22 You Have a Book in You but an amazing number of writers fail to clearly de昀椀ne their message. What message do you want to move from your head into the hearts of your readers? For example: Is global climate change risking our sur- vival as a species and something we need to deal with right now? Or is global climate change a hyped- up myth? In terms of getting your book organized and written, it doesn’t really matter what you think is the truth. What matters is that you are utterly convinced that you know the truth, that you understand it and can prove it, and that you urgently need to share it with your readers. As we all know, former vice president Al Gore believed his message about global warming. He wrote about it, cre- ated a seminar on it, and made An Inconvenient Truth, a movie based on his message. Gore’s passion for his mes- sage rang so true that he won an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize and donated over $300 million of his earnings to help end global warming. If you haven’t seen this important work, rent it and watch it. Use this as an example to see how far passion combined with excellent writing can take you. 吀栀e Second Absolute Essential: Stories about Other People Your life, my life, and everyone’s life are stories. Telling better stories means you will have a better life. Stories