Angel On Board's Positive Makeover

Quick Author's Tips

2009-08-24T18:37:00.005-06:00

Just getting your book corrected, like an English teacher would correct a paper IS NOT the equivalent of a book edit. Of course, you want your book to be as error free as possible, but there are so many other things a seasoned book editor looks out for that actually have nothing to do with right / wrong.

A seasoned editor will look for repeated words, active vs passive tense in sentences and ambiguousness is sentences. All of those sentences may have their i's dotted and t's crossed, but there is always room for improvement or clarification. An experienced book editor will help make your book better, not just correct.

For more information go to the free e-book - The Basics of Profitable Publishing

LucidLights/LucidBrake Newsletter

2009-04-08T09:51:00.002-06:00

Greetings!

We've had reports of our newsletter not making it all the way through the email system, so we've attached a link to help: LucidLights newsletters

Thanks!

-John and EJ Craig

EJ

Email: ej.lucidlights@gmail.com

John

Email: john.lucidlights@gmail.com

Twitter: @jccraig

P.S. This morning an interesting news article abut LucidBrake appeared in the online Orlando Sentinel... http://tinyurl.com/ccm2fz

Interview with EJ Thornton - part 1

2009-01-29T12:01:00.001-07:00

Why do most people think most people Angel On Board was written by a man?

Angel On Board is written from a male perspective. I had to create an ambiguous pen name so you couldn't tell if I was a man or a woman - basically so the reader wouldn't pre-judge the book based on the gender of the author.

You claim to have written the Most Positive Book on the Planet. How can you make such a bold claim?

I decided to challenge myself and see if I could write a book completely in the affirmative. So, I took out all negative words like 'not' and 'no.' For instance, I changed occurrences of "Don't worry." to "Relax." I changed the book in about 2000 places... for a 288 page book, that was an extensive rewrite, but I really do love the new results and so do my readers. It was fun to do, and I'm glad I did it.

What did you learn by doing this?

I learned so much about the English language - especially how we talk to one another. I found out the word 'not' can be eliminated without very much effort. It is superfluous in many cases. The questions, "Don't you want to do that?" and "Do you want to do that?" are exactly the same except for the intent behind them. "Don't you want to do that?" is a leading question with an expected result. You have to work against the question to answer it other than with the asker's expected response. "Do you want to do that?" is a genuine question. It feels better to ask, it feels amazingly better to answer and it feels better to read.

By all reviews over the past few years, Angel On Board was well received. It even was credited with great healing. What possessed you to change something already so successful?

I just challenged myself. I practice spirituality in the Science of Mind church and they teach affirmative prayer. Writing these prayers means speaking completely in the affirmative and expressing things in terms of what you want instead of what you don't want. I decided to see if I could apply that to my
writing. I did the first chapter and I could instantly see the positive change it made to the book. I shared it with a couple of people and they agreed that it was a change for the better, so I did it to the rest of the book.

Quickly teach children how to set the table correctly

2008-12-14T14:41:00.002-07:00

I've raised three children, and now am raising two grandchildren and I've had to teach each one how to set the table. Inevitably, they would get it backwards, until one marvelous day, when I realized that if they really did know "Right" and "Left" they could remember which side of the plate the fork went on.

Count the Letters of all the words involved.
There are five words involved when teaching children where to place silverware...
Name - then spell - the Silverware and the sides of the plate.

They are right, left, knife, fork and spoon.

3of those words have 5 letters each - and it just so happens, that those letters all work together. The knife and spoon go on the right side of the plate.

2 of the words have 4 letters - and lo and behold, the fork goes on the left side of the plate.

It is so easy...

Keep it simple.
Your child should be at least first grade to remember how to set silverware this way
Any child who can spell small words,and has been taught right and left remember this rule every night. They can set the table perfectly and share this with their friends... (You can share it with other moms and dads too).

But because it is so easy, it can be taught to anyone.

Good luck!

The Principle of the Lost Bathrobe - an important corollary to the Law of Attraction

2008-11-28T15:39:00.003-07:00

by author EJ Thornton

(Angel On Board & Secrets to Creating Passive Income)

There is so much hype these days about the movie, "The Secret " and in it they state that if you just look around, you can see the power of attraction being demonstrated everywhere. It is true, you can. Sometimes, it is very subtle and sometimes it is so obvious, you wonder how you could have been oblivious to it. I discovered an important corollary of the “Law of Attraction ” I call it, “The Principle of the Lost Bathrobe .”

It was so clearly demonstrated to me once when I bought a new bathrobe . There are eight people living in my house ranging in age from 9 to 55, so don’t think too badly of me for losing something as basic as a bathrobe , but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It had literally been a couple of months since I’d seen it. Finally, my birthday rolled around and my daughter took me shopping. I found a bathrobe that claimed to be the “softest and sweetest bathrobe on earth.” That sounded so nice, I might have bought it even if I still had the other one in hand. However, she bought it for me and I was so happy to have a bathrobe again that I strutted out of the store!

I proudly walked into my house to show my husband my new found treasure and decided to model it for him. As I changed into this soft, sweet garment, I noticed a familiar feeling under my feet! My old bathrobe was on the ground, at the foot of my bed. I was standing on it! I was standing on the thing that I couldn’t find for weeks prior. How could that have happened? Trust me, I scoured my bedroom floor before this moment! I searched the laundry room, the kids’ room, old suitcases, the works –– trying to find this thing. How could it just suddenly appear like that? The simple explanation was that earlier that same morning, I’d asked my husband to wash the sheets –– so he took all the bed clothing off the bed, and pulled out some stuff from under the bed and found my bathrobe had been caught between the mattress and the bed springs. He left it out on the floor for me to find. However, that is not how it really got there. No, it really got there because of the “Law of Attraction !”

The principle is simple, when you lose something, you feel its absence intensely, so –– according to the “Law of Attraction ” you must feel more absence of this thing. You search and search and you can not find it. As you search, you become frustrated, then frantic and finally you give in and simply just miss it. All of these feelings allow ‘lack’ to set in. This feeling of lack inevitably forces the object further and further away from you. Then after days, weeks or months of missing this object, you finally give in, explain it away (aliens or neighbor children) and go to replace it. Upon your triumphant return to your house with your beautiful new
replacement in hand, you open up the door to find your long, lost object sitting on the dining room table with a note from one of your children on it, which simply says, “I found it!”

But how did it get there? Your vibration changed.

In my case, I was suffering a terrible case of ‘bathrobe -lack’, but as soon as I bought a new one, the ‘bathrobe-lack’ vanished –– released into ‘bathrobe-abundance and gratitude.’ I was able to completely release all lack because I bought the new bathrobe. I changed to an abundant bathrobe vibration and the universe couldn’t help but respond - in kind. I was so grateful to have this new one, I guess I was lucky I didn’t have a bathrobe delivery truck break down in front of my house!

This or something close to this happens over and over and again. I’ve lived it and heard this story too many time to believe it is just ‘coincidence’ or interesting timing. No, it is just another example of the “Law of Attraction” in action and I’ll forever call it, “The Principle of the Lost Bathrobe .”

So, how do you use this epiphany to your advantage?

First become aware that it is real, a very real law of nature, as Yoda would say, “As sure as gravity, it is.” So, if it is such a sure thing, it should work for everything. Suppose you lose something and you’ve looked everywhere it could possibly be, but you still can’t find it. First, quit looking for it. Quit thinking of the fact that it is missing from your life . Quit being angry or frustrated about its disappearance. Every thing in life is a lesson, so play this one out and see what it teaches you. Now, turn your thinking to how it will feel when you find it and appreciate it, gratitude will help bring it to you. If you can’t think about that, then picture yourself shopping for and buying a new one. Appreciate how it will feel when you possess the new item and you walk out of the store with it in the bag. Breathe that in for a couple of minutes. Now, just go about your day, imagining when you can work that shopping trip into your schedule and again, how it will feel when it is complete. You will have
released the lack and shifted into abundance and gratitude and to the extent that you genuinely appreciate having the item in your life , it will magically appear, even in a place you’ve already looked.

Another approach is to attract it to you – consciously. Once you’ve decided to blame the aliens or neighbor children, just let go of your need to search for it and decide that it will have to come to you. Shift from frustration to release. I call this the “Corollary of the Lost Tool.” How many times have you been loo king for a tool, couldn’t find it, improvised with some other tool, and as you were cleaning up, the tool you were looking for showed up? I’ve had that happen and it is also the “Law of Attraction” in action. While you’re frantic about finding the tool you need, again, you feel its absence and that is what is amplified. Finally out of fatigue and frustration, you change your plan and finish the job without the tool. Primarily, that experience taught you how to use something else to get the job done and expanded your thinking. Secondarily, when the job is done, the feeling of missing the tool is released, you don’t need it anymore, so it evaporates from your consciousness. After the release, the appearance of the tool is imminent. Once you’ve changed your vibrational pattern, the universe has to respond. Therefore, just let go of the attachment to whether you find it or not, and
you will find it sooner.

Caution: Please don’t just go out and buy things that are lost to enable you find the lost item sooner, if you use that tactic to that end in a conscious way, you’re still attracting its absence. You’re still trying to find it by replacing it, instead of just appreciating its replacement. Awareness is key, and you can use this rule, but the actual act of replacement isn’t the reason it shows up. The release of the search is the key. Conscious manipulation to a deliberate end still means you haven’t released the search, you’re trying to search for it at another level and that will get you more and more frustrated, hence really drive the item away. Merely decide that it can’t attract you to it to find it, so you must attract it to you. Then let go and wait for it to manifest. Odds are, you’ll trip over it as soon you truly make that shift.

If this has happened to you, I want to hear your story - please click through to my squidoo.com/LostBathrobe page and tell me by voting, if this has ever happened to you and if so, how. I'd love to hear from you!

LucidBrake

2008-11-18T23:49:00.002-07:00

Have you seen or heard about LucidBrake?

* It's a CEO Space grad's hottest new invention.
* It's an intelligent inertial brake light for bicycles.
* Just three weeks ago it didn't exist on this planet.
* It is intended to save lives, prevent injuries, and make a huge positive impact on the world!

Would you help us please?

What we "need next" is a gauge of market interest. Simply hit "reply" to this email, tell us how many bicycles are in your household, and when LucidBrakes become available we'll let you know. As a gift for your help and support now, we will offer you a 25% discount from the retail price when they become available. There's no obligation, so if you think you MIGHT want one or more LucidBrakes later on, please let us add your name to our list.

We greatly appreciate your support!

Thank you,
John Craig (Inventor and CEO Space grad)

P.S. A video clip to see LucidBrake in action is at...

http://www.9news.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=103585

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Questions and Answers:

What is a LucidBrake?

It's an intelligent inertial brake light for bicycles.

Who invented it and when?

John Craig, inventor of LucidLights, another CEO Space project, spun off this invention just 3 weeks ago.

Is there much interest after just 3 weeks?

YES INDEED! AFTER JUST 250 VIEWS OF OUR 30-SECOND YOU-TUBE VIDEO, THIS HAS BEEN THE RESULT...
* 10 people emailed us requesting to buy one as soon as they are available.
* A manufacturer of adult recumbent bicycles in the UK wants to buy them for all his new "trikes" as soon as possible, and he wants to offer them for retrofitting to his 10,000+ previous customers. A letter of intent is on its way.
* A Colorado police department wants to offer them as motivation to people who register their bikes in their town, and we are working with them to make this a pilot program for a nationwide effort for other police departments.
* A repair shop catering to a large California biking cooperative wants to offer them for sale to their members for their night-time rallies.

What's so good about LucidBrake?

* It's a bright brake light that automatically lights up when you decelerate!
* IT'S A BRIGHT BRAKE LIGHT THAT MIGHT SAVE YOUR LIFE OR THE LIFE OF SOMEONE YOU LOVE!
* No wires or mechanical hookup, just clip it on your seat post and ride.
* No switches or buttons - it deep sleeps when your bike is not in use.
* Kids (and grownups) don't need to worry about turning it off and on.
* The two AAA batteries should last for months.
* The production model will be very lightweight and aerodynamic.
* It flashes for high visibility when just riding along.
* It's bright enough to be visible day or night.

Can I see it in action?

Yes, it was shown on a local Denver TV station and you can see the video clip right now...
http://www.9news.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=103585

If it's only 3 weeks old, how have you been able to make such progress?

LucidLights, the parent invention and product you might have seen at CEO Space, has led the way. LucidBrake uses nearly identical circuitry, but it's easier to manufacture, it "solves a problem", is easy to show, everyone "gets it", and many people want one. The response has been amazing!

Is it patented?

We have filed a provisonal patent for LucidBrake, and we've applied for a full utility patent for its parent product, LucidLights.

Why would I want to buy one?

* Are you a bicyclist who cares about safety?
* Do you have kids, grandkids, or other people you care about who ride bicycles?
* Are you looking for a great gift idea for Christmas or for birthdays?

Are they available yet?

No, we are in capital raising mode immediately prior to manufacturing. We are preparing for a big rollout, soon.

How much will they cost?

Right now the retail price point has been set at $59.

How big of a market is there, how many bicycles?

There are 16 million bicycles sold each year in the U.S. alone.

Are there many deaths and injuries?

In the U.S. there are about 800 bicycle accident deaths reported each year, and there are many thousands of injuries, some reported and many not.

What if I know someone who wants to buy them in quanitites at wholesale?

Great! Please contact us for more details. Can I forward this email to a friend?
Absolutely, we'd appreciate it if you did!

How do I find out more?

Click through to our web site...
http://LucidBrake.com Can I ask other questions?
Please do...
john.lucidlights@gmail.com 720-879-3493
ej.lucidlights@gmail.com 720-879-3495

Thank you,
John and EJ

Ask a REAL question!

2007-09-14T22:37:00.000-06:00

When I was removing the word 'NOT' from the 2000 some places I'd used it in Angel On Board, I found hundreds of places where it was just an extra word. Whether you used it or left it out was irrelevant to the meaning of the sentence, but it did change how the sentence was received.

Case in Point: The question:

1. "Isn't that going to cause you a problem?"

vs.

2. "Is that going to cause you a problem?"

Question 1 is a leading question. The asker of that question knows the answer they expect the questionee to give. It is a manipulation and it felt harsh to read - or frankly, to write.

Question 2 is a genuine question. The asker of that question allows the person being questioned to actually answer it the way they need to. When writing and when explaining this point to people, it feels good to actually ask a question to which a sincere answer can be given.

I was able to eliminate literally hundreds of "not's" out of the book this way. It was easy. The book felt better to read after I did. The conversations felt more open and the characters responded more freely than before. The storyline actually improved with this change alone.

This epiphany really led me to believe that the word "not" is unnecessary in the English language.

I hope you enjoy reading the new, better feeling version of Angel On Board.

Thanks,
EJ

Getting the "NOT" out

2007-09-06T21:06:00.000-06:00

Colorado author rewrites her novel to create the most positive book ever written. EJ Thornton took every occurrence of the words ‘no’ and ‘not’ out of her classic story – Angel on Board. By rephrasing common sentences such as ‘Don’t worry’ into ‘Relax,’ and ‘Don’t forget,’ into ‘Remember,’ she completely transformed her original work into an affirmative new creation.

She’s always been keenly aware of the different ‘feel’ words have even when their meanings are essentially the same. Knowing the delivery of the message is as important as the message itself, inspired her to experiment with the novel. The book contains some difficult topics, but it is intended to be a comfort to its readers, so she decided to reduce the stress level of the book by taking out the ‘nots’ and see if she could tell the same, or maybe even a better story.

What started out as an experiment in affirmative language turned into the discovery of astonishing insights such as ‘The word NOT is completely expendable.’ The rephrasing got easier as the work progressed. The 288 page novel had nearly 2000 occurrences of the negative words, but they have all been totally removed.

Worried early on, that the rephrasing might seem contrived, Thornton gave review chapters to people who had read Angel On Board before. They reported back that it was astoundingly better and it even ‘felt’ better to read. Further assured by one reader’s comment, “People rarely miss what’s been omitted,” EJ continued her quest. EJ asked the readers if they could tell where the changes happened, and the readers told her that the changes were seamless.

“The insights were many and quite enlightening about the way we choose words,” EJ says every time she signs one of her books. Because the insights are so rich, she is also making herself available to the speaking circuit to share the positive messages with the public. To find out more about Angel On Board, go to www.AngelOnBoard.com.

A few weeks ago, I had an idea...

2007-08-25T14:11:00.001-06:00

I wondered how hard it would be to take all the negative words (or negative languaging) out of my novel Angel On Board.

I’ve been studying the spiritual masters and most disciplines agree that The Universe (God/Spirit/Christ/Higher Power) or whatever label you choose to put on your expression of the supreme being only works for good and the absence of that good is what creates the negative situations in our lives.

So, to say, “I do not want this result.” Translates in the mind of God to “I do want this result.” And as you ask, it is given, so the result is yours.

What I think is really happening is that God communicates with us all and we communicate back most effectively with images, pictures, visions. This is truly the universal language. We use words to conjure up the pictures that actually communicate with supreme being.

I will do separate blogs on some of the reasons I think this – such base words as rejection and safety have so many differing meanings to differing people and even to ourselves, that using words alone to communicate is tough. When we use negative communication, we have to draw the picture, then negate it. But if the picture is what communicates, then the communication will be of the situation, we haven’t replaced it with what we really want.

My problem with negative words stems back to my career as a computer programmer. Computer code was really easy to write using negative logic. So, for the most part, as a strategy for what I wanted, I had to filter out all the negative conditions by naming them specifically. It was the quickest way to do my job, but in retrospect, it was not the best.

I also am dyslexic – which means I think in pictures and before the advent of the international “no” symbol, when ‘no’ finally became a picture, I never saw it in my reading. So I’d always create the image of what was being written about in my head, then skip the word ‘not’ and totally mis-read the book.

Dyslexia, simply put, is visual thinking – most people think verbally – until recently. (The Gift of Dyslexia - by Dr. Ronald Davis) There’s a whole new generation of people who have more visual stimulation early in life, and their brains are developing visually before verbally – and people are labeling them ‘dyslexic’ like that is some kind of problem. It is very literally a huge advantage, because a visual mind can think much faster than a verbal mind.

So, using this definition, I claim that God is dyslexic. That’s a good thing, because no matter what language we speak, we can communicate effectively using visualizations, images and pictures.

Back to my book, what I wanted to do was to write every sentence in the affirmative. I changed all the ‘Don’t worry’ sentences to ‘Relax’ – which actually is a stronger statement. I took out all the no, not, didn’t, wasn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, etc. words by rephrasing the sentences they were in.

I learned many amazing things about English language as I did. That’s why I created this blog. First to create awareness of the use of negative languaging, Second to share these epiphanies when I experienced them, Thirdly to challenge everyone to start speaking in the affirmative more often – especially when praying – so that what was communicated to your higher power was more effective.

I hope you enjoy...

And as with all of things I say, you’ll agree with some, disagree with others, so I hope that you can ‘take what you like – and leave the rest.’

EJ – author of Angel On Board, the most positive book on the planet

GreatAngelBooks.com - the best angel book ever written