The Second Letter...

.The Vital Ingredient…
This is the ‘Second Letter’ Day.
 The first letter in the word ‘DARE’ is ‘D’. That stands for ‘Decide’.

 Life is a series of decisions. So, what do we do with our decisions?

 Well, we’d better do something about them. If we don’t, they’re not decisions; they’re just wishes.

 Action changes everything. The second letter in the acronym stands for ‘Action’.

What we do says more about us than all the words in every language.
 Forty years ago, I’d just finished my first complete manuscript. A great friend was in the house the day after, and he asked to look at the pen I used. The manuscript had been written in longhand first, as I do with them all, and then I edit as I type it up. I’d been telling him I’d used a Bic biro because I love the flow they have when you write with them. I also told him I wrap a load of newspaper around the base, and cellotape it to the pen, because it gives a nice wide grip and eases any discomfort as you write.

 He was surprised and asked how discomfort comes about. It comes as a result of the story, and how you can become wrapped up in it. Events in the story create tension. Even though the events are imaginary, the effects, just as in life, are real. Hence, tension in the writer who’s creating, experiencing and living through distressful events; the pen gets gripped like a vice.

 A wad of cellotaped newspaper is a lot less uncomfortable than a skinny, hard, plastic shaft of a pen.

Anyway, the upshot was that he said I should design a protective holder for thin, hard pens. We both thought that that might be a good idea. We resolved to ‘look into it’. Sound familiar?
 A year later we were passing an Office Provider’s shop in the city, and there , smack bang in the middle of the window, was a spectacular display of ‘New’ pen grippers, rubber devices to slip onto pens or pencils and being promoted as the greatest way to avoid writers’ cramp.

We laughed because neither one of us was keen to go to the trouble of getting into manufacturing in the first place, and it showed that while ideas are good to have, it’s what you do with them that counts.
 Full marks the person who had that idea, made a decision, and took action.

Once you begin to take action, in anything, you’ve made a start. You may make meteoric progress, or you may move slowly. And you can always speed up as you get familiar with the process. But you are, definitely, on the way.
 The acronym is DARE; D for Decide; A for action, R for  ?, E for ?

 So  there it is for today; two letters out, two to go.