Solving the right problem

There is a story I tell frequently, where a man is searching under a streetlight for his keys, and a kind stranger begins to help.  After ten fruitless minutes, the stranger asks the man if he’s SURE he dropped his keys here.  “Oh, no,” the man replies.  “I dropped them across the street in the vacant lot.  But there’s no light there.”

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So…looking back from the END of the goal (writing/publishing a book) is the same as looking back from the end of the story (protagonist ends at higher or lo...