Clues to Success

Fred Neff has published numerous magazine articles, as well as children's books and is making his debut in non-fiction self-help with Clues to Success-Making Rhyme out of Reason. He received his bachelor's degree in Journalism from San Diego State University and was also on the start-up staff as an intern for a new publication, gaining his first byline in the premier issue of San Diego Home/Garden Magazine. Prior to SDSU, during the waning years of the Vietnam conflict, he served aboard a Destroyer, a Submarine Tender, and then a fast attack submarine, USS Gurnard (SSN-662) for the remainder of his 6 years of active duty in the U.S. Navy. Much of the material for Clues to Success-Making Rhyme out of Reason is compiled from later years of selling accident and health insurance door-to-door in South Carolina. Being involved in networking businesses as well, he regularly attended self-help seminars, meeting many of the authors who influenced his writings. Fred also started up some of his own businesses from scratch, one of which is still booming with customers as of this writing. While much of his desire to write over the years was fashioned after internalizing the positive messages from self-help books and seminars, he also began writing and publishing children's books after his son, Calvin, was born in 2005. According to Fred, when people started buying his Calvin and Dad books and then continued to purchase them, he no longer harbored the doubts that keep many writers from sharing their works with the public. Then on a dare from one of his co-workers to give back to the community, he designed and taught a night course, How to Write a Children's Book, where he helped many students realize their dreams of becoming a published author. Some of them to date have been published numerous times. As much as he enjoyed writing children's books and teaching others to do the same, his own 'Call of the Wild' had not been fulfilled with much of his life's work that had been written on napkins at all-night diners, then transposed and trapped inside computer files, just sitting there. So one night, as writers can attest to, he started writing, one sentence and one page at a time. Burning the midnight oil for several months, he gradually combined years of internalized messages into a story with Clues to Success. What is partly different here than with most self-help books is that along life's way, Fred wrote about the bumps and bruises as well, never imagining that they would become an integral part on the journey to success. When you see how often failures, heartache, and setbacks feed and water the seeds of success, you will have little doubt that you, too, can enjoy a healthy measure of success in your own life's journey.