Working with Images to Get More Emotion into Your Chapters

This week, a fellow writer in New York sent me this bit of wisdom from writer Richard Bausch, who is known for his wonderful short stories. Bausch has been published widely, and he currently teaches in the writing program at the University of Memphis.

His thoughtful ideas on image and emotion will be the basis for our writing exercise this week.

"Make your feeling in things, images. There is so much more in an image because that is how we experience the world, and a good story is about experience, not concepts and certainly not abstractions. The abstractions are always finally empty and dull no matter how dear they may be to our hearts and no matter how profound we think they must be. I am perfectly aware that I am presently speaking in abstractions. So here is an example: there has been an auto accident. A head-on collision. We can say it contains all the horror of death and injury, and the terrible shocks to existence that await us all. Or--as my pal Allan Gurganus did once long ago in a workshop we were in, talking about this very matter--we can say a man with blood trickling from his ear and eyes wide and glittering unnaturally, knelt, shaking, at one of the broken headlights, trying, with trembling fingers, to put the pieces of shattered glass back into place. That opens the richest vein of horror, and it is experience, and we witness it, and feel it. So, in revision, get rid of all those places where you are commenting on things, and let the things stand for themselves. Be clear about the details that can be felt on the skin and in the nerves."

This is echoed in one of my favorite writing books, From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler.  Butler recommends doing away with any interpretation (thoughts and feelings about things, essentially).  Let the things stand for themselves.

Readers are awfully smart.  They can get the meaning behind the message, if the message is delivered through images. 

In my writing classes, I help writers see how their book's "inner story," or the message of meaning in their writing, is primarily delivered to the reader through these images that reveal emotion, rather than through abstract thoughts and feelings.

This often seems counter-intuitive to the new book writer.  But look at your favorite stories.  Often the emotion is presented at a peak moment through a gesture, an object, the way light glints on a table top that's just been shined.  Images are how readers absorb the emotional impact, or payoff, of such a moment in a book.  I find this true, no matter which genre we're working in.

For this week's writing exercise, I encourage you to test this out. 

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

1.  Choose a passage from your writing that is abstract:  maybe it's internal monologue, or thoughts and feelings from a character or narrator or author.

2.  Locate a tangible "thing," as Bausch says, that could possible convey this emotion or thought.

3.  Play with taking out the abstract and letting the thing speak for itself. 

4.  See if the emotional impact is enhanced.

Chic Habits

One of my favourite treats at the movies is a box of popcorn. I have always loved popcorn and love the thought of being in the dark, watching a movie with a big tub, just for me. I used to order Large and in the last few years in an effort to be more normal, would order Medium size.

Still, I knew a big bucket of snack food wasn’t chic and somehow thought it could be my guilty secret, because it’s dark in there. I don’t think my dream Parisian girl Sabine would do this, snack on a giant size of something that is used to fatten cattle. My latest chic habit therefore is to:

Be chic at the movies.

Before: not being able to go to the movies without purchasing a medium or large tub of popcorn to graze unattractively on. My husband doesn’t eat anything at the movies so I feel really conspicuous next to him with my tub-0-lard.

Even when I went by myself to a movie recently I still felt self-conscious. I saw Audrey Tautou’s movie Beautiful Lies and was aware that the slightly older crowd of couples did not have buckets of grossness.

After: no popcorn. Now when I go along, I take a small bottle of chilled sparkling mineral water and sip this. I can buy it at the supermarket for a small price and slip it in my bag to take along. I feel très French and chic sipping on this periodically throughout the movie.

When I leave, I can throw the empty bottle in the bin and Voila, no ‘popcorn remorse’. I don’t even miss the popcorn! It was just always something I had done and enjoyed the ‘tradition’.

I think the transition was helped somewhat by the last bucket being underflavoured, slightly stale and pretty much tasteless. It tells me yet again that when you don’t prepare the food yourself you have no power to guide the ingredients.

Does anyone else have a popcorn fixation like me?

Starting a Law Firm | Hiring Another Lawyer

Just like I told you all a few weeks ago, I have hired my first associate attorney! This blog is quickly going from the "how to start a law firm" category to the "how to sustain and grow a law firm" category. But that's okay. There will always be a ton of information here that someone can use when they want to start a law firm. They might just need to go back and read from the beginning to see exactly what's going on.

Here's how this new associate hiring went down. I finally broke down and saw that I needed some help. I want to pursue this more, I want to focus more on running the law firm and making sure everything works smoothly within it, and I couldn't do that with all of the legal work that we were starting to get (this month has been our best month by far). I realized that the cost of an associate would be more than offset by the value I could bring elsewhere - in other words, an associate attorney would more than pay for themselves.

The Process of Hiring an Associate Attorney

For me, the process was pretty straight forward. First, I put an ad out with the local law schools for the position. Not only do new law school students see this information, but their alumni and others that subscribe see it to. This was my posting:

We are looking for an associate attorney to join our criminal defense practice. We're a young group but an energetic one. We're looking for someone excited about criminal defense (and DUI defense in particular) with a strong work ethic, strong attention to detail, and a competitive fire. You've also got to have a car you can drive (there are many court appearances to go to).

Good things about this job - (1) you'll get a lot of experience; (2) you'll work in a fun environment; (3) you'll be pushed; (4) there's will be a lot of opportunity for growth.

Bad things about this job - (1) at the beginning, the pay will suck.

If you're interested please send a cover letter, resume, transcript, and short writing sample (5 pages or less). In the cover letter, tell me these three things; why you're interested in criminal defense; why you're better than everyone else; and what your favorite sports team is.

As you might expect, it's a little out of the ordinary. But I didn't just want an ordinary attorney - I wanted someone better than that. And that's exactly what I got.

My new associate started this week. He's hitting the ground running, is pumped to be here, and I think has been enjoying it so far. As he gets more and more comfortable here and with our cases, I think he's going to like it even more.

I know, I know, you all want to know what I'm paying him and all that stuff. Well, I'm not going to tell you. It's none of your business!

I'm kidding, it's kind of your business because I've come here and shared so much with you. Here's what I'll tell you about the pay - it's set up so that the salary is low. Very low. But, there is the opportunity to make more money, a performance bonus if you will, based on the number of people that sign up. More people sign up, he makes more money. The sky is the limit as far as that is concerned. That's all you get to know about that.

The Interview Process

After I checked the people out, I set up an interview with the five or so people that I thought were the best candidates - ended up being 3 guys and 2 gals. I gave them each an hour and brought them into the office, sat them down, and chatted them up.

For these interviews I wanted the pace to a lot more conversational than I'd done in the past. If you're a criminal defense attorney you need to be able to think on your feet, to show a little passion every now and then, and to really sell yourself. So I tried to ask questions that allowed people to show me that. Some did, some didn't.

After the interview it came down to two candidates, and both were very well qualified. The decision at the end of the day just came down the person that I thought was the best fit for the firm (which is what I tell people to do when they are choosing a lawyer).

Getting Ready for the Associate

One of the major things about hiring a new attorney is that the processes really need to be more streamlined, written down, and adhered to. When it was just me, it was easy to kind of keep a list of to-dos in my head and then just coordinate that stuff with my assistant. With another attorney in the mix, it's important that we all rely on the systems in place to keep track of what's going on so nothing is missed, or things aren't done twice. For us, that started with the weekly planning meeting to make sure we all know what we're supposed to be doing.

The weekly meeting is pretty straightforward. We have all of our open cases in a spreadsheet, we figure out what we need to do next on the cases, and sometimes we note the thing that needs to be done after that, and then we get to work for the week. The next week, we figure out what's been done, and move on to the next thing after that. We keep track of what we're doing in that spreadsheet (we all have access to it and can cross stuff off when it's done), highrise, which is where our cases are managed, and just the open lines of communication.

Okay, gotta run. More to come on this later. I know you all have questions! Ask them! I'd love to talk to you.

More on the horizon. More to come. Looking forward to this year - it's going to be epic!

Oh, and, by the way, been doing some crazy good stuff with the search engine stuff for the people that signed up. Going to talk about that over at my law firm marketing blog. Go check it out.

Pros and Cons of First and Third Person Point of View

One of my online students recently emailed me with a very good question.  Many book writers struggle with this during revision:  which to use, first person or third person. 

Which has the most impact on the story?  What are the pros and cons of each voice?

Sometimes the writer will create "islands" or scenes or snippets of writing in different points of view, as she moves through making the manuscript.  This is absolutely fine--it gives our random creative selves freedom to test out many options.  But when you've finally assembled your first draft, you need to settle it down.  You need to choose a point of view that tells the story best.

A wonderful writer, much published, once told me this secret:  for newer writers (new to book-length works), it's easier to get to know the characters in first person voice.  "The first book is often first person," she said, "the next ones are in third person." 

I found this true.  My first novel was attempted in third person but I had a terrible time bringing the main character to light on the page.  She seemed so distant.  On the advice of a writing teacher, I converted her scenes to first person. 

Suddenly she was visible, audible, clear to me.

But when I began work on my second novel, the me-me-me of first person was a bit hard to take.  First person can come across very self-absorbed.  Which is beautiful in short pieces, tiresome in longer ones, like listening to a rant.  To make first person palatable, much has to be worked in the environment of the story--letting the setting (container) reflect the emotions of the first-person narrator, rather than the narrator always delivering them.

In crafting my first book in first person, I learned this the hard way.  My teachers red-penciled out long and, to me, lyrical passages of self-reflection.  I remember one x-ed out an entire page, writing "Enough!" in the margin.  And it was.  I'd learned one of the downsides of first person voice--it can be way too much. 

My current novel, written in third person, is difficult in its own way.  Third is more distant, so I have to work harder to bring out the emotions of each character.  I usually write "islands" in first person, in their voices, to get to know them.  Then switch over to third for the actual scenes and chapters 

Memoir--Its Particular Challenges
Memoirists have a tricky task here--memoir is always written in first person (except for very experimental memoir) because it's all about me, the narrator, anyway.  It's my story, and no one else can tell it.  So the memoir runs the risk of being very blah blah blah about their own precious thoughts and feelings, which the reader may not care about. 

I've been enjoying two memoirs this week that do very well with the first-person challenge:  Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller, and Let's Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell. 

Fuller makes use of setting brilliantly--we completely get her personality in the story, but we see it against the very large backdrop of the Rhodesian civil war, and that puts her personal angst in perspective beautifully. 

Caldwell falters occasionally in her memoir.  A long chapter about her alcoholism left me slightly bored with her; I found myself skipping ahead to where the story reunites with her friend's story, the meat of this book (about her friend's death).  I found it hard to just have Caldwell's musings without the stronger backdrop of something of bigger importance than a single life.

As my student wrote, "First person gives more immediacy and emotional punch," and it certainly does.  But one human life, with its singular thoughts and feelings, needs always to be balanced in literature with a broader landscape.  Otherwise, the self-absorption will deafen the larger voice and theme of the book.

She also wrote, "Third person allows for more backstory, summary, and the internals of more than one character at a time. It allows for more emotional coloring."  This is true.  The range of colors is wider, too.  Which makes for a potentially more profound story. 

She was kind enough to send two examples from her book, which she gave me permission to share here.  One is written in third person, the second in first person, with the same narrator.  Which appeals more to you, as the reader? 

Third person
Jenna is always touched with a wisp of melancholy when she sees him and she chides herself for thinking of him other than the way he is now. She knows that, his tall figure is slumped in his wheelchair, his stringy muscles gone flaccid and shrunken; his forehead is a map of wrinkles and brown spots below a no longer existent hairline. Still, he holds her fast to this earth though he is disappearing before her eyes and it matters, more than anything, and not of knee-jerk reaction either, to please him.





First person
When Dad isn't in front of me, I forget; I think of him as he was when he was younger. Now, every time I see him, I'm overcome with melancholy. I stand a moment at the door to the sun room and the surprise sweeps me again. His tall frame is slumped in his wheelchair, all his stringy muscles gone flaccid and shrunken; his forehead is a map of winkles and brown spots just below where his hairline used to be. Still, I think, he holds me fast to this earth and being his stand-up girl matters as much as it did when I was a kid.


Very different effects, yes?  


Your Weekly Writing Exercise


1.  Take a passage from your own writing, about the length of the one above.  Write it in the opposite voice as you've chosen.  If it's third, make it first.  if it's first, make it third.


2.  Read each aloud.  Which feels more layered, more interesting to you?


3.  Even if you are writing memoir, try this.  It's very revealing--you can see immediately where you've neglected the larger landscape of your story.

Creating A Peaceful Oasis Outdoors

The house we moved into three months ago, despite being about twenty years old, didn’t have much of a garden. There was plenty of lawn, a fair amount of invasive plant, some scrappy, spindly trees which had seen neither water nor pruning shears for a long time, a few dull shrubs (even the word ‘shrub’ is dreary isn’t it?) and many patches of overgrown white Arum lilies (too funereal for me).

Before I could even get my head around how we would make the outdoors here our peaceful oasis, my husband and his Dad went on a spring cleaning spree with chainsaw and weedkiller. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds though, and we now have a lovely blank canvas in which to shape over time. What did survive the cull was a petite lemon tree (yay!), one other tree which I will find out it’s name one day and another citrus, which citrus as yet unknown.

I have also banned weedkiller from here on in. My father-in-law’s answer to a lot of the garden areas in different spots was to, and I quote, ‘cover in concrete’. I love him to bits and he does many little jobs for us but he’s a very practical man.

We have a difference of opinion on companion animals (the politically correct name for pets these days) – I think they are a necessary part of enjoying life and he thinks they are an unnecessary hassle. So it doesn’t surprise me we also have differing views on a garden.

After reading The Palace Diaries by Sarah Goodall and getting to know Prince Charles (he seems a really lovely guy), I was interested to hear a little more about his pride and joy, the garden at his country residence Highgrove (gloriously pictured above). I borrowed a book from the library called The Garden at Highgrove by Candida Lycett Green (a wonderfully English name).

It is such an inspirational tome, even if Highgrove is on a slightly larger scale than our small section. I love the structure, topiary and many different shades of green used. I also really enjoyed the introduction written by Prince Charles himself.

He talks of wanting to heal a countryside decimated in the name of progress although admitted ‘trying to translate a series of rather vague feelings into practical, organic action was considerably more challenging than I thought’. I feel just the same, although sadly I don’t have a staff of gardeners to help me along my way.

One of our old neighbours is a landscape designer and although he said he doesn’t accept money from friends for plans, he is happy to come and have a walk around our property and give us some advice. I just cannot wait for this to happen so that we can start putting some structure into place that I can then fill in over the years.

And even if we didn't have this option, I would be educating myself with gardening books and internet searches. I'll see what style of garden I like and how different plants grow in our climate.

I already have plants in pots that I have taken from cuttings at my Dad’s place – box hedging and hydrangeas. I have visions of a path with hedging, white stone or shell, lavender, lemon, lime and mandarin trees, a Daphne bush for winter fragrance, a herb garden and summer vegetables.

I’ve dabbled in gardens to varying degrees over the years, more when I was a homeowner previous and in pots whilst renting, but am still very much a beginner.

I spent 15 minutes weeding last night before dinner as it was such a beautiful and balmy summer evening. I thought 15 minutes often is a good way to deal with maintenance such as weeding, especially as I have put my foot down and instituted the ‘no poisons on our property’ rule.

And of course I will be doing all this on a small budget, over time, a la Kaizen.

I am cheered on with turning our place into a mini-Highgrove by this quote from Joan Collins (really, how many times would you read of the Prince of Wales and Joan Collins in the same post?):

‘Make plans even if they might be a touch unrealistic. One of the keys to being happy is to believe in a beautiful future. Hope springs eternal.’

From ‘Joan’s Way - Looking Good, Feeling Great’, by Joan Collins

From Event to Emotion--How Do You Bridge the Gap in Your Writing?

E.M Forester said that human beings lead two lives, "the life in time and the life by values."  In Aspects of the Novel, he writes:

"A story is a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence — it simply tells us what happened and in what order. It is the time sequence which turns a random collection of episodes into a story. But chronological sequence is a very primitive feature and it can have only one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. The only skill of a storyteller is their ability to wield the weapon of suspense, making the audience eager to discover the next event in the sequence. 

 

"This emphasis on chronological sequence is a difference from real life. Our real lives also unfold through time but have the added feature that some experiences have greater value and meaning than others. Value has no role in a story, which is concerned with the life in time rather than the life by values."

She waited for him for thirty minutes, but it felt like forever is a good example of this dual experience that we go through in real life, but makes for dull reading if placed in a book as it really happened (thirty minutes of not much).

But our books are enriched, our characters more vivid, if we can show both of these lives, the one driven by events and the one driven by the inner journey, or what writer Vivian Gornick calls the situation and the story behind it.  Obviously, readers crave meaning.  And they are best carried along by both the tension of the event and its emotional undercurrent. 

This week's exercise asks you to look at a peak moment in your book and analyze it based on this duality.  How much of each kind of time have you dedicated to this moment?  Most writers put 80-90 percent of their storytime into the "time value" that Forster speaks of, since this provides tension and momentum.  But a small percentage of every scene must also be revealed as "value time," revealing the meaning of that event.

Skilled writers do this through showing, versus telling.  What a character notices in her environment during a particularly tense moment, for instance, shows us the value of that event to her.  Smells, sounds, visual details, weather--all of these are used by writers to help show value and meaning. 

The One Thing You Need to Start a Successful Law Firm

Before I get started I want to let you know that I've got some pretty big plans for this blog and my law firm marketing blog this year. If everything goes the way I think it will, I'm going to be posting here more often. If you like what I'm saying, and want to make sure you don't miss anything, make sure you subscribe to my feed. That way whenever I post anything you'll automatically get it.

The One Thing You Need to Have a Successful Law Firm

Although I've got a bunch of new stuff I want to talk about, and a bunch of new stuff I want to use this year (think the book - finally, video posts, podcasts, interviews, and more interactive things like that), I got a reader comment this week that I've been wanting to talk about, as it gets to the essence of starting a law firm and what it really takes to be successful.

Here's the comment:

One attorney that I read stated that really all a lawyer needs to start his or her own firm is a computer, phone, fax, and business card. Is there anything that you would add to or subtract from that?

My answer is, yes, there is definitely something I would add to that. It's probably the thing that's going to make the difference in the success of your law firm.

One of the great and terrible things about starting a law firm is all of the decisions you get to make. What type of computer to get. Should you get a scanner? Should you get embossed business cards? What's the best phone system to use? Should you have a virtual office or a brick and mortar place? The possibilities are endless. And endless possibilities are safe.

If you let yourself, you can spend months making all of these decisions. The thing is, though, at the end of the day, none of that matters.

IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL LAW FIRM, YOU NEED TO HAVE A PLAN.

That's really all you need. A plan. You need to have a plan for the type of firm you want to have (what type of law do you want to practice, and if it's more than three areas, you need to rethink it). You need to have a plan for how you are going to handle clients from start to finish. And most importantly, you need to have a plan to get clients.

Let me repeat - you need to have a plan to get clients.

If you don't have that, you don't need anything else. And until you have that, you don't need to worry about anything else. So, my advice to you, today, is to stop thinking about what kind of computer you need or what kind of phone system you want or what kind of business cards you should get. Instead, sit down, and think about these things:

1. What kind of law do I want to practice?

2. Who are my ideal clients for this type of practice (be as specific as possible)?

3. Where are these ideal clients at? I.e. how can I get in front of them?

4. What am I going to do to get in front of them?

5. What am I going to say once I get in front them (what's my value proposition)?

Answer those questions and execute the answers and you'll have a successful law firm.

As always, thoughts, comments, and questions are welcome. The more you talk, the more discussion we have, the more we all benefit. Don't be shy!

Kaizen

I was talking with my husband tonight about making our new home better over time, both with cleaning effort and low-cost updates. He told me about kaizen, which is Japanese for small and gradual improvement and that’s how their successful companies work.

I actually got very excited by this as it's how I live my life, and there’s a name for it. How often does that happen? I don't really go for high-cost, high-maiintenance but enjoy finding the d.i.y. low-cost, creative route.

Because we are focused on paying our home loan off in a much shorter time than the standard 25 years, we have decided to wait and see what improvements we want to do that require serious capital input.

We also practice this with our shop. I see other retail stores that spend big dollars on a fancy fitout (and make me feel like we should do the same) but within a few years have closed down.

Everything we do in our business we ask ‘how many pairs of shoes do we have to sell to pay for this, and is it worth it?’ Of course we have to be professional, but there are many, many ways to waste money I have found.

And we want our shop to be around for a long time. Being fiscally responsible is one way to ensure that as much as possible.

I often think imagine if you had a camera set up that took time-lapse photos of your home. It would show from the date you moved in how much better it looked month on month and year on year.

I’m sure ‘kaizen’ isn’t a better known term (or maybe you’ve already heard of it) because it’s not as exciting as the ‘big reveal’ of a makeover programme where everything is changed in an instant and everything is brand-new.

Just like a diet, slow and steady brings gradual and permanent change. As others have wisely noted in the comments section, our tastes change over time too, so if you redecorate your home all at once (obviously having just won the lottery), mightn’t you get sick of it soon?

As with personal style, I think it’s better to grow into your home look.

Click here and here for Wikipedia entries on Kaizen.

Starting a Law Firm | Experience Requirements and Dealing with Haters

Here we are again with our weekly blog post about starting a successful law firm. The first week of 2012 is upon us, and I hope through 4 days everyone has held firm with their New Years resolutions! Studies show it takes 28 days to form a habit, so, if you've kept it up so far you only have 24 more days to go until that positive action is ingrained in your soul.

I received a few comments on last weeks post and I mentioned that I'd answer one of them as the blog post here this week (there's plenty to be said on the subject). Here's the comment:

First of all, thank you for blog - it has given me much inspiration and motivation over the past few months as I have started to plan the move to go out on my own. My goal for 2012 is/was to "open shop" hopefully around the middle of the year.

The reason I say "was" is that I have quite a lot of negative feedback from other lawyers about going out on my own so early. By mid 2012 I will have been practicing for two years (in Australia we can only practice law in a supervised position for the first two years). Prior to admission I was a legal secretary for two years. From my research (albeit limited) it does seem most Australian lawyers have significantly more experience before going solo.

So my question twofold - how much/what kind of experience do you think you need as a minimum? And how much credence should you give to the naysaying peers and colleagues?

And here's my answer.

How Much Experience do You Need to Start a Law Firm?

You're going to hate my answer to this one, because the answer is I don't know. It depends. Some people (and practice areas) require a little more experience and some don't.

Not good enough? Okay. Here's what I think. Do you need experience to get going? No. You need a law license to practice law. Is it a good idea? Sure, if you can get it. Are there other ways of getting experience other than working for someone else? Yes there are. You just have to decide what is best for you.

Before I really get going anywhere on this topic though, I want to say one thing. Never ask a lawyer if you want to do anything that involves risk. They are never going to go for it. Most lawyers enjoy being on the sidelines, watching the action and judging it from afar. The idea of actually being a player scares them to death. In reality, it doesn't matter how much experience, or money, or clients, or anything you have - they are going to be hesitant about starting a business. The great thing about trying something is that if you fail you get to keep trying.

Our ethical rules require us to provide zealous, competent representation. Competency can be acquired via experience. It can also be acquired by observing, by reading, by practicing, and by mentoring. Find some people that you respect as attorneys and start talking to them. Find out when they have things going on that you can watch. Find out what their cases are, go down to the courthouse, and get copies of their briefs (and the other side's briefs) and read them. When those briefs cite cases, go read those cases.

It's impossible to know how much experience you specifically need. It's different for everyone. No matter who you are or how long you've been practicing, don't ever be afraid to ask dumb questions to people who know the answers. Better to look dumb behind closed doors than in a courtroom.

How Much Credence Should You Give to Naysaying Colleagues?

The answer, not surprisingly is, it depends. But most of the time it's "none." There are certain people that I admire and trust, that know me well, not only from a legal perspective but from a personal perspective. It's those people that I would at least listen to if they had some opinions on the career choices I was going to make. Everyone else I would just smile at and dismiss.

The fact is, as a society we hate to see people succeed. As you look through the news, there are very rarely stories about people succeeding. Most stories are about successful people that have done something wrong to fall from grace. I think as humans it just makes us feel better to have confirmation that no one is perfect.

When you start this law firm you are going to have a lot of people tell you you aren't going to be successful. Some of those people actually think that to be the case. If they present you with some specific information related to that opinion, listen to it, and then plan accordingly to avoid that problem. Most of those people, though are in reality envious or jealous of you. They may have no desire whatsoever to start a law firm, but seeing someone with the guts to take a chance on an unknown is depressing for some, since they know deep down they'll never ever do anything like in their life (whether it's related to work or hobbies or love - they'll always do the safe thing).

I hope you decide to open your law firm. I hope you sit down and think and plan before you do so (job number one - figure out how to get clients). And when you open I hope you stick with it and create an extremely successful business.

Questions and Comments Welcome

I know you have thoughts about this. Please share. I know you have other questions. Please share.

Have a great weekend.