Title: Confessions of a Mortgage Insider

Author: Denny Andrews

Publisher: Aviva Publishing

Date: 2008

Price: 24.95

Have you wondered why the mortgage and banking industry are in their current shape of disarray? Did you ever wonder how some people managed to get something for nothing and leave us the average tax payer footing the bill?  Are you curious why the once respectable mortgage industry became so corrupt and brought the US economy so quickly to its knees? Denny Andrew’s first book, Confessions of a Mortgage Insider, explores how the mortgage brokerage industry went into a spiraling failure that resulted in a complete meltdown of epidemic proportions. Confessions of a Mortgage Insider uncovers more than the excesses of the industry. It explores the people and personalities of those who worked in the industry through the personal stories of leaders, followers, slimy wheeler-dealers, and the victims. It tells the story through the eyes of mortgage broker Rick Agnew. Agnew goes from naïve freshman loan application agent to a diamond level broker whose life is filled with fast cars, fast women and fast parties. His up close and personal experiences with the industry open his eyes to the rampant fraud and chicanery of the industry.

Part story collection, part instruction, and part personal discovery, Andrew’s book is a fun and interesting book that makes you angry with the money lust of the brokers, makes you cry for those who are victimized, and laugh at the antics of Rick Agnew the half man/half naughty child protagonist.  Using illustrative stories and hilarious hi-jinx this book instructs even the most casual reader on the dangers of the current mortgage failure to the housing market.  This book can be that ‘tell all’ source the casual reader has been seeking to establish some sanity from the current economic crisis in the mortgage industry.

Confessions of a Mortgage Insider prompts the reader to really assess where they are currently in their mortgage and financial stability and then to make a specific plan to get where they want to be.  Living in the house of your dreams is not just a wish if you plan carefully and shop wisely for a mortgage and a mortgage broker, according to Andrews.  The American dream is not over…it has just become something that once again is only realized through hard work and a good savings plan.

The mortgage bubble has been broken and according to Denny Andrews, it is not a bad thing that the party is over.  His exposure of the ugly secrets of such a sleekly designed profiteering machine clearly illustrates the symptoms of our society’s pervasive illness: excess. This fast moving book encourages responsible lending and commanding the life choices that promotes accountability and fiduciary common sense.  Andrews captures the madness and mayhem through his original stories and then provides sound business advice that everyone can understand. 

Author: Gina W. Wilde

Publisher: Potter Craft 2008

ISBN: 978-0-307-39354-8

Reviewer: P. Shannon Evans

Shibori Knits – The Art of Exquisite Felted Knits is an artistic exploration of the art and craft of incorporating shibori weaving techniques with knitting.  Author Gina Wilde takes the reader on a transformational exploration where old myths about texture and finishing are abandoned and results in the reader reinterpreting their own creative responsibilities. Old stereotypes for color and content are abandoned as author and reader embark on parallel journeys of discovery of “new” techniques and combinations of wool, color, and creative uniqueness.

A clear-cut, easy to follow resource guide for the serious as well as the more casual knitter this work guides the reader through the maze of felting and non-felting fibers.  The techniques and directions covered help readers to develop an awareness of their own knitting preferences as well as to enable them to navigate their own interpretations of patterns and fibers with confidence and grace.   This inspiring book gives unparalleled insight into the intricate challenges of fusing fabrics through felting and expands the possibility to create new combinations of felting and non-felting fibers.   

Influenced by her physical environment as well as by her own professional experiences weaving and sculpting, Wilde has applied her artistic skills in new ways to create sophisticated, intricate knitted designs. Facing the monumental task of fusing her love of color, texture, and nature Wilde wanted to create designs that were transformational and innovative. She slogged through the process without the benefit of any guidebooks or resources learning through trial and error and even accident to mix colors and fibers. As she went through the process she began creating combinations and permutations that resulted in innovative designs that resembled works of art rather than embellished knitwear. As she went through the methods over and over Wilde refined her processes and began to create more checklists to help her and others with the herculean task of designing manageable patterns for others to follow. Soon she had a straightforward, well developed plan for each shibori knit design. Based on her more than 200 previous designs and her vast experience at fusing textures and color, Wilde methodically approached each design included in this book.

Shibori Knits provides a sensation laden introduction to this ancient Japanese artistic philosophy of color and texture.  Wilde’s own flirtatiously sophisticated personality shines through in each interpretive design making this book sparkle and stand out from the many other knitting books on the market today. Versatile, sophisticated, and unique, each pattern will provide the knitter with an unforgettable garment and a truly personal creative experience.  This book sets a new standard for process and design books in knitting resulting in a positive transformation for future audiences.  Wilde’s Shibori Knits – The Art of Exquisite Felted Knits is more than a knitters ‘how to’ book; it is a deeply satisfying experience of color, texture, and technique that brings a new depth of dimension to knitting design books. 

Do you want people to listen to you? Do you want to be seen as the professional you are? People will accept your word as an authority if you present yourself as one.  Make people see you as the professional you really are by following this outline to make your bio stand out:

1st Paragraph:

Define who you are, your specific skills, where you are from, and perhaps a positive a brief pertinent professional testimonial quote.

2nd Paragraph:

What are you doing right now? What professional activity are you currently working on or what new product or service do you have rolling out? Clearly state why you have the need to get this bio out to the world. 

3rd and 4th Paragraph:

Include important background information on your company, past experience, accomplishments, and awards should be presented here. 1-2 more testimonials are useful here.

Ending:

Don’t be flowery and don’t waste words. Economy and brevity are needed as you really only need a 1 page bio. 

Where to sprinkle your bio:

Article Marketing 

Press Releases

Media Kit

Professional Organizations

Your Website

The nit-noid editing for spacing, capitalization, and usage is just a matter of training your eye to seek out the errors. Reading a paragraph word by word backwards will often identify all kinds of typos to the casual editor. Spacing can be corrected using word processing tools like “replace.” A few of the other annoying parts to examine are:

• Font and type size
• Margins
• Headers and Footers if required
• Table of Contents and Header Consistency
• Spell check
• Content for missing paragraphs, sections, etc

With patience and plodding thoroughness you can make your way through the document with confidence. A little more work on the front end of the project will get your work into your audience’s hands faster.

Story telling is a good way to keep the reader hooked on the material so they will continue reading; however, make sure your stories have a point. For every story make a point and for every point have an illustrative story. When looking at your work with an editor’s eye look for the way the words and the story work together. Learn everything you need to know about how to write to be read.

Writing to be read means thinking like the reader. Speak to the reader in a way that is appealing and engaging and appeals to them on an emotional level. Use varied sentence lengths but avoid constructs that are really complex to follow. Make your point quickly to keep the content moving. Avoid excessive use of adverbs, passive voice, and other empty words that add nothing to the overall content.

You may craft some really cool sentences that you have to part with in the interest of good fast moving content. Good editing makes the work more effective and more likely to make you look like the content genius you are!

Good writing, even the best writing requires editing. Whether you are writing ad copy, a book, or a white paper for your business editing is critical to the success of your work. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to properly edit your own work – isn’t that why we hire a professional to do it? There are few things you can do to self-edit and help cut down the cost of your editing budget for your next project.

The most common writing mistakes authors make are:

• Repetition
• Poor content organization
• Repetition
• Extra spacing
• Repetition

The most common mistake is repeating the same event or fact over and over and over… throughout the manuscript. Essentially the author is beating a dead horse! Nothing turns off a potential client more than taxidermy projects in the lobby. Editing what goes before your client base or your potential customers is a critical step in the process.

Lack of organization and repetition usually happens when the author concentrates on grammar and fails to examine the document for cohesiveness as a whole. Have you ever had to sit down and listen to your dad go on and on with his old army stories and felt that he would never get to the point before you lost your sanity? A paper with content that is redundant or disorganized is like following one of dear old dad’s rambling narrations.

Repetition as a technique has its place in writing when done effectively. The key is making sure the flow is not disrupted for the entire work and that the repetition has a point. The trick is writing the entire piece so that it moves at a reasonable pace and making the reader stay engaged.

Modern readers are spoiled. They want short compact sessions for their reading. That is why all the successful books published in non-fiction in the last 15 years have had short succinct chapters. The books may be long but the chapters are not. If you envision 25 page chapters, you may exceed the staying power of the majority of the reading audience.  Create each chapter so it can stand alone and GET TO THE POINT FAST!

Target your chapters to provide profiles (rich and famous, up and coming, unsung heroes, etc) and to tell a good story. Develop a lead in to each chapter with the aim to get your reader’s attention and to keep it. Use powerhouse leads that literally punch your reader in the nose from the first paragraph. You have to hook the reader from the start. 

Circling in on the big idea is an important exercise for finding what you will write about over the next 6-12 months if you are serious about writing a book. If you are committing that much time to a project shouldn’t it be an idea you are passionate about and have a good working knowledge of the subject?

In order to write a book you need to have:

·         An understanding of the field/market

o   What exactly are you getting yourself into?

·         Perseverance

o   James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (a modern classic) was rejected 25X by publishers.

o   Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was rejected 122 times.

·         Organization skills

·         Belief in your work

·         A willingness to work hard and learn a few things along the way

·         Passion for your subject

·         Open eyes, ears and mind as you observe people and actions

Good writers seek inspiration for much of their writing. Some good places to find inspiration is through avid reading. Novels, non-fiction, biographies, poetry, the newspaper all help you open yourself to new ideas and information. It also helps you become a critic of writing and leads to a new awareness of ideas for lead-ins to segments of your writing.

Newspapers and magazines reveal what people are concerned about in the present and reveals trends possibly worthy of further exploration in your work. Fiction and non-fiction can be a great source of inspiration. The classics reveal themes of good versus evil and expose the emotional levels of certain eternal themes like love, devotion, and the conflicts of various human experiences.

So now you need to do a little brainstorming and circling to find your Big Idea and your sources of inspiration. It must be a topic that is interesting enough to devote a year of your life to develop into a book. The reader must be able to identify with the idea and it can be neither too broad nor too narrow. 

Writing requires the use of imaginative language to draw in the reader. Trite and overused words only serve to alienate your audience. Remove the following words from your vocabulary. Authors, speakers, and media have made them boring and tired from overuse. Consider them banished from this point on in your writing and speaking!

·         Very

·         Beautiful

·         Astounding

·         Perfect storm

·         Tightly integrated

·         Organic

·         Fix

·         Sustainable

·         Cutting edge

·         Proactive

·         Mission critical

·         Synergy, synergistic

·         Turnkey

·         Scalable, scalability

·         Solution – under threat of peril, do NOT use this word in your writing unless you are a chemistry teacher!

Now get out there and write something! Keep in mind every word counts.

When working on your own writing for marketing and promotion purposes, it is important to read good writing. Go out and find examples of similar items that are done well.

NOTE: Avoid reading Hemingway, Faulkner, and any Russian writers! Yes…it is good writing and great literat ure to study…if you were a PhD candidate in Literature. I love them all but I must admit in today’s fast paced and hurried life, few take the time to read that stream of conciousness style anymore.

2.   Write Like You Speak

Write like you were talking to the person across the table from you. Follow George Orwell’s writing maxim, “Never use a long word when a short one will do.”  If you have a simple message, why make it complicated with technical jargon and fancy words found only in a thesaurus? Avoid passive voice…who actually talks that way?

Active Voice: “Eloise, the dog bit the boy.”

Passive Voice: “Eloise, that boy was bitten by the dog.”

3.   Just Get It Out of Your Head

Don’t worry that your first attempt is not perfect. You have to conceptualize your work and then edit brutally, revise and rewrite. It is called “the writing process” for a reason.

 4.   YOU! YOU! YOU!

Make it personal. Talk directly to your reader. Use “you” and “your” so your reader knows this information is for them personally.

5.   Have Something to Say

Have something to say that benefits others. Write something worth talking about in an interesting and different explanation. Say it in a way that it stands out and makes your reader laugh, smile, or get angry. Say what you have to say so it is memorable.

6.   Use Imagery

Add visual details to your writing so your reader can create mental pictures.

“Bad-Ass coffee has a kick to it!”

7.   Headlines with Sex Appeal

If 10 people glance at your writing only 2 will read past your headline. Ouch! How do you beat those kinds of statistics? Killer headlines are rich in keywords, short, and sassy.

Bad Example Headline:

Attention authors, speakers, entrepreneurs: Get The Shocking Truth On What You Must Do To Create a Sell Sheet by Following This Writing Formula And Stay Lite-Years Ahead Of The Marketing and Crowd!

 Good Example Headline:

5 Steps to Super Successful Sell Sheets

8.   KISS – Keep it Short, Sweetie!

Remember what your 9^th grade English teacher told you about how many sentences go in a paragraph? She was wrong and you were right!  Avoid three syllable words. If you write a sentence with more than 15-17 words in it, you have said too much. A paragraph with more than 3-4 sentences also means you have said too much.  Writing today means saying it directly and concisely. We just don’t have time to dig for meaning.

9.   Call to Action

Do you want your reader to buy your product? Visit your website? Read your book? Tell your reader specifically what to do next. Give them precise directions on what they are to do next so they can take action.

10.       Sleep on it!

Once you have written your first draft and revised it once, put it aside for a day or so. Coming back with fresh eyes and a new perspective will expose many flaws, omissions, and glaring errors. You won’t believe what you missed!

How do you acheive success? Success does not come easily to any entrepreneur. It takes hard work and lots of perseverance. According to Dennis Kelley author of Achieving Unlimited Success, you need the following:

1. Follow your passion and do what you love to do!

No one who is truly successful is doing a job they hate. It takes motivation and excitement to get out of bed and do well. You might even say, doing work that you are passionate about is success!  

2. Perfect practice makes for a perfect performance.

If you want to be successful you better be at the top of your game all the time. If you practice poorly then you will perform poorly when it counts. Make all your attempts count. 

3. Set yourself apart from your competition.

What is your niche? How do you corner the market in your particular market? If you try to be all things for all people you will only be mediocre.

4. It’s all about your mindset.

Mindset is the key to success. If you don’t  believe in yourself, who will? Start believing in yourself. Talk the talk and walk the walk. It will at least make people stand up and take notice. Start acting as if and you will be amazed at what success you attract.

5. Never Give Up, Never, Ever, Ever Give UP!

Failure is only a failure if you quit, give up, and don’t try again. Think of each failure as an additional opportunity to succeed. It worked well for Edison, Bell, and a few other entrepreneurs…so if at first you don’t succeed Try Try Again!