Tag Archives: literature

March 22, 2013 · 5:46 pm

Branding yourself day 5 – Goodreads and All Points Beyond

One thing most authors do first is go out to http://www.goodreads.com and make a profile for themselves there, because all the online writing groups say you have to do that. And everyone told you to get a blog, so you did these two things and still, nothing happened. So why did I leave these two important detail to the last day of my series?

Tools. You needed the tools to make these two venues as professional as is possible.

In the course of this week you have gathered together an arsenal of tools with which to make the best Goodreads profile you can. You are tweeting. You have your Author Photo. You have your Author Bio. You have links to your about.me profile, you are LinkedIn and made a book trailer. You opened a Pinterest account and you posted a poem to Wattpad. You just googled yourself, and you are still not on page one . Have patience! This is where we pull all these disparate threads together in ONE important, cohesive place:

Goodreads.

Open your Goodreads author profile. If you haven’t already made one, do it now!

1. Go to your Author Dashboard. If you never took the tutorial on how to effectively use Goodreads, do it now. It’s there for a reason.

2. Now look at your Bio – is it the concise, professional bio that you have used on ALL your other sites? This consistency is very important, although I am not sure why. When it comes to the internet, consistency is magic, and I’ve never really understood magic. It works, so just do it.

3. Does your blog link back to your profile page? I have the RSS feed for my book review blog, Best In Fantasy, link back there because Goodreads is a club for people who are passionate about books. This means my review blog updates there every time I make a new post, and I try to crank out at least one book review a week. The link to the blog you’re reading now, Life in the Realm of Fantasy is in my Bio.

4. Are all the books you have written, or been a contributor to listed correctly?

5. Have you read and reviewed any books on Amazon or Barnes&Noble? Re-post those reviews on Goodreads. Reading and reviewing is what Goodreads is all about, so if you haven’t read anything lately, take the time to write a paragraph about Pride and Prejudice or whatever books you have read in the past that inspired you to write, and post it. Be serious, because these reviews are part of what builds your profile stats.

When you are a member of Goodreads you will be invited to join many reading groups and you can get involved in a lot of discussions. This can be very good, OR it can be very bad. Tread these waters carefully! I have seen several authors raked over the coals in a sort of feeding frenzy when they were frank in their opinion of a poorly written book by a Goodreads author with many loyal friends. This is why I stay out of many discussions. The reviews I post on Goodreads are of the books I reviewed on my book review blog.

There will be people who tell you that Goodreads is a waste of time, haunted by professional trolls and wannabes. There is some truth to this assertion, but it is true only BECAUSE so many people use it. My Goodreads profile is the first thing that comes up when my name is Googled, so I can assure you I am very careful about what discussions I get involved with there.

I believe you do yourself a great disservice if you fall into the habit of harshly criticizing others in public forums. Ask yourself what you want agents and editors to see when they Google your author name, and make sure your behavior in public reflects that.

As a reader, I go to Goodreads to find great books written by indie authors, and I am rarely disappointed.

As you can see, my rating is quite average, and not really outstanding, but it is the FIRST link that appears on the Google search. This is where people will click first to see who I am when I submit a query to agent. This is why you must make sure it is as professional as you can make it.

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NOW–you noticed that number three on the above list mentions BLOGs. In fact, every venue for you to publicize your author name offers you the opportunity to POST THE LINKS TO YOUR BLOG(S). If no one knows your blog is out there, how can they find it to read it? Flog your blog all over the internet through the free, easy to use venues we have discussed this week! (This is not Spank the Monkey. That is something entirely different!)

If you have wondered why the blog that you never wanted but were pushed into starting has never done well, it may be that you haven’t promoted it. Every venue that we have discussed this week gives you an opportunity to show the world that you take your craft as an author seriously.

You do this by writing.

Update your blog once a week, three times a week, or daily–it’s up to you, but be disciplined and somewhat regular. Normally I update this blog every other day, although this week I updated every day. I spend about twenty minutes to half an hour writing it. It is usually stream of consciousness, unless I have some particular topic that I want to speak on.

Your blog is the place where you showcase your published work and offer buy links in the sidebars. You can discuss the weather, the cat (I love indie author J.D.Hughes‘ posts on William the Cat.)

It’s through making use of the most cost-effective venues out there —>Twitter, Facebook, Wattpad, LinkedIn, About.me, Goodreads and your personal blog that you build your brand, your author name. It did involve some effort on my part for the first week or so when I was getting these venues up and running, but now they really maintain themselves. All I do is write, blog and periodically check twitter. I am not even a fanatic about twitter–I use a free program called Hootsuite to schedule tweets for the week ahead, spending maybe 10 minutes on Sunday morning, and then I simply respond to tweets that interest me or thank people when they mention me.

I can’t say that I have made huge sales or become a best seller, because that hasn’t happened. I’ve only been officially doing this for 2 years, and I’ve made all sorts of newbie mistakes in the process. But the point is, I keep at it, and I keep my professional profile updated. If you want an agent or publisher to take you seriously in this new world you must take your own career seriously by presenting your name and your work in the best light possible.

In the new world of publishing, the internet (Google and other search engines) is your ‘Store Window.’ Your books are your ‘display’ in that store. Your name is the ‘brand’ that prospective searchers see. Am I branded like ‘Nike’ yet? No, but the late Robert Jordan is, and he mastered the internet thing in the mid 1990’s when his Wheel of Time series first went viral. By using the tools that are available to us we can achieve the best results possible.

One never knows what will convince a prospective reader to try your book, so offer them every opportunity that you can.

Thank you for sticking with me through this whole week of my take on marketing your name. Now go out there and build your brand, one brick at a time.

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, writer, writing

Tagged as battles, fiction, Flogging your blog, Goodreads, humor, literature, magic, Nike, twitter, writing

March 21, 2013 · 5:33 pm

Branding Yourself day 4 – Pinterest, Wattpad, YouTube, Oh, My!

This is where things get a bit sticky. Pinterest. Wattpad. YouTube. Oh, My!

What the heck? By now you’re feeling like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

Well, today we are going to talk about ways to get the work you have sitting on your desk OUT and into the hands of prospective readers. One of the most surprising and random of these venues is Pinterest! And yet, it has been incredibly useful in attracting readers to this blog. And, lets be real, NOTHING is easier than setting up a Pinterest account and getting started there.

What is this Pinterest thing I keep talking about? It’s like a scrap-booking site for things you find on the web. You ‘PIN’ things you come across on the web and then your followers can repin them if they are as pleased with it as you are.

According to Wikipedia, the Fount of All Knowledge: Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own pinboards, or ‘like’ photos. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann (of West Des Moines, Iowa), Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, the site is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors.

SO what does this have to do with your career as an author? I don’t know, exactly. But it works! I think the value is in the connections you make through pinning an re-pinning things that interest you. These things represent your interests, i.e. motorcycles, collecting silver tea-strainers, BOOKS, anything!

I have two boards: Writers’ Paradise and Vegan and Loving It (Mostly). AT the top of the page, you will see my bio, and the link to one of my books. I need to change that so that the link comes back to this blog. You only get 160 characters to write your bio with, so use them wisely.

Quote from Pinterest’s help page: A pin starts with an image or video you add to Pinterest. You can add a pin from a website using the Pin It bookmarklet or upload an image right from your computer. Any pin on Pinterest can be repinned, and all pins link back to their source.

The important thing here is the part about ALL pins linking back to their source. My Pinterest boards are located at: http://pinterest.com/cjjasp/

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Now we are going out to something called Wattpad: FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Wattpad describes itself as “the best place to discover and share stories.” It’s a YouTube for electronic text stories. The content includes work by undiscovered and published writers. Delivery emphasizes the mobile phone platform, using the free Freda ebook reader.[1] According to Wattpad founder and CEO Ivan Yuen, “marketers can currently upload material for reading by mobile users at no charge”.[2]

About nine in 10 users are readers rather than writers. Around four in ten users are U.S. based; traffic also comes from the U.K., Canada, the Philippines, Australia, and more. Approximately 75 percent of users access the site through their mobile device. ^[1]

The most popular genres on Wattpad.com and the Wattpad mobile app include Romance, Paranormal, and Fan Fiction. The site is also home to Poetry, Humor, Science Fiction, Thriller, and others.

Get a Wattpad account and start posting short stories and poems that reflect your best work. I now have three short stories out there, and plan to post one a month for this next year. I have a bunch hanging around that just need a bit of polishing. I may serialize a novel there.

The first thing to know is that your User Name should be your Author Name with no spaces, as ALL your work is published on Wattpad under that name. Mine is ConnieJJasperson. This is a GREAT venue to develop a fan base. Indie Author Shaun Allan published his book, Sin, one chapter at a time on Wattpad and in the space of one month he had over 289,000 reads!

Sin

Thriller #9 / Paranormal #22

24 parts / 127 pages, updated Feb 15, 2013 PG-13

Dead, dead, dead. Say it enough times and it becomes just another word. What would you do? Could you kill a killer? Does the death of one appease the deaths of a hundred? What about that hundred against a thousand? What if you had no choice? M… read more

289,069 reads

647

Do I have to say any more? I didn’t think so.

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You Tube – why would I even mention this? Well, you may not have noticed this, but I have several ‘book trailers’ in the sidebar of my blog. These are short, 60 second or so, commercials for my books; teasers. if you will. The purpose is to give prospective readers an idea of what to expect if they buy one of my books. The links to them go in your sidebar on you blog, on your Goodreads Profile, and your Amazon Author Page. I have no data available to say if they work or not as far as generating sales go, but they may. A person who is interested enough to click on this link is wondering about your book and if you have that one little foot in the door, why not take advantage of it?

Book Trailers aren’t a requirement, but they are fun to make, and they cost me nothing. I get the music for free from my daughter, Meg Clear who is a fabulous musician, or from Free Music For Videos which I make a voluntary donation to for the use of their music. Donations are not required, but I like to support the artists. (See their link in my side-bar to make your own donation.)

Many people say trailers do no good, but when fans of Meg Clear Google her, what comes up as the number one listing on page one of her Google profile? The very first trailer for The Last Good Knight that I made when I was with my former publisher. That version of the book is unavailable now, because it has been completely re edited and redone under Myrddin Publishing Group. But the title of MY book and MY author name are out there under HER page, and we BOTH benefit from this. As someone once said, all publicity is good publicity, and while I don’t believe that to be true in all cases, I will take the advertisement and be grateful.

I make my trailers using Windows Live Movie Maker, and using Free Public Domain images, and Royalty Free Music and Free and Royalty Free Images from Dreamstime.com. Dreamstime is inexpensive, which is the keyword for me, and you have a great record of the legal work for your own files.

It does take some time and research to locate images and music that 1. reflect what you want to say about your book and 2. Are LEGALLY available for your use (and I suggest you keep a file for each trailer with both digital and hard copies all the legal use provisions for each image and song used).

Make a short script using the blurb from the back of your book, keep it down to 30 or 60 seconds and voila! You’re a producer!

If you don’t want to deal with Windows Live Movie Maker (which is a hinky program at best,) a GREAT site for doing thisfor free or very cheaply is called ANIMOTO. Many authors go to this site for affordable trailers for their websites.

So–that’s it for today. Tomorrow we will take on GOODREADS. Your Goodreads profile is the cornerstone of your brand and, outside of blogging regularly, building that profile is the single most important thing the indie author can do for themselves.

6 Comments

Filed under Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, writer, writing

Tagged as Amazon.com, blogging, books, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Pinterest, Social Media, Wattpad, writing

March 20, 2013 · 5:28 pm

Are We There Yet Papa Smurf?

We’re on day three of this epic road-trip to fame and already I’m hearing little voices saying, “Are we there yet Papa Smurf?” The answer is “Not yet, Writer Smurf.” We still have a few more places to visit and blanks to fill in.

Today we are signing up for both LinkedIn and About.Me. These are two resources you may never really use on a daily or even monthly basis, but as we saw yesterday, my LinkedIn profile shows up on the first page when my author name is googled.

Go to http://www.LinkIn.com. Register your author name and begin building your professional profile.Yes, I know you aren’t looking for a job, but agents and editors that you submit your manuscripts to will be looking at YOU. It is also a great venue for making connections with others who work in your industry–authors, editors, agents, and publishers.

If you want, you can also make a profile for your real name and use it to build your professional resume in whatever field you currently work in, i.e. biochemistry, web-design, etc.

Your Author Profile will include:

1. Your current publisher if you have one. If not with a publisher, simply put Author and Blogger

2. Your background in the industry – any work you have had published and who with, also any other relevant information. Mine looked a bit thin at first, as I had no experience. Actually, it looked naked.

3. Fill out the history with as much or as little information as you wish. This is a PROFESSIONAL site, for connecting prospective employers with prospective employees, so keep it simple and to some degree, corporate. If you haven’t already done it, now is the time to make your 250 word Author Bio.

4. upload your Author Picture so that people have some idea of who you are. (NOT the one of you wearing nothing but balloons and a smile at the office Christmas party.)

This blog, Life in the Realm of Fantasy, is linked to my profile there and updates automatically. You will be surprised at how many people you know are out there on LinkedIn. This is how my LinkedIn Profile looks:

It always surprises me when I get a message that someone has looked at my profile there, although WHY it surprises me, I don’t know. LinkedIn is something I signed up for randomly when I first started this crazy career path. I didn’t have a clue about what it was good for or why I should do it, but look at how it has paid off in terms of visibility.

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The Next Stop is About.me

1. Go to http://www.about.me. If the Google page comes up, click on the link that says “http://www.about.me your personal homepage”

2. You will want to copy and paste your author bio that you made for LinkedIn

3. Upload your author photo

4. Add links to your blogs, fb author page and books

5. Sign up for the free about.me email address where you can receive your professional email.

6. Put the link to your about.me page in your Email Signature so that it automatically goes out on both your personal AND professional email. This is how MY outgoing email signature looks:

Connie Johnson-Jasperson

http://about.me/conniejjasperson.com

https://conniejjasperson.wordpress.com

–

My About.Me link in my email signature sends those who may wonder who the heck I think I am a clear message–that I THINK I’m an author! It is a single page with everything prospective agents, editors and fans need to know.

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In just the same way as Twitter and Facebook, you can play around with this page until it looks the way you want it to look. Don’t freak out if you make mistakes. Right now my About.Me link takes the viewer to the first version of my profile instead of the newer version I have shown here. I have a request in to support to help me get it figured out, and soon it will be the way I want it to be.

Just like my little about me profile mix-up you might sort of mess things up a bit as you begin this process, but everything can be straightened out and EVERYONE who is involved in these sites is very supportive of those like me who are complete newbies at this whole internet thingy.

As you gain experience with these media platforms your profiles will grow and become more professional and will represent you in the light that you want your work to be seen in.

And – I am always available here to commiserate when the going gets bumpy!

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as About.me, adventure, Are We There Yet Papa Smurf, fantasy, humor, LinkedIn, literature, writing

March 13, 2013 · 8:39 pm

What the Writer Reads

I love author blogs. I love the way authors who write novels think, and that is what I love about author-blogs. You get the raw mind in action when you read these works of art. For example, today before breakfast I read:

J.D.HUGHES – A Few Thoughts About Snow. It’s an awesome post, and the way he describes the scenery and the thoughts that snow inspires in him is really beautiful. Quote: “I live in a rural area and for the homeless here there are fewer places to escape nature than there are in the city. Every winter, with a regularity that suggests premeditation, an unfortunate is found frozen to death behind a stone wall, in a field or even a doorway and the death is recorded as misadventure. I doubt that person’s life was much of an adventure (I might be wrong), but to dismiss it with an innocuous word like ‘misadventure’ is an insult to the dead. Perhaps we should call it manslaughter or culpable homicide – in the Scottish legal sense – since we all partook in the death, by omission, or just by being too busy to notice someone slip from being a live human to being a dead misadventure.”

Then, oddly enough, I was inspired to read Carlie M.A. Cullen’s lovely flash-fiction post on Spring. Quote: “Birds warble as they flit from bough to bough; small creatures rustle the undergrowth, reminding me that soon their offspring will be born.” Such a lovely post today.

After that, Johanna Garth’s wonderful blog Losing Sanity made me laugh and think of how entertaining children are, and what a mystery their minds are. Quote from ‘Life Lessons From a Little Boy“: “Mom, life is a lot like chess,” he told me as I stopped to photograph and tweet a picture of golden daffodils.

“How so?” I asked.

“You have to have an open mind. Be ready for anything. If you just concentrate on one way of
winning you might not see all the other ways.” He was wearing his oversized blue hoodie and ripped jeans. Suddenly I had a glimpse of him as an adult, possibly wearing the exact same outfit.

I really identify with Johanna’s experience as a mother–the most entertaining, intelligent people I know are children. When I read her blog I get a bit of my own experience raising children back, and it makes me smile.

Alison DeLuca’s wonderful blog, Fresh Pot of Tea was on a subject near and dear to my heart–beauty and aging. Quote from her post, Lovely Age: “After watching Driving Miss Daisy on a date years ago, I turned to the fellow who had brought me to the movies. “You know,” I said, “Jessica Tandy really is a stunning woman.”

“What?” He was horrified. “But – she’s old!”

Yeah, I broke up with him not long after that.”

Alison cracks me up, with her ability to tell the painful truth and make you laugh at yourself.

Then there are the helpful blogs, like Mary W. Walters’ blog The Militant Writer. This week’s post was particularly interesting to me as it is on marketing. Establish a S.M.A.R.T. book promotion goal is this weeks title. Quote: If “to sell books” is all I’m striving for, I’m never going to get anywhere. It’s like setting myself the goal “to lose weight” or “to read Tolstoy” or “to learn another language.” Those are ultimate goals, but they are not specific, measurable, attainable, relevant or time-sensitive goals, which is what SMART stands for (more on S.M.A.R.T. goals later).

I’ve learned a lot from following Mary’s blog since I began this journey.

These blogs are only a few of the ones I read this morning.

All in all, I spend the first one to two hours of the day reading blogs that show up in my email or blog-reader. Some of the best writing on any given subject is out there in blog-form and it’s FREE!

Get out there and read, my friends. And if you are an author, do me a favor, and BLOG!

3 Comments

Filed under Adventure, Fantasy, Literature, mythology, Romance, Steampunk, writing

Tagged as humor, literature, writing

March 7, 2013 · 2:14 am

Sitting in a Starbucks

Today I am in Seattle, sitting in a busy Starbucks, working on my book. It ‘s kind of cool, blogging and working on my book on the ground floor of an office building that houses Amazon.

There is something about this rainy city that I love. It fires up my creative mind. Plus, I lived in Seattle until I was 9, and to me it has always been home.

The book is rolling along well–so well that I begrudge the time it takes to blog! The characters are occupying most of the space in my mind–to the point that I can hardly carry on a conversation without sounding like an idiot.

Designing melèes with strange creatures and putting my characters through hell and yet still finding something humorous in their situations–I’ve never had a job more rewarding. (Although, I admit it’s financially rather UNrewarding.) Still, maybe the next book will be the one!

I’m sitting here in a Starbucks, in Seattle, watching the rain and the people and loving my job. I don’t care if I’m not a bestseller and I don’t really care if I ever am. I’ve finished writing four (count them –> FOUR!) books and can all those nay-sayers say they have done that? So I’m not published by one of the Big Six. And so my books aren’t on the hot one hundred yet! I’m an indie and I do the best I can, which is all one can ask of themselves.

I am sitting in a Starbucks living my dream, writing a book. It doesn’t get much better than that!

My advice is this–do what you love, and do it to the best of your ability. Life is too short to spend most of it waiting for the right time to happen, or for someone to give you permission to live.

Find your “Starbucks” and make your life happen!

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Filed under Battles, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, magic, vegan lifestyle, writing

March 3, 2013 · 7:52 pm

Parsifal, Wagner, and the Muse

Things are back to normal here at La Casa del Jasperson–at least, as normal as the interior of a spinning blender ever is. I strive to create a zen-like home to compensate for the strange detours life takes us on. The way my creative mind works, I need to have an orderly environment or I can’t focus on my work.

Epilepsy is disorderly in the extreme! Dealing with hospitals and life-changing events takes a toll on one’s creativity. Worrying that the new medicine won’t work, or your loved one won’t be able to tolerate the poison is terribly stressful. Thus, despite the fact that I brought my lap-top and spent the same number of hours staring at the screen this last week, I accomplished very little, other than taking my main characters a few steps closer to their doom. I managed only 3000 words for seven days of writing.

But that changed yesterday when I managed to write 1200 words in one productive hour. The reason my hour was so productive is this—> Three weeks ago, before life took the side-trip, I was suffering from a bout of writer’s block.

I’ve always known what was going to happen with this tale, but I was writing it by the seat of my pants, as usual! SO in desperation, two weeks ago I made a 3000 word outline of where I wanted the story to go, right down to the epilogue. Immediately, I was able to get the story moving again.

I know! It’s genius! I took my own advice!

During this week of worry and stress, I spent a lot of time out on Wikimedia Creative Commons looking at some of the greatest art ever collected. It is humbling to realize that these artists saw no great rewards for their work, in fact they were barely able to eke out a living at it. I came across the picture that graces todays post, Parsifal, by Hermann Hendrich. The castle in the background is exactly the sort of place my characters have found themselves. The fir trees and the remoteness of this picture gave a form to my idea, and I was more easily able to create the story of what happens next.

The interesting thing is, Hendrich got his imagination jump started by having seen the Wagnerian opera, Tannhäuser. (YouTube link here!)

Go figure–an artistic type whose muse is fired up by big, loud, epic music! Of course I was captivated. The creative process that others experience is as interesting to me as is their final, amazing product.

Today, it is 7:28 a.m. on an early spring Sunday. I am listening to loud German opera overtures via YouTube and mentally preparing to get 3000 or more words written today.

So as the world here in Olympia (the navel of the universe) gets back to normal, all will end well for my heroes…or will it…heh heh….

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Filed under Adventure, Battles, Books, Humor, Uncategorized, Vegan, writing

Tagged as adventure, fantasy, humor, literature, living with epilepsy, romance, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 24, 2013 · 10:29 am

The ‘e’ word

Letting go is never easy.

You are grown up now, you’re a big boy. You make your decisions, right or wrong.

You’re thirty-five years old.

You have a seizure disorder. It’s okay to call it epilepsy. It’s okay to say the ‘e’ word. It’s not like we are naming Voldemort. Nothing caused it. Nothing will cure it. It will come and go, and yes it’s a bastard to deal with, but we deal with it. When you take your medicine, the symptoms are controlled. When you don’t, they are not.

You have this epilepsy thing and you have trouble accepting it, but I believe in you. Nothing has changed, except you have this problem sometimes.

Don’t choose to live your life looking at what you don’t have–so caught up in where things went wrong that you can’t see where they went right.

Life is so beautiful.

Your life is out there, waiting for you to claim it, waiting for you to wrap your arms around it and embrace it.

Life is good. Don’t become a small, angry person just because things aren’t perfect. Don’t build walls around the you that I love so much. Don’t hide behind stubborn anger, because life doesn’t care if you’re mad or not. Life goes on, and the only way to live, REALLY live is to grab it, and learn to love the life that exists despite the ugly bits.

It’s the contrast of the good and the bad that makes the good in life so beautiful.

Embrace every minute and see the beauty around you. Live in the moment, because you only get one moment, ever–and that moment is now.

Don’t let the ‘e’ word steal your “now.”

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Filed under Battles, Literature, writing

Tagged as Art, battles, dragons, literature, living with epilepsy, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 22, 2013 · 5:36 am

“Spam the Vegan!” shouted the Queen. “No quarter!”

One of the things I’ve noticed on all of my blogs is the number of strangely phrased, oddly ambiguous but pleasant comments from random “people” with email addresses and links referencing pictures of “hot young high-school girls, all of legal age” in compromising situations.

Yeah, right.

Strangely enough, these comments are frequently quite garbled as if they were translated to English by an old version of Google Translator. Another interesting thing is they frequently say, (and I quote,) “I need information of this more. I have search how can I get more.” Well now, that really pertains to the conversation we were having about +Orson Scott Card and character development, doesn’t it…

And these comments are frequently addressed to much older posts, as Johanna Garth, author and blogger from Portland Oregon, has also mentioned, possibly in the hope we wouldn’t notice. (She blogs on the most interesting things, over on Losing Sanity – you should check her out!)

These enterprising hawkers of underage hookers think that if they say something nice and ambiguous I might believe that it pertains to my blog. They think I will post their comment without checking to see what sort of links they have embedded in it! Heh – heh – wrong!!! Grandma wasn’t born yesterday. The internet is my business, and I take business seriously. I’ve learned quite a bit about the wolves in sheep’s’ clothing who lurk in the dingier alleys of the old web since I first began this crazy journey.

Strangely, this barrage of spam has really escalated since I began occasionally mentioning the word “VEGAN”.

I can only assume that their antiquated version of Google Translator has interpreted that word as implying that I am a “VIRGIN” and they are kindly offering me hope that one day I will no longer be afflicted thusly.

Now, we know Grandma has lived long and enjoyed every minute of her life and with four marriages behind her and 11 grandkids she is not a candidate for sainthood. I intend to keep on enjoying life to the fullest until the universe explodes, or whatever, so party on! Play that funky music, and dance the way you feel like dancing, but don’t try to trick me into being a carrier for purveyors of sleaze.

Really, one would think that scouring the internet all day and posting random comments with sleaze-links in unknown blogs would be awfully time-consuming. The return can’t possibly be worth the effort they must put into it. All their work in trying to insinuate links to their sleazy drivel, everything from porn to cold remedies on my blog is barking up the wrong tree, because I use Akismet here on WordPress and verify every comment that slips through so that my blog doesn’t accidentally become a festering boil on society’s rump.

I also do the same on my other blogs. What fun! It’s almost humorous the lengths folks will go to get you to be an unpaid advertiser for them.

Still, at least I’m doing well enough that 6 – 12 spammers a week feel my blog posts are worth wasting their time on. Maybe it’s the same person, who knows, but hey – in this business, attention is attention, even if it’s negative attention!

I’m so happy about the extra attention that I wrote a poem:

Spam, Wonderful Spam – they know I exist, so therefore I am!

Spam, Fabulous Spam – The Nigerian Prince need MY helping hand!

Spam, marvelous spam – the meat I can’t eat as it’s not Ve-gan!

(It rhymes if you say it just right! Honest!)

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as adventure, fantasy, humor, literature, Spam, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 19, 2013 · 2:57 am

The Crazy Things

My good friend, indie author Stephen Swartz, had a blog post today about creativity, music and productivity. I love his blog, DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empire, and find his dry sense of humor to be rather invigorating. He has been extremely prolific lately in getting the work out of his head and onto the paper, and I am quite impressed with his output! I’ve been more easily distracted lately by the shiny things in life.

Anyway, he was talking about the types of music that forms the soundtrack to his writing. As Stephen is also an accomplished musician, music is very important to him, and he is like me in that the right background music can improve the flow of ideas.

Now, everyone knows Grandma loves Heavy Metal, but let’s be real–Rammstein and Rainbow aren’t really conducive to a meditative state, so they are mostly for editing. And while I love John Adorney, I have a problem with some new-age music, in that it puts my brain to sleep. So I have certain playlists I pull out when its time to write. Sibelius, Mozart, Karl Orff – these great composers of classical music provide the soundtrack to Mountains of the Moon, now that we are approaching the end of the story.

In the beginning, when I first started writing Mountains of the Moon, the music that inspired me was Robert Plant’s Band of Joy album, along with Steve Martin’s ‘The Crow”. Butch Baldassari and David Schnaufer’s album, ‘Appalachian Mandolin and Dulcimer’ also figured prominently in my playlist at that time.

I know.

From Banjos and Dulcimers, to Cellos and Violins, to Stratocasters and Korg Keyboards. Throw in the occasional big choral piece like Carmina Burana and there you have the entire repertoire.

I find that at each stage in my work, a different sort of music is required. Once the structure of the story is laid out and the actual writing begins, I need light-hearted fare, sort of like the salad course at a fine restaurant. You can’t get much lighter than Steve Martin’s incredible work. Here is the link to the YouTube video of Steve Martin, Bela Fleck, and Tony Trischka playing The Crow.

During the both the initial imagining of a tale when I am world building, and also in the editing process, I need to keep on my toes. I find that Joe Bonamassa’s channel on You Tube is conducive to that.

So is this lovely YouTube channel I found with 87 (!!!) tracks for Rainbow. (I guess you know now what I listen to quite often when I am in need of inspiration.) I love YouTube!

So often random inspiration comes from my grandchildren, from my friends, and from the world in general. It never emerges out of my head the way it goes in. It always amazes me, how in the long run it’s the crazy things that spark my creativity, but the music always sustains and nurtures it.

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Filed under Books, Fantasy, Literature, Music, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Mozart, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 15, 2013 · 11:18 pm

The Sedative Box

Alas, I find that the week spent with my grandson didn’t advance my manuscript any further. I didn’t even get any book reviews done this week, although I did find Nemo.

And Waldo.

And the last shred of patience I ever had.

The Boy is six, and is off-the-chart-smart, requiring no entertaining on my part what-so-ever. He is a real firecracker, and just listening to him as he is playing is a hoot. Batman and Darth Vader teamed up with The Green Lantern to kill Smeagol, thus saving Bilbo from a dreadful death.

I’ve mentioned before that The Boy is a sponge and literally soaks up everything he sees and hears. This child repeats EVERYTHING he hears or even thinks he has heard. He is VERY verbal with a huge vocabulary (of which he knows the meaning and proper use of every word), extremely sassy, and regularly loses his precious, carefully monitored television privileges, which he is deeply remorseful for, but not enough to remember to curb his lip when talking back to Mama (She Who Controls The TV.) Curbing his commentary is both time-consuming and all-important, as it has led to some trouble in social situations.

For the most part, Grandma’s role when babysitting is to gently but firmly remind The Boy that we show respect to everyone when we speak to them, and when he responds with verbal abuse, I respond by parking him in the corner for some quiet time. Grandma sets the timer on the stove for five minutes and we both rest our ears. When the timer goes off, we hug and make up our quarrel, OR he goes back to the corner to reflect on where he miscalculated and went wrong for just a while longer.

Oddly enough, The Boy doesn’t like tofu in his stirfry. Go Figure! And Grandma doesn’t do mac and cheese–what a tragedy! We did find something he would eat, and we agreed to disagree.

I have ten grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The Boy is the only one of my grandchildren that requires special handling, although the others are just as talented and amazing as he is. Unlike the others, this child can’t be left to his own devices, or mayhem WILL ensue. Because he requires more intense handling, I’ve had a lot of individual time with him that I’ve not had with the others.

I can honestly say he is not my favorite grandchild, because they are ALL so awesome and so individual that I could never have a favorite. They range in age from 23 years on down to to 5 months and fall into 3 batches. The great-granddaughter is 4 years old and is amazing to me–we’ve developed a special friendship bonding in Grandma’s kitchen.

In the first batch, the oldest is attending college full-time and raising her child as a single mother and doing exceedingly well at both jobs. She inspires me to do better at my own work. The next oldest is my ‘Fairy Goth-Daughter’, an artist and musician, who hooked me up with Rammstein and Appocalyptica. The third oldest is 20, an actress, and has found work in HBO documentaries and even a straight-to-video movie. She is also managing a fast-food restaurant to pay her bills, since acting pays as well as authoring does! (insert ‘lol’ here.)

The next age group ranges from 14 to 6 and their interests are still varying. Two want to write, one loves to draw and he is awesome at drawing any sort of car you would want. The other three don’t have any particular area of focus yet, but I see glimmers of artistic and musical ability in them all.

The littlest, at 5 months, is really into the cat and his dog. He tries to sing when you sing with him, which I find quite entertaining–it keeps grandma busy and out of trouble for hours.

But what I love about The Boy is his imagination. He let’s his imagination fly freely, and I can see the seeds that, with good direction, will grow into a filmmaker or author or scientist there. The Boy thinks WAY outside the box because it hasn’t occurred to him yet that there is a box!

It ‘s my job, as The Grandma, to see that they ALL realize there are NO BOUNDARIES to what they can do or be. Success isn’t measured in how many toys and possessions you gain. It’s measured in your happiness quotient.

Are you happy? When you get home from earning your daily bread do you look forward to a chance to spend an hour or two at your real work? My happiness quotient is very high, and always has been, even when I was working as a hotel maid. Happiness is a state of mind you must deliberately cultivate.

When you get home, why not simply forget to turn on the TV? (Or as I like to think of it, the sedative-box.) What has it ever done for you besides offering mindnumbingly similar programs interspersed with commercials designed to make you feel you aren’t complete without the product they are hawking. Bored and discontent is not how I want to live, so I find myself reading and pursuing other hobbies in the evening.

Today, I am also looking up. Two asteroids, one imploding over Russia and one doing a close fly-by is quite enough entertainment for one day! For all my friends in Russia, I hope you were not affected by the event this morning!