is only one thought.

After years of writing hundreds of articles, essays and books, I have come to know that I did it all for myself. Most all the things I have written about have come from the heart; they are all my true thoughts at the time I wrote them. I have moved past most all that I have written and some of it seems very immature. I do not have the burden of what these thoughts should mean to me any longer as they have all been worked out on paper and I have moved on.

Most of the time I do not know what I am writing until I have finished and I go back and read my work. Buy the time I have proof read it three or four times I have absorbed the information and refined it to a level that I can live with it. What I have successfully done is manifested another Roy into physical existence on paper.

It does not matter to my soul one way or the other that someone else should read it or benefit by it. It does matter however to the ego. The body would love for someone to know me through my work and gain some wisdom from the experience. Through the course of my work with my web site, I go back into these articles and books and read them each time for the first time. I marvel at how good or how badly they were written, but always I come away uplifted by what I have read. I have written these articles for myself, that I might gain more insight into who Roy is and how he experiences himself in this lifetime. What I am doing in fact is giving myself back to myself; it is the greatest gift of all.

I want to tell you at this point how I starting writing so that you may be able to start on your own and begin to create that masterpiece. I want you to know that you can do it. All it takes is a couple of words, a line of text, a paragraph or two and you are off. The most profound thought or acknowledgement of who we are is summed up in only two words, “I AM.” Even if you can not write or read, someone else can do it for you. I am going to show you how I started and what has led me to this place in my life.

After I finished high school I ceased to read or write except to facilitate everyday responsibilities. I may have read one or two books over the next 30 years or so. I had difficult in reading more than a paragraph at a time because my eyes would dance around the page. In my work there was very little need for either reading or writing. I also believed that I was inadequate or plain stupid in those areas.

Near the age of 50 my attitude changed when I was given a book to read. I liked the title and started to read the introduction. It was difficult to keep my attention because I could not focus on the sentences. I took my time and gradually was able to read a page at a time, then a chapter and now I can sit down and read right through without stopping.

This book was a catalyst for reading others and I started to build up a library. After several months I was hooked on reading. I developed a dislike for TV and videos and I got the urge to start writing my thoughts down on paper.

Even more difficult than the process of reading books again were the first steps to writing. I had a high school education and some skills, but was overcome by fear of my own ability and thoughts of rejection should someone read it.

The process I used to get started was not my own and I don’t remember where I heard about it. Basically the advice was to just start writing and that is what I want to pass on now.

I positioned myself at my kitchen table very early one morning before I could be disturbed by routine morning activities. I surrounded myself with things that I imagined a writer would need, like my morning tea, a pad and a fountain pen. I wanted to emulate the image I had of how a writer would look like when he/she was ready to add words to paper. I sat at the table very comfortably in my house coat starring at a blank page ready to do writing things.

Taking the advice that I was given, I just started writing and it went something like this:

“Well what am I going to write about?”
“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”
“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.”
“This is stupid.”
“Nothing is going to happen.”
“How long to I have to wait?”
“My cat is funny.”
“Should I start of with a quote?”
“Boy am I going to through this away before someone sees it.”
“I can’t write.”
“Now what?”
“It’s a bright sunny warm summer’s morning and I am sitting at my table trying to be a writer, shit.”

This dialogue went on for a couple of mornings until finally the sentences started flowing and the writing developed a mind of its own and I did not look for anything in particular to write about. I struggled on my own for more than a year, then one morning I started writing a few pages at home and had the urge to take paper and pen to the mail and write there, hoping to find inspiration.

Having bought a cup of tea I found a table away from the others and continued where I hand left off at home. I started writing for a few moments when something amazing took place.

My pen took on an energy of its own and forced my hand forward along the lines of the pages leaving in its wake paragraphs of text. I lost track of time, and it seemed like only twenty minutes of time had passed to write the more than twenty single line spaced pages. My hand was getting tired and sore from the increased speed of the writing. I didn’t want to stop but was also afraid to let it go on. I was sitting back watching myself and my eyes filled with tears as I began to allow fear to fill my presence. I thought that it would not stop and that I could not control what was happening, so I terminated the process.

It has taken me five years to get to this point and the article you are now reading.

The writing comes easy for me, it is the proofing that is the greatest challenge and it is so, because I do it myself. There are others that could help and it’s simply a matter of choice.

I write for myself and I am the majour beneficiary of what I have written. If someone else should benefit from my reading it is because they have placed themselves in the correct time and place to receive that profit. I have made my writing available through my web site in order to facilitate that discovery.

Anyone can do it, no matter how small or large the project. How significant or insignificant it may seem at the time you story must be told.

Each of us has a creation, a story, a painting, a sculpture or poem in us that needs to come out. They are a physical expression or symbol of who we are and we owe it to ourselves and others to bring it into the physical world.

The two most powerful words of expression by humanity are “I AM.” The sentence is complete in its brevity and what follows is the extension of “I AM.” I am a writer, a painter, a sculptor, a poet, an artist and “I AM” going to bring this story out because it is who “I AM.”

Roy E. Klienwachter is a resident of British Columbia, Canada. A student of NLP, ordained minister, New Age Light Worker and Teacher. Roy has written and published five books on New Age wisdom. Roy’s books are thought provoking and designed to empower you to take responsibility for your life and what you create. His books and articles are written in the simplicity and eloquence of Zen wisdom.

You may not always agree with what he has to say. You will always come away with a new perspective and your thinking will never be the same.

Roy’s style is hard hitting and comes straight from the heart without all the metaphorical mumble jumble and BS.

Visit Roy at: http://www.klienwachter.com