tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14475463814607968642024-03-13T16:32:02.827-04:00WGTSiggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.comBlogger489125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-73434036214692723322017-05-18T19:33:00.003-04:002017-05-19T16:00:12.052-04:00Happiness -- What does it Mean to You?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>It's time for <span style="background-color: blue; color: #38761d;"><span style="background-color: lime;">WGT </span></span>to come out of hibernation! A couple of brain waves kept me awake last night and I'm all excited about two new projects. Here's the first:</b><br />
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<b>I want to explore what makes you guys happy, dear readers from different countries. All you talented scribes from all over the world, give us your views on <span style="color: magenta;">HAPPINESS</span>! (apart from book sales...:) <span style="background-color: white;">But I can't do it without you!</span></b><br />
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<b>How do you define <span style="color: magenta;">HAPPINESS</span>? Can you decide to be HAPPY?</b><br />
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<b>You surely heard of the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/travel/worlds-happiest-countries-united-nations-2017/" target="_blank">World Happiness Report</a> conducted annually by CNN? According to that statistic, in 2017, the happiest countries were:</b><br />
<b>Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Iceland.<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Do you think your country comes </span>into<span style="font-family: inherit;"> the </span>equation<span style="font-family: inherit;">? Let's hear YOU speak, not statistics.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Fellow-writers, bloggers, philosophers, psychologists...and fellow human beings who are going through this school of life, tell us about your impressions and beliefs on happiness. Tell us what makes you happy.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Why does this topic mesmerize me? <span style="background-color: white;">When we first moved to Ireland, Irish people asked us whether we were happy in our new home, the old farmhouse. For a German of my generation, it was absolutely unheard of to ask strangers whether they were happy. It felt intrusive, inconsiderate, prying to say the least. And for me, this question came at a time when I had just been "emigrated" to a country against my will and I found it hard to adjust.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Ever since then, I've been checking back in with my happiness barometer where I am on the scale of 1-10.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Is happiness too personal a matter/question for you too or will people know when you are you bubbling over with joy and happiness?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Let us know!<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></b></span><br />
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-5577355351639086652015-12-25T09:41:00.000-05:002015-12-25T09:41:00.758-05:00A Christmas Childhood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Patrick Kavanagh’s</b> “A Christmas Childhood” was born out of loneliness and solitude. The County Monaghan poet penned this poem having spent a Christmas season alone in his flat in Dublin. The poem is filled with nostalgia for rural, farming, family life. His memories comes to us through Christian imagery from the story of the birth of Jesus.</i></div>
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One side of the potato-pits was white with frost –<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />How wonderful that was, how wonderful!<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And when we put our ears to the paling-post<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The music that came out was magical.</div>
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The light between the ricks of hay and straw<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />With its December-glinting fruit we saw –<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me.</div>
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To eat the knowledge that grew in clay<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And death the germ within it! Now and then<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />I can remember something of the gay<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Garden that was childhood’s. Again.</div>
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The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />A green stone lying sideways in a ditch,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Or any common sight, the transfigured face<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Of a beauty that the world did not touch.</div>
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My father played the melodion<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Outside at our gate;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />There were stars in the morning east<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And they danced to his music.</div>
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Across the wild bogs his melodion called<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />To Lennons and Callans.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />I knew some strange thing had happened.</div>
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Outside in the cow-house my mother<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Made the music of milking;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The light of her stable-lamp was a star<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.</div>
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A water-hen screeched in the bog,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Mass-going feet<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.</div>
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My child poet picked out the letters<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />On the grey stone,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.</div>
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Cassiopeia was over<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Cassidy’s hanging hill,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />I looked and three whin bushes rode across<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The horizon — the Three Wise Kings.</div>
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And old man passing said:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />‘Can’t he make it talk –<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The melodion.’ I hid in the doorway<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.</div>
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I nicked six nicks on the door-post<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />With my penknife’s big blade –<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />there was a little one for cutting tobacco.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And I was six Christmases of age.</div>
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My father played the melodion,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />My mother milked the cows,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.</div>
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(Published today on Irishcentral.com)</div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-58298849177815493362015-12-20T16:38:00.000-05:002015-12-24T15:28:47.403-05:00Your Complete Guide to an Irish Christmas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><b>"Merry Christmas" is "Nollaig Shona Duit,"</b> which is pronounced as "null-ig hun-a dit." Now you have almost completed your IE 101!</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: lato, geneva, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">Weather</b><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">But despite the warmer temperatures, Ireland has been getting less sunlight than a typical December, due to heavy rain storms and cloudy conditions. In my time in Ireland, we experienced terrible storms and power cuts due to fallen trees but never snow.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><b>You know you're in Ireland</b> when you book the 8th December off and drive to the"Big Smoke". You get all your Christmas shopping done in one day. It's called "Farmers Christams" or nowadays #Farmersdayout. Ireland, like most countries, has a number of Christmas traditions that are all its own. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You leave a can of Guinness, a slice of Christmas cake and a carrot out on Christmas Eve”... and rocking Irish Santa thanks you!</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><b>The placing of a lighted candle in the window</b> of a house on Christmas Eve is still practiced in Ireland today. It has a number of purposes but primarily, it was a symbol of welcome to Mary and Joseph as they traveled looking for shelter.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">German, btw, does or did that too. At least during the years while it was divided between East and West. (We in the West put the candles in the windows for our brothers in the East.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><b>Decorations </b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">The placing of a ring of holly on doors originated in Ireland as holly was one of the main plants that flourished at Christmas time, giving the poor ample means with which to decorate their dwellings.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">All decorations are traditionally taken down on Little Christmas or Women's Christmas (January 6) and it is considered bad luck to take them down beforehand.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">We missed our Christmas tree.Sure pine and spruce was available long before Christmas but would usually be dry and wilted by Christmas, especially when brought indoors. Firs or noble firs that keep better were not available. The tradition of advent wreath like in Germany with four candles in the lead up to Christmas for every Sunday was not a tradition in Ireland. I made my own wreath our of all kinds of evergreens available: yew, holly, laurel. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">And an unheard of frivolity (even / particularly now here in the USA as well) is a live tree with real candles. My American family almost went paranoid over it and insisted on having a hose from the garden at the ready. In Ireland, however, I saw decorated and illuminated Christmas trees outside for the first time, however, already up on December 1. They were not popular then in Germany yet and Germans mostly still buy their tree only on Christmas Eve and put it up then indoors.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><b style="background-color: white;">St. Stephen's Day and the Wren Boy Procession</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">During Penal Times, there was once a plot in a village against the local soldiers. They were </span><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">surrounded and were about to be ambushed when a group of wrens pecked on their drums and awakened the soldiers. The plot failed and the wren became known as 'The Devil's bird'. On St Stephen's day, a procession takes place where a pole with a holly bush is carried from house to house and families dress up in old clothes and with blackened faces. In olden times, an actual wren would be killed and placed on top of the pole.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">My son was born on St. Stephen's Day. (Pronounced btw. like St. Stephense's Day in North Country Tipperary where we lived. Boxing Day in the UK).It was impossible to have a birthday party for the little boy. First of all, the Irish have big families and they all had to visit their relatives on that day. Second, Tipperary where we lived had the customary Wren boys doing the rounds on St.Stephen's day. Originally staging a fake wren shooting, tradition has it that a group of boys and young man dressed up and went from farm to farm singing and collecting goodies- sweets or pennies.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Ireland's a nation of emigrants and most Irish families will either be missing someone at their <a href="http://www.irishcentral.com/topic/christmas.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #b75800; text-decoration: none;">Christmas</a> dinner table this year due to emigration or they’ll have the emotions and joyous experience of a homecoming. Emigration, a typical phenomenon for centuries until the boom times of the Celtic Tiger. And when he stopped roaring, the situation reversed again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Last year the <a href="http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/Sight-Irish-son-home-New-York-leaves-Irish-Mammy-speechless-VIDEO.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Best%20of%20IC%20-%20Nov%20/%20Dec%20Draw%20-%20Dec%2018&utm_term=The%20Best%20of%20IC%20-%20Draw%20Nov-Dec%202015" target="_blank">Dublin Airport Authority</a><span id="goog_1498723775"></span><span id="goog_1498723776"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a> posted this emotional video on their YouTube channel showing an emotional Christmas homecoming with the O’Connor family from West Limerick being reunited for the first time in four years.</span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;"><b>Christmas Songs</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "geneva" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f4f5; line-height: 20px;">A generation of Irish kids grew up on Dustin, the singing turkey without who Christmas would not be complete, especially when he joins Twink in a panto. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">His most popular songs <a href="https://www.blogger.com/If%20you're%20Irish%20you%20will%20know%20Dustin,%20the%20singing%20turkey:%20https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsUxCrS92tw" target="_blank">"Christmas Tree Song"</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr0QoxNynTw" target="_blank">"</a></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr0QoxNynTw" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 22.4px;">Rat Trap</span></span>"</a> together with Bob Geldof.<br />
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One of the few Xmas songs I really like and get emotional about, although I never particularly liked Shane Mc Gowan, once married to Sinead O'Connor. I'm amazed he is still alive - given his lifestyle.</div>
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<span class="_3c21"><b><a href="http://amazon.com/Siggy-Buckley/e/B004N1FV9W" target="_blank">Siggy Buckley</a></b></span><br />
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-32213770784584461492015-11-24T01:30:00.000-05:002015-11-24T01:30:02.955-05:00How to Reach Your Writing Goals like a Pro<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Excerpt<br />
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Chapter 2: Step 1 – Declutter Your Mind<br />
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OK. Let’s get started!<br />
No matter what your goal is, no matter how easy or hard you may think it is to attain, the first step that you must take is to declutter your mind.<br />
<br />
One of the reasons for which you still haven’t reached your writing goals, is the fact that all of what you’ve learned and heard about publishing your book or about becoming a successful writer, were implemented ideas that are now blocking their fulfillment inside you.<br />
<br />
“I have spent most of my time worrying about things that have never happened.” ~ Mark Twain.<br />
For this reason, it’s a great decision to first unlearn what you have learned.<br />
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Why do you need to do this? Let me briefly explain.<br />
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During our life, we’ve been brainwashed to think that certain goals are impossible to attain. I am telling you that this is one of the biggest lies that we encounter in our lives.<br />
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If you are serious about your dreams, if you really wish with all your heart to materialize your dreams, nothing… and I mean nothing can stand in your way. All you have to do is to get rid of all the garbage that was inoculated in your beliefs. Do it and don’t lose time finding out who put it in your mind, why this was done, and most of all don’t blame the ones who taught you those things. They were themselves taught by others and maybe they were well intentioned when they did it. It could have just been because they thought that, that was the ultimate truth. No matter what, this is not your problem but theirs. They were wrong, and you just started on the road to prove it to the whole world.<br />
<br />
<b>M.C.Simon </b><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1HNLu7z" target="_blank">About the Author</a><br />
Writer, translator, engineer, researcher, project manager, blogger, eternal student… these are only a few words to describe M.C. Simon.<br />
In a recent interview she confessed:<br />
“I am not only M.C. Simon, the writer whose goal is to rebuild in people the trust in their own forces and in the incredible powers that they received at birth; powers that, maybe they have forgotten about somewhere inside the depth of their being.<br />
I AM all what “I am not only”, and much more! I AM who I AM. And in this form, I follow my Path to consciously touch The Absolute… The ONE who’s Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent.<br />
The same as YOU and like any other soul that accepted in these times, the challenge to experience life inside a human body, on this wonderful planet we call Earth.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.mcsimonwrites.com/reset-your-mind-to-fulfill-your-writing-goals/" target="_blank">READ MORE</a><br />
<span style="color: blue;">BUY</span> here: <a href="http://amzn.to/1HNKGQ6" target="_blank">Amazon US </a> & <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reach-Your-Writing-Goals-Like-ebook/dp/B017Q02KVS/" target="_blank">Amazon UK </a></div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-83785217815257558082015-11-08T09:42:00.001-05:002015-11-08T12:47:19.527-05:00Time to Take Your Life Back<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="color: magenta;">How those with a chronic illness or disability can take back control of their life, realize goals and learn to be happy again.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: magenta;">Hi, my name i</span></b><b><span style="color: magenta;">s Karen Magill.</span></b> Siggy Buckley thought it would be a good idea if you and I talked.<br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text67/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text68/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, I want to tell you a bit about myself. In June of 2000, I woke up partially paralysed on one side of my body. Nine days later, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The paralysis left within a few weeks but I was always exhausted and by the end of September, MS forced me to go on disability, leaving the best job I’d ever had.</span><br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text71/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text72/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was 35 years old and I thought my life was over. All I could see for my future was sitting alone in my one bedroom apartment, watching television and waiting to die.</span><br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text75/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text76/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s not what happened though. Today, I am an award-winning novelist with four published paranormal novels and one non-fiction book. I have a budding career as a motivational speaker and have launched a life coaching/mentoring program to help others with a chronic illness and/or disability accomplish a lifelong goal.</span><br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text79/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text80/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you have a goal you want to accomplish but aren’t sure how to do it? Do you think it would help if you and I got together on Skype and talked about your goals and the problems you are having reaching it?</span><br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text83/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text0/=1$text84/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you think speaking to me would be helpful, please go to this link,<b> </b></span><a data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$range0/=10" href="http://go.cmapn.com/karen-magill-webinar/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank"><b>http://go.cmapn.com/karen-magill-webinar/</b></a><span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$text1/=1$text0/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> </b>watch the webinar, and fill out the application form then book an appointment with me. Or you can go to </span><a data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$range1/=10" href="http://www.karenmagill.com/coaching" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank"><b>http://www.karenmagill.com/coaching</b></a><span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$end/=1$text0/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and fill out the application. All of this will be free.</span><br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$end/=1$text3/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$end/=1$text4/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.</span><br />
<br data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$end/=1$text7/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<span data-reactid=".b4.1.$mg=2mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.2.$mid=11446831829148=2eb7956bd1f9412cc97.0.0.0.1.0.0.0.$end/=1$text8/=010" style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.36px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Karen Magill </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ZPgT6_267L2ckbXvt9S5xCv5gS1a9kMFvYiW-nMe3ABm9H4IPnCiXSpx4MAFjIm7TmfE_jTFXSNQkn6_wvjfgP159NXCLro0nK5epQbO3Kb5-TpTIfdtucl8tCQfEi_Wp2yTT1uHqJg/s1600/Karen+Magill%2527s+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ZPgT6_267L2ckbXvt9S5xCv5gS1a9kMFvYiW-nMe3ABm9H4IPnCiXSpx4MAFjIm7TmfE_jTFXSNQkn6_wvjfgP159NXCLro0nK5epQbO3Kb5-TpTIfdtucl8tCQfEi_Wp2yTT1uHqJg/s200/Karen+Magill%2527s+pic.jpg" width="147" /></a></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-19418054405136854912015-10-29T12:33:00.002-04:002015-10-29T12:36:52.380-04:00Samhain Blessings - Happy Halloween!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlrSgczU-6geV6Jd2nOSuMtYdoTpkEiJPTfh1kRjkPtmQc1Y7Kn3mG4IJtW0MsUAiSeVLIDCwgwTbfbhlLNM_aYPmccT1u1-b6wcsg5pMMT4PFpA4Ta21ozP-0Di27-tRHU65x7FW94Q/s1600/happy+Halloween.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlrSgczU-6geV6Jd2nOSuMtYdoTpkEiJPTfh1kRjkPtmQc1Y7Kn3mG4IJtW0MsUAiSeVLIDCwgwTbfbhlLNM_aYPmccT1u1-b6wcsg5pMMT4PFpA4Ta21ozP-0Di27-tRHU65x7FW94Q/s1600/happy+Halloween.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;">When I came to the United States</span></b> first I was surprised, and
delighted, to discover that Halloween was such a popular holiday. You see Halloween is originally an Irish
pagan feast. It travelled to the United
States with our emigrants, in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, and has been adopted
into American culture.<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></div>
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The original Irish Celtic festival was called
“Samhain.” It occurred at the end of
autumn when crops had been harvested and animals were slaughtered to provide
food for the winter. It was,
essentially, the end of the farming year.
In Celtic culture the 1<sup>st</sup> November was considered “New Year’s
Day”. So Halloween was their “New
Year’s Eve”.<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></div>
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To celebrate “Samhain” the ancient Celts would light
bonfires. These were originally called
“bone fires” and were used to incinerate the bones of the recently slaughtered
farm animals. They would also play
games such as bobbing for apples, which is still very popular. In addition they liked to carve vegetables. The same tradition is still alive today with
the carved pumpkin. As there were no
pumpkins in Ireland they used to carve turnips. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOS_MckAwcM6dAkRecUY_qdb73fDOw6iE69FrfOh4FfS39SJ6uoeA5Gwg3mVqQscLuRABY_wQlJO0JiQA2XZxB85v44ierWWj-YgUNGo8Sjr9VLxbuU9Sg1DivSNEUT8Z2IMTL91orBLE/s1600/Pumpkin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOS_MckAwcM6dAkRecUY_qdb73fDOw6iE69FrfOh4FfS39SJ6uoeA5Gwg3mVqQscLuRABY_wQlJO0JiQA2XZxB85v44ierWWj-YgUNGo8Sjr9VLxbuU9Sg1DivSNEUT8Z2IMTL91orBLE/s200/Pumpkin.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<u1:p></u1:p><br />
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The ancient Celts believed that, at the end of the year,
the souls of people who had died that year would leave the earth and go to
heaven. It was part of their belief
that these ghosts roamed freely that night before leaving. In order to ward off any hauntings and
provide sustenance for their journey, people would leave food and drink at
their door for the departed spirits. You
will notice the origins of “trick-or-treat”.
<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></div>
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We Irish also bake a special cake which is only eaten at
Halloween. It’s called “Barmbrack” and
it is used for fortune telling! Certain
small items are concealed in the cake, such as a ring, a rag, a coin or a small
stick. Google “barmbrack” and find out
what these signify!<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-mYmP12KqN8xJ2rVjDzJK_f63vUlJC_YEAS4e4OHlMhUwluXUBwsMp7LmzumQ_OZb_Yq_sNfaw3BRrdoj1fxqC2zazDtrNLL0fHtWaiEzfAy2Ym9i0zMknXUlrBVJr4En9TTw7fwiiDs/s1600/Barmbrack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-mYmP12KqN8xJ2rVjDzJK_f63vUlJC_YEAS4e4OHlMhUwluXUBwsMp7LmzumQ_OZb_Yq_sNfaw3BRrdoj1fxqC2zazDtrNLL0fHtWaiEzfAy2Ym9i0zMknXUlrBVJr4En9TTw7fwiiDs/s1600/Barmbrack.jpg" /></a></div>
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In 601 AD Pope Gregory The First, issued his famous
edict. He told his missionaries that,
rather than try to obliterate native customs and beliefs, they should convert
them into Christian feast days. So, the
1<sup>st</sup> of November then became the Feast of All Saints. It became a sacred or “hallowed” day. But the Celts still gave significance to the
day before, which was “the eve of All Hallows” and became known as Hallows E’en
and then Halloween. <u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></div>
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So now you have the story of Halloween. And, as the actor Michael Cain would say,
“Not many people know that!”</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Written by <a href="http://www.johnschutte.com/about-john-schutte.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">John Sch</span></b></a></span><a href="http://www.johnschutte.com/about-john-schutte.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">ű</span></b></a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.johnschutte.com/about-john-schutte.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #660000;">tte</span></b></a> for Siggy Buckley, the honorary “Paddy".</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0r-2LAZewtIxOquYunhIPC1LwOn_7FDcUgeyU0eWQZ7oEeq8qX2P4yA9m8gtC4BlIRQ6lb_EX-Qdd5LKxbdudhlst5rb9H9cL48Lu4F0oCz0UrQ2x2FFCRlY6KFQiCWdT8VSF5EIf4qs/s1600/Samhain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0r-2LAZewtIxOquYunhIPC1LwOn_7FDcUgeyU0eWQZ7oEeq8qX2P4yA9m8gtC4BlIRQ6lb_EX-Qdd5LKxbdudhlst5rb9H9cL48Lu4F0oCz0UrQ2x2FFCRlY6KFQiCWdT8VSF5EIf4qs/s200/Samhain.jpg" width="146" /></a></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-80924320010866389912015-10-27T09:03:00.002-04:002015-10-27T09:03:54.326-04:00Ghost Stories & a Bit of Irish History<div class="IOsectionhead">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzryfFyBMOkHedzpi-LWX_598nf2guS51w5AnyaP8nYBXE9w8wR6XwXYGEMTn3lFqBDh1bcR6Zkf6U5o2XOcFGfNibGrTfPz7hEcepsxShpctTIRsp-sl5ZmnniUaT_duwyGo9nGQmPoU/s1600/ghosts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzryfFyBMOkHedzpi-LWX_598nf2guS51w5AnyaP8nYBXE9w8wR6XwXYGEMTn3lFqBDh1bcR6Zkf6U5o2XOcFGfNibGrTfPz7hEcepsxShpctTIRsp-sl5ZmnniUaT_duwyGo9nGQmPoU/s1600/ghosts.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="IONormal15">
<b><span style="color: magenta;">"Our new home,</span></b> <span style="color: magenta;"><b>the pink farmhouse in Co. Tipperary</b></span>, didn’t
have a resident ghost, but it was in a scary neighborhood. A little cottage,
abandoned for donkey's years but not in disrepair, sat looming on a curve in
the road that led up to our new farm. Sheila, who lived in the same townland,
told me later that she saw Little People there sometimes when she came home
late around midnight.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
Maybe a case of too much of the brown stuff?</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
I had a sneaking suspicion that the Irish perpetuated this
myth partly for the sake of tourists, to tell them what they like to hear. It’s
a cliché that the Irish all have the gift of the gab anyway.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
Ghost stories stand and fall with the trustworthiness of
the person who vouches she knows it on good authority. And that, in Ireland, is
usually the friend of a cousin once removed.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
If you dig a bit deeper, research on haunted houses shows
that they have something in common. Usually, a tragic death befell somebody in
or around the house. And Ireland, with its almost 800-year long history of
occupation and subjugation, is full of tragic stories. I came across a
travelling psychic later whose mission it was to set the ghosts at ease, to
send them home or lay them to rest. Marvelous. The interest in ghost lore, like
in UFOs, never ceases.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
Being skeptics, we just laughed Sheila off, until we heard
about a real ghost story in our new home town. </div>
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Leaving Killaloe, where we purchased our abode, on the road
to Scarriff, there was a two-story stone house on the left hand side. In spite
of the faded lace curtains, its dark windows gave the property an abandoned, foreboding
look, while the huge front lawn was always meticulously mown and the
landscaping simple but well kept. In front of the downstairs windows, several
beautiful, truly blue hydrangeas had caught my eye while we were still hunting
for a farm. I wondered whether the farm was for sale, because it was obviously
empty. There was no estate agent’s sign, and I didn’t dare to walk up to the
gloomy door and find out as it looked so uninviting, almost scary.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
The farm buildings belonging to this house were across the
road. A huge sycamore tree towered over everything at the roadside gate, and
the tree trunk was protected by heavy steel bars. I wondered what the obviously
expensive enclosure was about.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
Pauline, my one-time housekeeper and later friend, who
likes a good yarn but is generally reliable, told me about the drama behind
this house. She is the grand-niece of the Irish freedom fighter and hero,
Michael Collins, who was tragically shot and killed in 1922 in the Civil War
following the War of Independence from Britain, just months before the creation
of the Irish Free State. Pauline referred to him proudly by his nickname: The
Big Fellow. A photo of him in his military fineries still hangs over her
fireplace in the parlor ─ something she would never part with, neither for fear
of death nor money!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUb3HwKYzxMjXK1m7Yjk7RUJluvnh6GyNSqOEA_s3Kvw7eySUMb-rZrY2tnMi8WTWDgi25fjX3rP8wkrQsRy2_cIxfKUnNmwDJIbv0TzDNz2d14Q_6jeJzGl88UqJxDUClGR_p8JIPXGo/s1600/Black%2526Tans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUb3HwKYzxMjXK1m7Yjk7RUJluvnh6GyNSqOEA_s3Kvw7eySUMb-rZrY2tnMi8WTWDgi25fjX3rP8wkrQsRy2_cIxfKUnNmwDJIbv0TzDNz2d14Q_6jeJzGl88UqJxDUClGR_p8JIPXGo/s1600/Black%2526Tans.jpg" /></a></div>
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In 1923, when Ireland was torn by a civil war, a family of
five IRA supporters lived in this large farmhouse on the road to Scarriff. One
dark night when all were in bed, there was terrible knocking of rifles on the
door. It was the Black and Tans, the most feared and vicious British brigade,
that all but terrorized local communities. Their primary task was to make
Ireland hell for the rebels to live in. They meant business. Suspecting
traitors in this house, they broke down the door and killed the whole family
except for a nine-year-old boy who managed to scramble out during the bedlam.
He stole away and hid across the road in a tall tree, which saved his life. As
the only survivor, to this day, he takes care of house and lawn and protects
the tree in memory of the tragedy that befell his family.</div>
<br />
<div class="IONormal15">
Is the house haunted? Yes, everybody knows that and well,
what do you expect after so many killings? Could I talk to the owner? No, he is
a bit funny in the head and has never been the same since. I drove by it
regularly, and each time couldn’t help but remember the horror that raged in
such a peaceful rural area."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="IONormal15">
<b>Siggy Buckley </b>from her new book <a href="https://www.blogger.com/I%20once%20had%20a%20Farm%20in%20Ireland:%20Living%20the%20Organic%20Lifestyle" target="_blank">I once had a Farm in Ireland: Living the Organic Lifestyle</a>.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
<b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/IOnceHadAFarmInIreland?fref=ts" target="_blank">Facebook</a></b></div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-77076118173501918552015-10-22T17:17:00.001-04:002015-10-22T17:17:36.617-04:00Real Advice For The Newlywed to donate 10% of Royalties to Domestic Violence Awareness Month.<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<b><span style="color: blue;">AS MANY
Of YOU KNOW,</span></b> October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM). As our part
in advancing the cause of DVAM, we would like to announce that for the
remainder of the month of October, 10% of all my royalties from the sale of my
book, <i>Real Advice For The Newlywed</i> currently on sale at Amazon.com will
be donated to NoMore.org’s campaign to end domestic violence and sexual
assault.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Some
alarming facts:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">Nearly one in four
women in the U.S. reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse
or boyfriend at some point in her life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">On average, three
women are killed every day as a result of domestic violence. More than 40
percent of female murder victims are killed by their husbands or boyfriends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">Data found that
women experience over two million injuries from partner violence each year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">Approximately 1.3
million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner
annually in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">From
first page to last, <i>Real Advice For The Newlywed</i> was written as a guide
to help married couples navigate their way through the sometimes tempestuous
strife and turmoil many couples encounter - including the threat of physical
and emotional violence. There is one entire chapter devoted specifically on how
to handle the threat of physical and mental cruelty.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;">If you
haven’t yet purchased your copy of <i>Real Advice For The Newlywed</i>, for
yourself or as a wedding gift to a couple you know, now is the time to do so
before October ends. This is an important and vital effort to ensure the
continuation of NoMore.org’s efforts to educate and eliminate domestic violence
and sexual assault. Make it yours.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;">I
invite you to share this with as many of your contacts as possible.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Watch
MoveOn.org’s recent video on YouTube: </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="https://youtu.be/j70ha1PUlqk?list=PLRH4qMDKG2FHUm_VEtUkK2pXWdtJuzoeN" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/j70ha1PUlqk?list=PLRH4qMDKG2FHUm_VEtUkK2pXWdtJuzoeN</a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b>Samuel Murphy</b><br />
<b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1696340326" target="_blank">on Facebook</a></b><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-Advice-Newlywed-Planning-Together/dp/1942790023/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445548590&sr=1-1&keywords=Samuel+Murphy+Real+Advice" target="_blank">on Amazon</a></b></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-69090859712749828642015-09-26T16:15:00.001-04:002015-09-26T18:14:24.521-04:00The Guilt Factor: Motivation by Fear and the Means to Empathy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitrRIOFn01qT8cjrmxe1WcW8010TNftY5OJdv7IF75DzMwPmlX47AM70sebLK2DCjUE9Ba_wRDJRtkgNzoBxs8JSAUxrzPP2i1wD1hHZ07mYQdty9jZRGffA7nKg3Uzs9e3fuG2vkvXvo/s1600/guilt1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitrRIOFn01qT8cjrmxe1WcW8010TNftY5OJdv7IF75DzMwPmlX47AM70sebLK2DCjUE9Ba_wRDJRtkgNzoBxs8JSAUxrzPP2i1wD1hHZ07mYQdty9jZRGffA7nKg3Uzs9e3fuG2vkvXvo/s1600/guilt1.gif" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">For me, the need to write</span></b> has always had a face.<br />
<br />
Whose face that is and what expression it wears varies. Typically, it's been the face of a writing professor that's haunted me during those long middle-of-the-night writing sessions. It doesn't matter how fair or kind the professor is; for some reason (maybe it's the dark and caffeine jitters), my imagination paints them with a steady frown, causing my stomach to knot over every word with the thought that they might be unamused by my metaphors. Other times, the face has been warmer -- that of a close friend, perhaps -- but with eyes sad and disappointed as they strain to find some value in my work. More recently, the face has been the loved one abroad, patient and smiling; it invokes a twinge of pain in me as I remember my promise to write novels in his absence, while his cheerful voice says, "It's okay, don't feel too bad about it."<br />
<br />
There has always been a sense of guilt associated with my work, and that guilt has always felt personal because I've associated it with important people in my life. It's not that uncommon of a trait among overachievers, I suppose. How often have we psychoanalyzed the artist driven by a neurotic need to please an ever-dissatisfied parent or mentor, even years after the latter's demise? Whether it is for God or husband or mommy dearest, history is full of creators desperately striving to impress someone.<br />
<br />
Why? Isn't love of the art enough? <br />
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For my part, guilt in its worst moments has caused the writing process to be miserable. Mainly because those disappointed faces in my mind are entirely fictitious, not at all founded upon reality. I'm naturally self-critical to begin with, and for some reason or another I often project that criticism onto others. Even if any of the people whose faces I see tell me my work is fine, a small corner of my subconscious doesn't believe them, doesn't want to believe they're being honest in their praise. There's a fine line between constructive encouragement and being too nice, and I'll be damned if I can tell the difference.<br />
<br />
But whether those frowns are fabricated or not, my fear of disappointing others says something interesting about the writing process, I think. I would like to believe that love of writing could be its own motivator, but for me it isn't so. Even as one who thrives on solitude, I find myself needing others in my writing -- for validation, for support. Call it insecurity (and I'm sure it is, partly), but I suspect that it has more to do with empathy. While "writing for the self" is a popular trend these days, and valid in its own right, I think it fails to see what makes great literature great: its ability to evoke something in another person, to touch something deep in his roots and make him see a commonality between himself and a stranger on a page. Writing gives the guise of speaking as an individual, when in reality it speaks of humanity.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3imHSysE0XBSak7aUL6oRxMMsOW6ww4pRMhKH0Fz1ECf8dW7dUJSmUZ1fzk4h2jL86RzvtXQlATAOY7bgB5UpBi6nAHH3aZ61sxeKOHE2PUp2n5u3UrzVlI9ktMAXkspRXlFzoZdVoJY/s1600/guilt2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3imHSysE0XBSak7aUL6oRxMMsOW6ww4pRMhKH0Fz1ECf8dW7dUJSmUZ1fzk4h2jL86RzvtXQlATAOY7bgB5UpBi6nAHH3aZ61sxeKOHE2PUp2n5u3UrzVlI9ktMAXkspRXlFzoZdVoJY/s1600/guilt2.JPG" /></a></div>
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While I have no grand illusions about inspiring millions, I can't bring myself to pull the "misunderstood writer" card and write without any regard to what others think. It goes against what has impacted me as a reader, and consequently what I can only hope to achieve as a writer: if what I write doesn't inspire, if it doesn't resonate with someone, I have failed.<br />
<br />
But I know I don't have to please everyone, nor do I want to. In his part-memoir, part-advice book On Writing, Stephen King explains that "you can't let the whole world into your story," but you can -- and should -- let in those who matter most. According to King, every good writer must have an Ideal Reader (I.R., for short); someone for whom you write, someone who, in flesh or in spirit, is always "going to be in your writing room." As King points out, sometimes a writer's Ideal Reader (like the neurotic patient's mommy dearest) is miles away or many years dead. It doesn't matter. An I.R. gives the writer a tangible audience, a direction for the writing process; someone who the writer wants to make think, laugh, cry, and feel deeply. "And you know what?" King adds. "You'll find yourself bending the story [for them] even before the Ideal Reader glimpses so much as the first sentence."[sic!]<br />
It takes a certain empathy to write with another person in mind, and to know that person well enough (at least, to think one does) to impact them. And that's marvelous, because empathy -- seeing and valuing each other's common humanity -- is what writing's all about, isn't it?<br />
<br />
As for myself, I've found that guilt is not such a terrible thing to live with after all. That fear of disappointing my reader is what forces me to analyze my own work critically; it makes me take a second, third, and fourth look at everything, asking myself, "Is there anything else I can do to improve this part?" Having someone else in mind, moreover, often gives me a reason to write on my darkest days. As a naturally self-deprecating self-critic, I find it easy to conclude on a bad day that I'm not worth the time or effort to write. But, because I'm a compassion-driven person, someone else is always worth the work.<br />
<br />
So, in spite of its bad rap, I don't mind living with guilt. If a visitation from a frowning face is what produces the work, so be it. Maybe, someday, I'll finally make that face smile. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><b>Emma Moser </b></span></div>
<br />
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Website:<a href="http://antiquedwriter.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"> <span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">antiquedwriter.blogspot.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">Twitter @em_mo_write ♦</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">Facebook.com/antiquedwriter</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-42716123673469898522015-09-14T18:53:00.004-04:002015-09-14T18:58:05.096-04:00Ghosts and Psychics In Ireland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #073763;">When I began my novel,</span><i> </i></b><a href="http://amzn.to/1Lmx7nq"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="color: black;"><i>A Cry From The Deep</i></span></span></a>, I
had no idea that my characters would includ ghosts and psychics. It was the land that spoke to me, as well as my
protagonist, Catherine Fitzgerald, a scuba diver on assignment to cover a
treasure hunt, who took me in this direction. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’be
been blessed with much travel, so it’s
not surprising that the places I’ve
been end up in my stories. My husband, Rob, and I visited Ireland in 2006 and
to say that I was blown away by its beauty
is an understatement. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
Ireland is so much more when you see it for yourself. I tried to
capture what I saw in my novel,<i> </i><a href="http://amzn.to/1Lmx7nq"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="color: black;">A
<i>Cry From The Deep</i></span></span></a>, when Catherine Fitzgerald sees the land
for the first time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">As if the drive wasn</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">t challenging enough, she also had to contend
with the distraction of the picture postcard scenery. Though the skies were
grey, the greens of the landscape were unlike anything she</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-ascii-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">d ever seen. It was as if God, the artist
supreme, had selected every green paint available on the market and then some.
There was kelly green, avocado, forest, willow, apple, lime, and mint. One
green flowed seamlessly into another as it </span>marched over the hills and into the beyond. She passed thatched
cottages behind old stone fences, neon coloured pubs by the roadside, and new
mansions set back on large properties. She even welcomed the times she had to
stop to let farmers cross the road with their flocks of sheep. The gentle
landscape was a welcome contrast to the frenetic pace of New York.”<span style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', sans-serif;"> </span><i>from A Cry From The Deep</i></div>
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Because<b><i> </i></b><a href="http://amzn.to/1Lmx7nq"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="color: black;"><i>A
Cry From The Deep</i></span></span></a>, is a time slip story of a love so powerful
it spans several lifetimes, it had to have ghosts and psychics. When Catherine
Fitzgerald, about to join an underwater hunt for one of the lost ships of the
Spanish Armada, buys an antique Claddagh ring, she is troubled by nightmares
and visions that set her on a path to fulfill a promise of love made centuries
before. Set in Provence, Manhattan, and Ireland, this romantic mystery exposes
not only two women’s longings, but also the
beauty of the deep, where buried treasures tempt salvagers to break the law. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks again, Siggy. I
know you love Ireland as well.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><b>Diana Stevan </b></span></div>
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For more about me, please visit me at <a href="http://www.dianastevan.com/"><span class="Link"><span style="color: black;">http://www.dianastevan.com</span></span></a>; </div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/DianaStevan"><span class="Link"><span style="color: black;">https://twitter.com/DianaStevan</span></span></a>, or my
Facebook author page at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dianastevan.author"><span class="Link"><span style="color: black;">https://www.facebook.com/dianastevan.author</span></span></a> <o:p></o:p><br />
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The
link to my book title is <span style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><a href="http://amzn.to/1Lmx7nq">http://amzn.to/1Lmx7nq</a>.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-76821715509820182332015-09-10T16:36:00.002-04:002015-09-10T16:49:23.298-04:00Helen Holt and Historical Perspective on our Legacy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: purple;">I have two posts to share with you that speak to the same topic: our legacy as Pen Women.</span></span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal;"> One is an obituary for Helen Holt, whose biography by Patricia Daly-Lipe was published this year by the Pen Women Press, and whose life story is an inspiration. As April Myers, Pen Woman Magazine editor put it, “We should have a national day of mourning” for this remarkable Pen Woman. The second post is an extensively researched article by Jacksonville Pen Woman Siggy Buckley on the NLAPW’s history. Quoting from a 1970s special centennial issue of the Pen Woman magazine, Siggy paints a beautiful portrait of some of the women who overcame adversity to give future generations (that would be US now!) a reason to be Pen Women. –Treanor Baring (editor)</span></h1>
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Helen Holt, 1913-2015</h3>
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“When it comes to doing things for others,<br />some people stop at nothing.”</center>
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These words are not just a frequent aphorism of Helen Holt. They are a true reflection of her 23 dedicated years as a public servant. Helen’s list of accolades is nothing less than remarkable. Yet the 101-year-old icon and first woman to hold a statewide-office in West Virginia was not at all shy to admit she became “a professional woman by necessity.”<br />
Helen Holt unwittingly became a trailblazer for women in the political arena. The real irony is that she never gave politics a second thought until she married the youngest U.S. senator (1935-1941) from West Virginia, Rush D. Holt, Jr. in 1941. Helen was immediately involved in her husband’s work, and Rush was quick to teach Helen “how to work with men and to feel comfortable working with them,” since she was a lone woman in a man’s world. Sadly, Rush was only 49 at the time of his death. But, despite no income (unlike today’s members of Congress), Helen was able to provide for her family when she took over Rush’s position in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Two years later, Helen was sworn in as the first female Secretary of State of West Virginia. In 1960, President Eisenhower commissioned Helen with “the task of creating a program to fix the nation’s ailing network of nursing homes” because, as Helen wrote, “they had to get a woman—no man was sufficiently interested.” Tirelessly, she carried out this job under seven consecutive United States Presidents.<br />
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Patricia Daly-Lipe<br />
District of Columbia Branch </div>
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This post was published first on our <a href="http://www.nlapw.org/" target="_blank">national Website</a> on August 5,2015.</div>
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Continue reading; Siggy's post comes next. (published ibd.)</div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-32067357046032907802015-09-08T18:09:00.001-04:002015-09-08T19:58:25.632-04:00The Legacy of Pen Women<h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Droid Serif', 'Century Gothic', Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000;">I'm a blogger and writer and an International member</span><span style="color: #1b495c;"> of the <a href="http://www.nlapw.org/" target="_blank">National League of Pen Women</a>...my byline says. So who are the Pen Women? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The National League of American Pen Women, Inc. is a professional organization of women in creative fields to support and promote creative excellence and professional standards in the Arts. The League reaches back for almost 120 years with a rich history of outstanding members and a colorful tapestry of talents in the fields of writing, art and music.</div>
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It was founded by five adventurous and ambitious writers in 1897 because the literary world they wanted to conquer as journalists was exclusively a male domain. Barred from the all-male Press Club, their indignation about such discrimination led them to act. Now there are branches all over the United States with distinguished programs such as competitions for young artists and writers to fulfill our nonprofit mission to promote the arts.</div>
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With the League’s membership expanding, it appointed a Music Committee in 1916.<br />
Pen Women have made history since their founding days: “Pen Woman Anna Kelton Wiley went to jail in 1917 with 98 other women in an attempt to convince President Woodrow Wilson of the need for Women’s Suffrage.”</div>
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25 years after its inception/foundation, the League’s artistic membership had sufficiently grown to warrant a League Art Show. One of its art members was young Vinnie Ream, the sculptor of the statue of President Abraham Lincoln still admired in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.<br />
It took until 1971, however, for women to be approved for membership in the National Press Club. “On February 22, 1971, 24 newswomen were approved for membership in the National Press Club, ending the all-male member’s tradition,” Mary Manning writes in her contribution to the Centennial Celebration Pen Woman magazine. This small version of the magazine is a priceless testimonial to the many accomplishments of the League; it gives a detailed overview of the Pen Women’s renowned history and endeavors.</div>
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In 1950, a mansion was purchased in Washington D.C which became the splendid Pen Arts Building. Within walking distance of the White House, art museums, and just down the street from the National Geographic Society, its location has a historic designation. Members are encouraged to visit it and its art collections, library and archives. Currently, there is an initiative to raise funds for needed building repairs.</div>
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The Pen Women are proud to have many famous artists of international renown like Pearl Buck and Dorothy Parker among their ranks as well as several First Ladies like Florence Kling Harding, Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Rodham Clinton who are Honorary Members.</div>
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Once a Pen Woman – always a Pen Woman. Paula Harding, journalist and author, one of our own members here in Jacksonville, FL was a distinguished member for over 50 years. She held every office except that of the Treasurer, “because she had no talent for that.” She met personally with Honorary Member Pearl Buck when she visited Jacksonville. She is the perfect example extending her hand into the community well beyond her retirement writing a newsletter for the community she lived in until, sadly, she passed away in 2013.</div>
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“It’s a good feeling to belong to an organization as established (78 years!), as large as 5,800 talented women!), and as prestigious as the League…not just the honor of being associated with some of the most talented creators.., not just the thrill of recognizing so many famous bylines…There is a delight…such a glow of admiration and affection that makes me proud to be able to say, “I am a Pen Woman” (Elizabeth Shafer, 1975).</div>
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The Centennial magazine revealed another true gem, the term Penguin and Penguin Parade referring to the husbands of the Pen Women. When attending one of their famous dinners in evening gear, what should one call the attending spouses appropriately? Liboria Romano who was president of the Manhattan branch at the time, in 1949, came up with the idea to call them Pen-guins.</div>
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So much has changed since the first communication bulletin was printed and distributed in 1916 and the first quarterly magazine was issued in 1920. (These magazines can be read in the Pen Arts archives!) These days the League has fully embraced the digital era with a wonderful, informative national website (www.NLAPW.org). Most local branches have their own websites, e.g., JaxPenwomen.com.</div>
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“In an age where striving for excellence is a rare thing, what a privilege it is to belong to THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF AMERICAN PEN WOMEN. TO THE FUTURE!” (from the Sacramento branch according to the Centennial magazine). This still holds true today. One for all and all for one, is after all, our motto.</div>
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If you're a writer, artist or create music, you may want to consider membership with us. There will be a <a href="http://www.nlapw.org/nlapw-branches/" target="_blank">branch near you</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.siggybuckley.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Siggy Buckley</a></div>
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Jacksonville Branch.<br />
This blogpost was first published on our <a href="http://www.nlapw.org/category/nlapw/" target="_blank">national website</a> August 5,2015.</div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-29812872551529269812015-07-31T18:44:00.000-04:002015-07-31T20:29:30.113-04:00"Social" Media and Reviews Don't Mix ????<br />
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<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; font-size: 21.3333339691162px; line-height: 24.5333347320557px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip6CYthUngCrmil2sE0x74Ca4JohNk5gG4-jCgZkEn9tIReLGUJ5fwhmNGACvx0IsiC4UJKVjtsQkZCKK3mRt9JTG6UkfmdMaAOG8SG2qQaUIkInK5fIN6-zvYiWvOEHJE5G19OS0bHHM/s1600/horse-head._V381534353_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip6CYthUngCrmil2sE0x74Ca4JohNk5gG4-jCgZkEn9tIReLGUJ5fwhmNGACvx0IsiC4UJKVjtsQkZCKK3mRt9JTG6UkfmdMaAOG8SG2qQaUIkInK5fIN6-zvYiWvOEHJE5G19OS0bHHM/s1600/horse-head._V381534353_.jpg" /></a> </span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; font-size: x-small; line-height: 24.5333347320557px;">(Picture is from Funny reviews by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003G4IM4S/ref=azfs_379213722_AccoutrementsHorseHeadMask_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=1E5ZH9NV3BCFP83F3GTC&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=1608755502&pf_rd_i=1001250201" style="background-color: white; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #996633; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 27px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Accoutrements Horse Head Mask</a>)<span style="background-color: white; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #858585; font-family: arial; line-height: 27px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>It’s only been a few weeks since I wrote
an article on Indies Unlimited titled <i>Amazon Steps in as Big Brother</i></b></span>
<b>http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/07/07/amazon-steps-in-as-big-brother/ </b> chronicling how Amazon has decided who can
leave customers reviews and who can not. My disappointment started when the
company began removing reviews for some of the books I bought and read. I felt
so bad about not being able to leave my customer review because I believed the
author deserved the praise. I was told via email since there is not phone
support for this department that I could not leave my review because I knew the
author.</div>
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That was odd to me because I didn’t know this author
anymore than the other nearly 700 authors I left reviews for before this. This
didn’t sit well with me and I wrote them only to get the same
computer generated response, and I quote, “We are unable to
post your review because your account activity indicates that you know the
author. We encourage family and friends to share their enthusiasm for the book
through our Customer Discussions feature or Editorial Reviews feature.”</div>
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Even though I tried to state my case I failed miserably to get
through to them as was pretty much dismissed. I knew I had to share this story
because I believed this was just the first chip of the iceberg. And surely it
was.</div>
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Since I wrote my original story things have gotten worse for me,
just last week I received a new message from Amazon stating, “We
are writing to inform you that we have removed your review privileges and
suppressed all of your reviews. Any new reviews written will automatically be
suppressed. We took this action because you have failed to comply with our
review guidelines and manipulated product reviews. For detailed information on
the guidelines, please visit: <a href="http://amazon.com/help/customer-reviews-guidelines"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="color: black;">http://amazon.com/help/customer-reviews-guidelines</span></span></a>.”<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Helvetica;">
</span>This was exactly the same message Christoph Fischer received from Amazon
months earlier. I knew my reviewing days had come to an end. It was a big
disappointment to me because not only did I spent a lot of money on all these
books I read but I had also invested a great deal of my time as well. As an
Indie author I have wanted to support others in my position and this was one
way to help. Now this was all for not. </div>
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It was bound to happen but when it did I was flooded with
feelings of disillusionment , anger, resentment, loss and messages from other
authors on Facebook concerned why my reviews for their books were no longer on
Amazon. Some took it personal thinking I had a reason for removing my reviews.
That goes to show you how important these reviews are to us. They are one of
the few rewards we receive as Indie authors because certainly most of us are
not getting rich and famous. Well, maybe some of us are. ;-)</div>
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If you haven’t, would you please sign the petition
author Jas T. Ward started to get Amazon to Change the “You Know This
Author”<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Helvetica;"> </span>Policy. It now has 13,685 supporters
and it needs 1,315 to reach 15,000.</div>
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<a href="https://www.change.org/p/amazon-com-amazon-change-the-you-know-this-author-policy?recruiter=17310278&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&rp_sharecordion_checklist=control"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span style="color: black;">https://www.change.org/p/amazon-com-amazon-change-the-you-know-this-author-policy?recruiter=17310278&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&rp_sharecordion_checklist=control</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinCq_zq4JBIgC-bA0UmPlAz8hlobftWFG84AZbzfmyxmoLXp1-X42Zemlw1r2ofLfShnJzy9OKm5_dUdv8Kh3UW5df1nXQKnOs6d_lSQGZhEsVIyhQHW-CwOpsiGGcav1vH6moaBuPs8w/s1600/Brenda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinCq_zq4JBIgC-bA0UmPlAz8hlobftWFG84AZbzfmyxmoLXp1-X42Zemlw1r2ofLfShnJzy9OKm5_dUdv8Kh3UW5df1nXQKnOs6d_lSQGZhEsVIyhQHW-CwOpsiGGcav1vH6moaBuPs8w/s200/Brenda.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<o:p><b>Brenda Perlin <a href="https://www.facebook.com/brenda.perlin?fref=ts" target="_blank">On Facebook</a></b></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr1?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Abrenda+perlin+author&keywords=brenda+perlin+author&ie=UTF8&qid=1438382500" target="_blank">Author page on Amazon</a></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-49541038225976823692015-07-24T17:24:00.004-04:002015-07-24T17:24:46.882-04:00How to Make Refreshing Elderflower Champagne - without explosions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiskigrIxUKRJTvspqBZojaG761mw7Y8MSXoThLVljpsw-MvWTiXswqeP6OtReKTtWHYv_CUF4vBB8838k5bdtQwpK-JQ29n0s1fQ7k-O66_GzxSE7Kh_d6cFdr_rXI2x37TeM65qtjnFg/s1600/elderflower2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiskigrIxUKRJTvspqBZojaG761mw7Y8MSXoThLVljpsw-MvWTiXswqeP6OtReKTtWHYv_CUF4vBB8838k5bdtQwpK-JQ29n0s1fQ7k-O66_GzxSE7Kh_d6cFdr_rXI2x37TeM65qtjnFg/s200/elderflower2.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<div class="IONormal15">
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<div class="IONormal15">
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<div class="IONormal15">
<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">Our first attempt was elderflower champagn</span>e </b>which, strictly
speaking, isn’t champagne at all. It hardly has any alcohol, yet it sparkles
and is a refreshing spritzy drink even for kids.</div>
<div class="IORecipeHeading">
Elderberry Champagne:</div>
<div class="IORecipeyoullneed">
You’ll need</div>
<div class="IORecipeIngreds" style="margin-left: 1.0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->approximately 10 liters of water</div>
<div class="IORecipeIngreds" style="margin-left: 1.0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->15 big elderflower clusters</div>
<div class="IORecipeIngreds" style="margin-left: 1.0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->¼ liter wine vinegar</div>
<div class="IORecipeIngreds" style="margin-left: 1.0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->2–3 untreated lemons</div>
<div class="IORecipeIngreds" style="margin-left: 1.0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->1 kilogram sugar.</div>
<div class="IORecipesteps">
Besides these ingredients, you need a big stone or
earthenware pot and thick-walled glass bottles, preferably old champagne
bottles that can be secured with a cork and wire. Screw tops do blow off under
pressure. Wait till you hear that story!</div>
<div class="IORecipesteps">
<br /></div>
<div class="IORecipesteps">
<span style="color: blue;">First, go for a walk </span>to cut these elderberry blossoms,
fully blown, but not over yet. Boil the water, dissolve the sugar in it and
cool down. Wash the untreated lemons in hot water and cut into slices.</div>
<div class="IORecipesteps">
Check the elderflower blossoms for little critters and
dirt. Use as much as possible from the thick green stems and then put the
blooms together with the lemon slices into the stone pot. Add the wine vinegar
to the cooled sugar water and pour over the flowers and lemons in the stone
pot. Cover with a cloth and leave in a sunny place for 4 days. Stir every day
with a wooden spoon.</div>
<br />
<div class="IORecipesteps">
Pour the liquid into the bottles; filter it through a
muslin cloth or very fine sieve. Leave 4 to 5 cm from the surface to the rim.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92wwRzw483gVYn7KkrCTDCt2sYoMZdjQnCu1yA7a_yeEHNBvZu-J4RRkJG27k1VnGZW0rbMz7MHOAPcEIX5YbiRKd3GotjJYWLqPqvJKGKzVtJdJXM0xaFLoNo2bKeatyiKFoMwsdSus/s1600/200px-Picked_Elderflower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92wwRzw483gVYn7KkrCTDCt2sYoMZdjQnCu1yA7a_yeEHNBvZu-J4RRkJG27k1VnGZW0rbMz7MHOAPcEIX5YbiRKd3GotjJYWLqPqvJKGKzVtJdJXM0xaFLoNo2bKeatyiKFoMwsdSus/s1600/200px-Picked_Elderflower.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="IORecipesteps">
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<div class="IORecipesteps">
<span style="color: blue;">Seal the bottles and secure the corks!</span> The best place to
store them is in a box. Bring to a cool place (like the basement) and leave at
least 14 days to mature (bottle fermentation). The champagne sparkles a little
already, but at maturity, there's real power, or then again sometimes not.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
The development of carbon dioxide differs from year to
year. It must depend on the weather or the condition of the blossoms. You can’t
predict the amount of CO2 in the bottle.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
So be careful when opening the first bottle, unless you
want to paint the ceiling anyway. Or even better, open the first bottle in the
garden. Elderberry champagne tastes best chilled — a great refreshing drink on
hot days.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
OK, now to that explosive story. We had started to make out
own cider. We poured it into screw-top bottles, laying them on the shelves in
out pantry. We waited patiently through the fermentation process until we could
have our first degustation (tasting). </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqxLB_C6q4Z1rYF94elY_wFZow_TXJNm6hBr5amoB79Yu6_TOjLQLhDaKzvv5TTweGexeYVRPRxSoDm9DsAyiGv7yNiGRqsoPefFp95NKuul8LtA9Ru4mGbu8XiLHdYau80vAI15POHw/s1600/1891546_872645762819985_1818358001398526967_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqxLB_C6q4Z1rYF94elY_wFZow_TXJNm6hBr5amoB79Yu6_TOjLQLhDaKzvv5TTweGexeYVRPRxSoDm9DsAyiGv7yNiGRqsoPefFp95NKuul8LtA9Ru4mGbu8XiLHdYau80vAI15POHw/s320/1891546_872645762819985_1818358001398526967_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="IONormal15">
One night, we were woken by a loud banging from downstairs.
Terrified, I clung to my husband who was a sound sleeper and had barely heard a
sound. There it was again. Another loud bang and Mac was wide awake. “Burglars,”
I whispered. He sealed his lips with his finger and grabbed the rifle he stashed
behind our wardrobe. “Stay here, I’ll go and have a look”. He made it down the
creaky staircase as quietly as he could. My heart almost stopped beating when I
heard another gun-shot like noise … and then loud laughter emanating from the
kitchen below. “You must come down and see this for yourself!”</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
“Is it safe?” By now the children were peeking from behind
their doors.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
Some of the three dozen bottles had decided to explode one
after another, creating the racket. The sticky cider was leaking down from the
shelves onto the sacks of wheat that were stored underneath. Shards scattered
everywhere and the sweet juice also stuck to the floor and windows. “Mind where
you step! I’ll get it in the morning.” I said. For weeks to come our
home-ground flour had the distinct flavor of apple and cider.</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
We never used bottle fermentation after that, and wine-making
in the following years was never as exciting.</div>
<div class="IORecipesteps">
</div>
<div class="IONormal15">
<b>Siggy Buckley</b> (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Once-Had-Farm-Ireland-Lifestyle-ebook/dp/B00WVMQ3G0/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">Excerpt from I once had a Farm in Ireland</a>) </div>
<div class="IONormal15">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8l2ueME3QDtBBE36GlxvwTvokr7Er6aqCSEx0Bk4Mkg1wTKM9eu6o9EPRGoiokwputpPImsdNDDuV03NCzOggvShWk-Atv3VHR0VhBM5JbGjiJ3LuH8o18izcbqiZL64cyRV2nB0G5sM/s1600/9781943274659_cov%25288%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8l2ueME3QDtBBE36GlxvwTvokr7Er6aqCSEx0Bk4Mkg1wTKM9eu6o9EPRGoiokwputpPImsdNDDuV03NCzOggvShWk-Atv3VHR0VhBM5JbGjiJ3LuH8o18izcbqiZL64cyRV2nB0G5sM/s320/9781943274659_cov%25288%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-49348118037231274832015-07-20T15:30:00.003-04:002015-07-20T15:30:47.073-04:00Kickstarter Project by Gary Bloom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #990000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH7YL4l9BkVhqdTEXRLRNUX15zj_VLpbbIfgFgqQ-KWGVRGeFLTKbNA07uuBUDUqHISqOwIx5da6UFhnrhBR8wSWdm2DpNN-CnzqkMBAYCucbaFhzPveFJMF9Z4OjnerUCoY9En2OoTaw/s1600/Red+Lance+Icon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH7YL4l9BkVhqdTEXRLRNUX15zj_VLpbbIfgFgqQ-KWGVRGeFLTKbNA07uuBUDUqHISqOwIx5da6UFhnrhBR8wSWdm2DpNN-CnzqkMBAYCucbaFhzPveFJMF9Z4OjnerUCoY9En2OoTaw/s320/Red+Lance+Icon.png" width="275" /></a></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">What's Red Lance? </span></b>New heroes for a new generation? A brand new comic book
that doesn't have footprints in the early 20th century? New world, new stories
and new characters from Olympus Union creator Gary Bloom? I'll take "All
of the Above for $1000 Alex!"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Red Lance was initially inspired by the #wheresnatasha campaign, which
begged the question: why is Black Widow so left out? That campaign left the
Olympus Union creator to wonder what the world would hold for for his year old
daughter. Enter Cinderhawk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Red Lance flowed out of the creation of a single female character,
Cinderhawk. 'Hawk would be strong, confident, upbeat and powerful. Based on the
personality and actual body type of a friend, this would be a character built
as a hero - and not a sex symbol - from the very beginning. It wasn't enough,
however; there needed to be level interest between men and women.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Expanding the concept, three other friends were pulled in as hero
templates. The real life brother of Cinderhawk's model became the template for
her in-story brother, Bricker. A methodical and even-keeled friend became the
template for speedster Raceway. Another woman agreed to step in as Stonefish,
lending her martial arts background to inspire another strong female character.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The comic now hand a strong super team, but needed a special villain set.
One, a brilliant technical mind, would be driven crazy by another, the villain
maker. Armed with a psionic push and a desire for fomenting chaos, Vycia
literally created Cataclysm from a lonely isolationist. As Red Lance moves
forward, we'll see more villains created by the sadistic with, whose sole joy
is the pain of others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The only way that this comic can come into play, however, is with the
support of others. Pledging to a Kickstarter will help bring this unique
storyline to fruition. Strong female characters without a need for re-imagining
ages old heroines. A chase to stop a hellacious villain maker. A brand new take
on powers - the Drenals - where powers are finite. Help make Red Lance happen.
Go here and donate: <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340355997/red-lance-comic-book-heroes-with-gender-equality"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340355997/red-lance-comic-book-heroes-with-gender-equality</span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Gary Bloom </b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340355997/red-lance-comic-book-heroes-with-gender-equality" target="_blank"><b>On Facebook </b></a></span></span></div>
</div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-56025658378527990142015-07-09T19:13:00.005-04:002015-07-09T19:18:14.676-04:00Blue Writings: Self-Doubt, Self-Reliance, and Sad Inspiration <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>This, surely,</b> <b>was the greatest test
of my writing.<br />
</b></span><br />
I am not, officially, a depression patient. (The time at the doctor's office
where I failed the test doesn't count -- who the hell circles "never"
instead of "sometimes" for Do-You-Ever-Feel-Sad questions?) There is
no clinical diagnosis attached to my mellow, melancholic nature. No significant
presence of tell-tale signs to link my off-days with WebMD-listed symptoms. No
daily feelings of worthlessness (since age 19), regular insomnia (unless it's
writing-spree-induced), or impaired concentration (well, aside from ADD-esque
tendencies). The Thinking Frown is misleading; in general, I am a happy person
-- easily pleased, easily awed.<br />
<br />
Yet some months ago, as I was finishing my final undergraduate semester, I
found myself in an odd place. Some strange little anguish had been seeping its
way into my system. Much of it was likely a simple case of Senior-Year Blues --
graduation denial, job search bargaining, the usual stages. But this little
anguish had nestled itself in other areas. It had found the guilt-producing
sector of the brain and choked out the geek-on-steroids motivation that I'm
used to. "Where is your inspiration?" it whispered. "What are
you going to write now?" </span></div>
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<br />
<br />
I had no idea how much of a transition that semester would be. I had a
significantly lighter academic load (una clase en español), and thus a lot, <i>lot</i> more
free-time. It was the first time since my sophomore year that I hadn't been in
a writing course, with some kind of paper or creative work due every week. As a
hardworking student, I thought the transition from deadlines and scary
professors to independent writing would be seamless, even welcome. <i>Think how
much more time I'll have to write,</i> I thought, <i>and how much
more freedom to write what I want.</i> I was foolish to think that. I
soon began to realize that, for the first time, I was on my own. I had no
threat of a lowered grade, no one to hold me accountable but myself. And oh sweet
mother of Faulkner, it sucked.<br />
<br />
It's a chicken-and-the-egg scenario, but whether strange little anguish caused
it or vice-versa, inspiration was scarce in those days. Who would have thought
that those nasty deadlines were actually helping to force the ideas to come?
Now the ideas lay low. Ghosts of them flickered by every so often, long enough
for me to jot a few words in <a href="http://writersgettogether.blogspot.com/2015/05/little-pink-notebook-habits-inspired-by.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1f4e79; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 128;">my notebook</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
but nothing more. On one blizzard night, I fled the house and discovered
pieces of the sky crumbling in white, and thought: <i>I have something now</i>.
But returning indoors to my laptop, the resulting strained phrases were
disheartening: they were words only, not life, not flame.<br />
<br />
This, surely, was the greatest test of my writing. To still feel dependent, to
survive a dry spell, to make my writing entirely my own. </span><br />
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When inspiration came at last, it was through somewhat unusual means. An open
invitation to students popped up on social media for participation in a small
study, involving three days of writing flanked by two in-depth surveys.
"Why not?" I thought, wishing to assuage the guilt of being
unproductive. I didn't know what to expect, especially after submitting the
20-minute pre-survey of psychoanalytical proportions. The rules were simple:
you get one prompt for all three days, then write deeply about it each day for
15-20 minutes. (Diary time. Whoopee.) The evening before Day 1, the prompt
came: write about the most upsetting experience in your life.<br />
<br />
<i>Oh.</i> Something erupted. Strange little anguish temporarily lost its
hold, and glimmers of inspiration were flashing wildly before I was even
prepared to write. <i>Oh,</i> I realized, <i>I can do that.</i> The
next morning, I got up earlier than usual, grabbed a notebook, and wrote the
first day's work. These were handwritten notes, not prettied-up. No delete
button, no stopping to look up words in the thesaurus. No limitations except to
explore my feelings deeply. When I finished, I hesitantly put down the pen and
sat back, looking down in shock at the scrawled notes.<br />
<br />
<i>Oh my God. I just wrote something good.</i><br />
<br />
Feeling like I'd stepped off a roller-coaster, I glanced over at the clock,
wondering where the time had gone. Oddly, in the rush of energy, I didn't
question the possibility of what just occurred. I didn't ask how I was finally
able to break the cycle after months of wordlessness. Because somehow, in the
settling calm, I knew the answer.<br />
<br />
This, surely, is the greatest test of my writing. To write about sadness. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirnVJeOeU7Tj_PL5xU12oieP1-j2xCiMUBk4dwWCs6XbxU_F2ReqSKBGXdb_I0PjggEBYmA7mRVJyH7SVWCfFLyqjyrvCWhMjpZFTUXnebyWrK4EHrgL5UrxOnsxy8rw3-jr-ExcdwhNw/s1600/76_Sadness_Churner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirnVJeOeU7Tj_PL5xU12oieP1-j2xCiMUBk4dwWCs6XbxU_F2ReqSKBGXdb_I0PjggEBYmA7mRVJyH7SVWCfFLyqjyrvCWhMjpZFTUXnebyWrK4EHrgL5UrxOnsxy8rw3-jr-ExcdwhNw/s320/76_Sadness_Churner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Inspiration doesn't want to come to me in pretty things, not right now. With
strange little anguish in my skull, I could only write by indulging it (in
it?), by channeling that despair toward the page. I was forced to dig deep
through that despair and find it in past forms -- my age 19 feelings of
worthlessness, my writing insomnia miseries, the trenches that carved and
twisted me into a sad little person who needed writing (and eventually, into
the easily-awed writer I am today). Is it a sorry predicament that <a href="http://antiquedwriter.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-art-of-pain.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1f4e79; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 128;">pain is the easiest thing to write about</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">? No, not right now. That's what's growing and growling most
strongly in me at the moment, so best to feed it while it's here.<br />
<br />
This, surely, is the greatest test of my writing. To live with despair a little
while. To ride out the storm.</span><br />
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<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Emma Moser </b></span></div>
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<b>Blog: <a href="http://antiquedwriter.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">antiquedwriter.blogspot.com</span></a></b></div>
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</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">Twitter: @em_mo_write</span></b></div>
<b>
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<span style="font-size: 9.5pt;">Facebook.com/antiquedwriter</span></div>
</b></div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-27234450394299753942015-06-29T17:19:00.002-04:002015-06-29T22:27:54.116-04:00Marketing Your Book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: purple;"><b>The book launch is over!</b></span> My baby got off to a fantastic start thanks to all who were involved:<br />
16 faithful FB friends promoted my new release.<br />
<br />
At the weekend I attended a lecture on "Marketing your book." First up I learned that I should have done this long before my book was even finished. In case you stumble and fumble around as I did, I am recommending strongly to do this when you have plenty of time ahead.<br />
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marketing
and communications consultant, <b>RaffaellaMarie Fenn</b> offered a seven step approach
to sell more books, and she revealed the details in her presentation,
“Marketing Matters—Seven Steps to Getting Your Book into Readers
Hands.” In <i>Marketing Matters<b>,</b></i> Marie presented
these practical ideas published authors can put to work immediately. Here's the gist:</span></div>
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· Learn
to write an actionable marketing plan that will increase your chances of book
sales.</div>
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· Unearth
your own unique “brand” and then use it in every aspect of your book marketing
efforts.</div>
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· Discover
audience segments that will help light a fire to your book sales.</div>
<br />
You may have a wonderful idea for a book, even have written a fantastic manuscript but have you identified your target audience? If you're writing for a niche market, you want to target that in your further marketing and advertising plans. Plan a year ahead where you give talks, readings, signings etc.<br />
<br />
Filling in her hand-outs will keep me busy for awhile. They ask probing questions which I are not entirely clear in my head after the fact of having published several books. If you are like me, you probably stumble along and pick up tips and ideas up along the way.<br />
<br />
Here's the opinion of a friend, the inimitable Sam Murphy, author of several self-help books:<br />
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<br />
As difficult and exhausting as writing can be, nothing compares to the challenges and sheer misery of self publishing. Just the huge numbers of electronic avenues makes this experience quite daunting. (I run into that word quite often). And as many of us have come to realize, it's not just the sheer numbers of Internet sites, it's the TIME you need to spend on them to make yourself credible. That's the REAL killer. I'll spend at minimum, a full day agonizing over THIS composition.<br />
And so we Google: “How do I promote my new book?” Up comes millions of sites with easy sounding names, like “How to Sell a Million Books With One Click of a Button,” or “Make sure you become a member of the following 438 sites you can post on to make you book a bestseller,” and “Here’s a complete list of book bloggers that will review your book and make you wildly successful.”<br />
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Of course, The “One Click of a Button” leads you to websites that are impossible to navigate and probably useless, but for the sake of just one sale, for the next day or two, down the rabbit hole you go. The 438 sites? Let’s just politely say that it’s not that they are not interested in your life; they are just interested in theirs a little more. And then there’s the bloggers who will review your books - for only $29.99, but it will take about 3 months, and they have so many restrictions, and they always seem to be yelling at you, but that’s OK because most of them no longer exist or they inform you that they are not accepting new submissions until the Fall of 2015. <br />
<br />
<br />
So here you are, all excited and duly proud of yourself for having completed something that you devoted weeks, months, even years to and you can't even get your sister to buy one and give it a five star rating on Amazon. You should be having this HUGE celebration with all your friends. Instead, you're fumbling around like a teenager in the back seat of your old man's Chevy, trying to add some kind of Pin to a Board on a site that you REALLY don't care about, and then Googling one inactive “Will review your book for free” site after another. And it's TWO O'CLOCK IN THE GODDAMN MORNING!<br />
<br />
But you've checked your numbers and you're 497,364 in Amazon's Best Seller Rank. So you text and you tweet. You create a fan page. You blog. You Skype. You Pin, and you Tumble. You contact every "friend" you have, and have them contact every “friend” they have, and every “friend” they have, and so on down the line. "Yes," they say, "I'll get me a copy of that new book you just published. I'm gonna read it, review it, and give it a whole passel of stars." Two days later and now you're 798,621. in Amazon's Best Seller Rank.<br />
And so you text and tweet some more looking for support and ideas. But as much advice as you get; you write. I consider myself a writer. Maybe not a very lucid one at the moment, but a writer nonetheless. I have stories inside of me. Having them stay there while I attend to other business only makes them fester and this will ultimately lead to some really bad juju.<br />
By nature I am not a tweeter or a texter, a Pinner, or Tumbler. I don't try to StumbleOnto anything. Don't much care for Skyping, and I secretly hate all of my "friends" on Facebook.<br />
So here I sit, trying to promote my book on one more site, and it's now 3 o'clock in the Goddamn morning. I just keep repeating to myself, "I'm a writer..., this will work..., I'm a writer, this will work..., I'm a writer…"<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Siggy-Buckley/e/B004N1FV9W" target="_blank"><b>Siggy Buckley</b></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Murphy/e/B0034PZC1A/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1435612318&sr=1-2-ent" target="_blank"><b>Sam Murphy</b></a><br />
PS. Strangely enough I couldn't find Raffella Marie Fenn on Amazon...</div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-46492976467434880062015-06-18T16:19:00.002-04:002015-06-22T12:18:07.257-04:00Feng Shui for Writers Blog Tour<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
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<a href="http://www.mcsimonwrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/feng-shui-for-writers-book-tour.jpg"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Book
Details</span></b></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Title: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Feng
Shui For Writers</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Series: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How
To Master Your Life</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Author: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">M.C.
Simon</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Genre: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Non-Fiction</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Format: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Paperback
and Kindle</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Length: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">152
pages</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Publication Date: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">June
16, 2015</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Publisher: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IML
Publishing</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Regular Price: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$7.99
Kindle</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Synopsis</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">DISCOVER
HOW TO MASTER YOUR WRITING LIFE</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sigrun/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy86X15dZrDf4FYSyRlk8ArcviPvcSPTnktG-sV1Di0L4P7PHSRFScC60Lk9tKpZfstxSd5087jjPfHUJIw2UDbtX612YZkVSRrfo76ufivq1w6jIQslf7eWZWoHIgKPb8iS3Vdhb-TXw/s1600/feng-shui-for-writers-how-to-write-creatively-guide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy86X15dZrDf4FYSyRlk8ArcviPvcSPTnktG-sV1Di0L4P7PHSRFScC60Lk9tKpZfstxSd5087jjPfHUJIw2UDbtX612YZkVSRrfo76ufivq1w6jIQslf7eWZWoHIgKPb8iS3Vdhb-TXw/s320/feng-shui-for-writers-how-to-write-creatively-guide.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FENG
SHUI FOR WRITERS</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> provides all the dots that you have
to connect to control the flowing Chi for each writing category. What is
harmony for a romantic novel writer is different from what is harmony for a
journalist writer, and for sure very different than for the writer writing for
the horror domain. To bring the Feng Shui technique into the writer's life, it
is not enough to merely explain general principles and ideas; we have to dig
deeper because the branches of writing are so numerous.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="" size="2" style="color: grey;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Find
Out HOW TO:</span></b></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Attract productivity, successful publishing and money
using Feng Shui</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Overcome writer's block with Feng Shui help</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Organize your writing place to achieve your goals</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Influence your writing life through colors</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Use crystals for creative writing</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Use lighting to Feng Shui your writing space</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Choose the plants that will boost your creativity</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Influence your "writer's zone" and the
creative mind</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Boost your children's creativity (yes… children are
young writers also)</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And much more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Buy
Links</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">6.2 - THE WRITER'S ZONE</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwdMx9JhMnqURJ5nijrpT-vXu1KVDuyaNeh2MuYxm9n8bW9UWVJDdFZR9q-Z9jjZV_FlOUX3M3GJ6TJTxJ3bdtgoNzye6dwMxGLjgHmhyJKIB2yf6-7EFv6xvjAuDFkZ7Cme0RUwMoF_c/s1600/feng-shui-for-writers-mentoring-and-coaching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwdMx9JhMnqURJ5nijrpT-vXu1KVDuyaNeh2MuYxm9n8bW9UWVJDdFZR9q-Z9jjZV_FlOUX3M3GJ6TJTxJ3bdtgoNzye6dwMxGLjgHmhyJKIB2yf6-7EFv6xvjAuDFkZ7Cme0RUwMoF_c/s320/feng-shui-for-writers-mentoring-and-coaching.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
understand what a writer's zone is, you must first experience the previous
state called a writer's block. Then and only then will you understand how you
can face it and how you can move to the writer's zone. This zone is exactly the
opposite of a writer's block; it is the optimal phase in which a writer can
find himself. It is the phase in which Chi flows freely on the writer's path,
the creativity is boosted and the writing productivity reaches maximum level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having
knowledge about both states, a writer's block and a writer's zone, you can save
the wasted time between these two phases.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
are some elements that influence your entering into this zone.</span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of these is your location.
Depending on where you live, you must find a writing environment that boosts
your writing mood. Find a place suitable for you that you feel relaxed in
and totally prepared to let the words flow.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Take a walk in the park or the
woods, go for a drive on a long unpopulated road. Don't forget to take the
camera with you and take pictures that will help you relax the next time
you need to enter into the writer's zone without having to walk again. A
walk in a quiet and relaxing place is a good Feng Shui method to
un-clutter your mind of stress.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Do some brainstorming for your
future book; try to prepare a good plot for your novel. Do some research
on the theme that you want to write about.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Avoid emails, other online
temptations, phones and any other distractions that are blocking the Chi
flow of your creativity and productivity.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Listen to some music and
prepare a playlist with your favorite relaxing songs. Use this list until
it becomes a habit that is helping you enter into the writer's zone.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Breathe! Yes, breathe. Fill
your lungs with fresh air until they expand to the point where they touch,
take a small pause then exhale slowly. Learn to breathe again, so the good
Chi also enters your body.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Burn some incense and use
aromatic lamps for fragrance.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Find a writing retreat in your
area. Make it a part of your writing process. This will always get you
into the zone. There are two kinds of retreats: solo retreats (suitable
for writers who prefer solitude far away from any distractions including
other writers) and group retreats (provides a chance for face to face
group brainstorming). The best writing retreats are those that include
both solo and group retreats. When you go to a writing retreat, be sure
that you are applying the Feng Shui principles in that place also (you can
even take a Bagua map with you).</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If your mind feels unclear in
ideas, use a yellow vase where you place orange flowers. This will boost
the intensity of your writing and will give you the necessary clarity.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don't forget to always include
the water element in your space.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Avoid too many electronic
devices in the moments when you write because they will drain your energy,
and soon you'll have to face another writer's block.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hang a wooden chime near you so
its movement will activate any stagnant Chi.</span></li>
</ul>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Previously
Published Excerpts</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.mcsimonwrites.com/who-is-a-writer/" target="_blank" title="Who Is A Writer?"><span style="color: blue;">Who Is A Writer?</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.mcsimonwrites.com/3-things-you-should-do-before-using-feng-shui/" target="_blank" title="3 Things You Should Do Before Using Feng Shui"><span style="color: blue;">3 Things You Should Do Before Using Feng Shui</span></a>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">About
the Author</span></b></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1NzdavUSiLt-PXrFmAiYcE8qqrx7uWvnBTt0F9xJkCVN9RnRd5nBFDItVJetNp4jIFAI9JdgdszPzC_YYZ2cHb8CBRPkcz5OTcO-U6ZnSJ5KuYEJ1SIq3f_kf9MrWUyMxJQsAAAljf1A/s1600/author-mc-simon-feng-shui-authorship.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1NzdavUSiLt-PXrFmAiYcE8qqrx7uWvnBTt0F9xJkCVN9RnRd5nBFDItVJetNp4jIFAI9JdgdszPzC_YYZ2cHb8CBRPkcz5OTcO-U6ZnSJ5KuYEJ1SIq3f_kf9MrWUyMxJQsAAAljf1A/s1600/author-mc-simon-feng-shui-authorship.png" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sigrun/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Writer, translator, engineer, researcher, project manager,
blogger, eternal student... these are only a few words to describe MC Simon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She
strongly believes that energy is ours to use freely, and we need only to open
our hearts to regain the lost perception of our true powers. She thinks that
when the student is ready, the teacher appears. For this reason, M.C. Simon has
never hunted the information but rather waited for the right moment when she
would be ready for the information to find her. In the same way, she knows that
when someone needs her, the Universe will proceed in such a way that the
meeting will take place.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/Sigrun/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Contact
The Author</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/M.C.-Simon/e/B00YWK2HFU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=mcsimon-20&linkId=6BJ6S6YYJRGF7WTL" target="_blank" title="MC Simon Amazon Author Page"><span style="color: blue;">Amazon
Author Page</span></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.mcsimonwrites.com/" target="_blank" title="MCSimon Writes Website"><span style="color: blue;">MCSimonWrites.com</span></a>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.fengshuiforwriters.com/" target="_blank" title="Feng Shui For Writers Website"><span style="color: blue;">FengShuiForWriters.com</span></a>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/MC-Simon/526773840785287" target="_blank" title="M.C. Simon Author Facebook Fan Page"><span style="color: blue;">Facebook
Fan Page</span></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://twitter.com/mcsimonwrites" target="_blank" title="@MCSimonWrites Twitter"><span style="color: blue;">Twitter</span></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MCSimonWrites/" target="_blank" title="MCSimonWrites GooglePlus"><span style="color: blue;">GooglePlus</span></a>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcsimonwrites" target="_blank" title="M.C. Simon LinkedIn"><span style="color: blue;">LinkedIn</span></a>
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Giveaway</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Giving
away a copy of "Feng Shui For Writers" E-book to 10 lucky winners. :)
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e3a487f42/"><span style="color: blue;">a Rafflecopter giveaway</span></a></span></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-52663767127194447892015-06-03T14:00:00.000-04:002015-06-16T10:04:50.472-04:00How to Do a Book Launch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>You finally finished your book</b></span>, edited and all. I mean really finished: have a stunning cover and, with pride, you hold the copy in your hands. Now what? How to get it out and spread the word?<br />
Writers who have a traditional publisher needn't read further.<br />
For us Indie authors, so called self-pub'd authors, here the real struggle begins.Marketing is the key-word that you should have learned along the way to publication.<br />
FB is a good start, get your book on Goodreads is advisable from day one. With my first book I didn't know that.<br />
Another author wrote the other day she was hosting a launch party in some cafe/pub/maybe bookstore and offered finger-food and a glass of wine. That sounded lovely but doesn't seem to be a viable option for me. FB launch parties were fashionable for a while. If I only had attended one, I would have a clearer picture in my head!<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1447546381460796864" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.mcsimonwrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/feng-shui-for-writers-how-to-write-creatively-guide.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Wondering what else to do I send press releases to the local papers and TV and radio stations who featured me before about my other publications. As luck would have it, one of my FB friends is launching her new book on the same day. I had picked 16 June or Bloomsday because of its Irish affiliation. It's not exactly a holiday in Ireland but great fun for those who know about it and dress up for the occasion to retrace Leopold Bloom's steps in Dublin. (The protagonist of Ulysses by James Joyce. For further info, especially which pubs are involved, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday" target="_blank">see <span style="color: blue;">Wikipedia</span></a><span style="color: blue;">.</span>) Not that I have aspirations even to be mentioned in connection with him; nor did I read the whole book. On my last trip to Dublin, I happened to run into revelers and it was fun.<br />
My FB friend mentions to send her a mediakit if I want her to get involved.<br />
How did I make it through several books without one? Putting all other chores and obligations aside, I looked for guidelines for a mediakit and got help again from FB fellow writers.<br />
The incredible KS Brooks offers a solution by sending me a link to her fantastic website<span style="color: blue;"> <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.indiesunlimited.com/" target="_blank">Indies Unlimited</a></span> </span>and the answer to my question how to put such a kit together. Check it out if you haven't done so yet: <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/04/07/how-to-make-an-author-media-kit/" target="_blank">Indies Unlimited</a></span>.<br />
With this power tool at the ready, I can approach fellow writers and bloggers and ask for help. So together we do a blog tour.<br />
My friend, however, is only starting on the launch date, whereas I decided to create some build-up to the launch date. Also, she offers her book for free on Kindle for a number of days. There is an old German saying: You only make money on the things you don't give away for free. I tried that before and it was not convincing to me. There were 1300+ downloads of my book for free and only 1, yes one!, sale after that for the longest time.<br />
24 hours later, I'm exhausted but I have gotten almost every date between now and the 16th covered thanks to some marvelous people I met on various writers sites, in particular <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/masterkoda/982468308460442/?notif_t=like" target="_blank">MasterKoda</a>. And among them is yet another lady who launches her book that day! All of that is so exciting! I'm intensely grateful for the help I got all around.<br />
Watch this space and everything that goes on on FB! If you have tips for me, please leave a comment or email them to me. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgao4547jMWNGrLrlkqB2B5wSr576R2gjo9mxYln7XCPN4eK8EqJhyphenhyphen_JOxWdi_j1IGq1w-XI3z0eTrwgunjHADtqs0vszrbiDX1O1YU75qHlOyGCdKhuNMe2CWkW5FbK3QpqrLE9J-lClE/s1600/9781943274659_cov%25288%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgao4547jMWNGrLrlkqB2B5wSr576R2gjo9mxYln7XCPN4eK8EqJhyphenhyphen_JOxWdi_j1IGq1w-XI3z0eTrwgunjHADtqs0vszrbiDX1O1YU75qHlOyGCdKhuNMe2CWkW5FbK3QpqrLE9J-lClE/s320/9781943274659_cov%25288%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: blue;"><b><a href="http://www.siggybuckley.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Siggy Buckley</a></b></span><br />
Available on Amazon: <a href="http://amzn.to/1H19iCw" target="_blank">Kindle</a> for $2.99<br />
Paperback $12.80 after Bloomsday-- link to follow!</div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-80731357746972177842015-05-24T00:00:00.000-04:002015-05-24T09:14:41.568-04:00Little Pink Notebook: Habits Inspired by Mary Olive <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>"For
at least thirty years, and at almost all times, I have carried a
notebook with me, in my back pocket. It has always been the same kind of
notebook -- small, three inches by five inches, and hand-sewn. By no
means do I write poems in these notebooks. And yet over the years, the
notebooks have been laced with phrases that eventually appear in poems.
So, they are the pages upon which I begin."</i></div>
<br />
~ Mary Oliver, "Pen and Paper and a Breath of Air" <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>As
an antiquarian at heart</b></span>, there are few writers in the contemporary
world with whom I can relate. A notable exception -- one who I've come
to appreciate as a great heroine of the literary world -- is Mary
Oliver. Though she is best known as a poet, I confess that I have
actually not yet been acquainted with her poetry. But her nonfiction is
brilliant. If I could make my writing look like any author's in the
world, it would be hers. Last summer, I encountered a little book of
essays by her in a small bookstore. (Actually, it was a whole shelf, and
with a skimpy wallet I had to struggle to settle for one selection.)
The collection I bought was called Blue Pastures, and within days I had
devoured all its words and wisdom. Oliver is an absolute sage in
presenting the writer's day-to-day existence. Her essays in <i>Blue
Pastures</i> are very much about the process and journey of being a writer.
What I loved most about them was their eloquent manner of portraying the
writer's life as something intimate, something contemplative. We see
her at her desk frowning at interruptions, or outside wandering the
wilderness, or as a young girl absorbing Whitman -- and always as a
reflective, almost prayerful kind of scholar. It as though her whole
daily universe was writing: the observation, the inspiration, the
creation of it. In this sense, she has shown the habitualness of
writing, how much it must saturate the writer's every moment. One essay
in particular stood out to me: "Pen and Paper and a Breath of Air,"
which provides excerpts of a small pocket notebook she keeps for moments
of inspiration. For about a year now, I've kept a similar notebook --
mine pink and tattered from being stuffed haphazardly in purses and
backpacks of all capacities. Whenever a phrase haunts me, or a certain
sight I pass strikes me, I whip it out to jot down whatever words I can
to record the idea. (This usually occurs while driving; I can't tell you
how many times I've had to pull over to write even two words down.) In
reading "Pen and Paper," I was glad to see this tradition validated by
another, established writer. But more importantly, it struck me how much
Oliver and I share -- if I dare presume so much -- in regards to the
dailiness of our writing. There is no moment, to my knowledge, when the
writing process stops for me; it is always happening. True, the times I
physically sit down to write are relatively sparse. My perfectionist
nature is such that the actual practice of putting words into a word
document is one to which I must devote an entire day -- hence, it is not
a frequent ritual. But for me, writing is more than simply that one
step of physical production. It's a habit, an addiction, a constant mode
of mind. I see sunlight -- I appreciate. I read a book -- I
contemplate. I hear a phrase in my mind -- I am inspired. These are the
necessary steps in writing, which take about 80% of the entire
procedure. What is finally written, what finally goes on paper (or, on
the computer) is something I've <br />
accumulated throughout the day.
The process never stops. To be an artist -- and I truly mean be, in
terms of identity and existence -- one's artmaking must never end. It
must be the lens through which one sees and feels everything, even if
only on the subconscious level. It ought to permeate every aspect of our
life. It is very much like being in love: even when we are not
physically embracing our beloved, love never clocks out, it is always
there. Oliver's habits as a notebook-carrying writer – her constancy in
artmaking, her series of endless daily rituals – comprise a way of life I
have yet to perfect. Yet it’s one I am striving for always. Or rather,
better to say that my environment is demanding it always.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUmBxa-xB6x4GylUo1My4SgIJjZ6_B-77wNdzdEPJyGTT4g9hdIpNzOeEqhHyzNkEes8XFPkcoxy8retQJQvWD0sJk3rjASeK9FF4eJqZdTqjH3Gbt-6_5wqQoPKxCOT9vS2uXU1n1rI/s1600/VWoolf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUmBxa-xB6x4GylUo1My4SgIJjZ6_B-77wNdzdEPJyGTT4g9hdIpNzOeEqhHyzNkEes8XFPkcoxy8retQJQvWD0sJk3rjASeK9FF4eJqZdTqjH3Gbt-6_5wqQoPKxCOT9vS2uXU1n1rI/s1600/VWoolf.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
To quote
another recent favorite female author, Virginia Woolf -- that
frustrating but magnificently deep writer of the unconscious --
"Passing, glimpsing, everything seems accidentally but miraculously
sprinkled with beauty" ("Street Haunting"). Everything I encounter calls
for attention. Every image on the street is a detail -- who's to say
how vital a detail -- in a story I don't know. Every stranger or even
friend I pass by, as I catch snippets of their conversation or notice an
expression on their face, is carrying a life-story, one that I will
probably never know to the full -- yet, "into each of these lives one
could penetrate a little way." These observations are fragments,
fragments of stories everywhere. Pieces that the writer gathers and ties
together to make something whole out of it all. At the end of the day,
every fragment of my life is a piece of the story I am longing to write.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><b>Emma Moser</b></span><br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/antiquedwriter" target="_blank">Meet her on Facebook </a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/em_mo_write" target="_blank">and Twitter</a></div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-33280911416279915002015-05-21T01:00:00.000-04:002015-05-21T13:18:55.889-04:00GET STARTED RIGHT <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4yA-256hnQ89LPNAHmdZrZpmmApBv1VqjPwR-HMnObDURdp-Dq9kYM1K5r6r5K9WNndNdoADmFCgH-7y6dTRvfGFAaHzavAR6RLutvfscFlRxodhVBeZdQZwUCoPiwUp3-X1s6wpt70/s1600/Linton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4yA-256hnQ89LPNAHmdZrZpmmApBv1VqjPwR-HMnObDURdp-Dq9kYM1K5r6r5K9WNndNdoADmFCgH-7y6dTRvfGFAaHzavAR6RLutvfscFlRxodhVBeZdQZwUCoPiwUp3-X1s6wpt70/s320/Linton.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">I keep thinking</span></b> the debates on “self vs. traditional publishing” are
over, but I still see a lot of new writers making horrible mistakes. <br />
Instead of realizing that: <br />
--It’s
not really a “versus”: you can do both, do neither, do the whole thing
smart or stupid. The important thing is to get out there and get
readers, hopefully without losing your pants doing so. <br />
--Money up
front is a dangerous gamble. This is one of the obvious problems with
“vanity publishing”—paying somebody money you hope to get back on sales
(unlikely) instead of a press that invests in your work and takes
profit from your later sales. But the same thinking goes for laying out
thousands of dollars for editing or artwork or formatting, having been
convinced that it will “sell your book” and you’ll get the money back in
sales. (Slim chance.) <br />
--You have to follow up. You have to
promote your book. Nobody else is going to do it for you unless they
charge you money up front for the least worthwhile author “service”. <br />
--Buying
into all the “rules” left over from traditional publishing and not
applicable to what you will be doing—selling ebooks off amazon and other
eTailers. There are no back cover blurbs (or back covers), no advance
copies, no store browsers, no interior design. <br />
<br />
If you
are still new to what lies past finishing your manuscript, let me
suggest that you take a look at this fun, possibly helpful,
<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://books.noisetrade.com/lintonrobinson/little-red-book-quotations-from" target="_blank">“revolutionary” free ebook</a>.</span> <br />
<br />
If you have figured out
that you want to go commando indie, this guide to bridging the gap
between MS and reader base might be a big help.<br />
<b>Read Linton's interesting bio on his website: <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://linrobinson.com/">http://linrobinson.com</a>/</span></b><br />
<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://linrobinson.com/" target="_blank"><b>Linton Robinson</b></a></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Linton-Robinson/e/B002BLP59C/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1300424293&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><b>Lin's Amazonpage </b></a></span></div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-33238266234084918532015-05-17T00:30:00.000-04:002015-05-17T09:26:30.424-04:00Land of Mist and Moon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Below is the poem that was just published in the Pen Women anthology <i>Poems of the Super Moon</i> for consideration as a Poem of the week.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IVAdAnsDyWaQMZaRPR-gH3vnPqK8OUxBn9rohiseWXuMjTlYLkTKwT55Fi2iXfjvUPF-R2BOvje2AjVj-tmTmyAE2d1EsOVRsdkumJEx0Sam4MmC-0AFLSVMpcxFONMne6wfm1E7_pk/s1600/dorothy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IVAdAnsDyWaQMZaRPR-gH3vnPqK8OUxBn9rohiseWXuMjTlYLkTKwT55Fi2iXfjvUPF-R2BOvje2AjVj-tmTmyAE2d1EsOVRsdkumJEx0Sam4MmC-0AFLSVMpcxFONMne6wfm1E7_pk/s1600/dorothy.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Land of mist and moon,</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> snow
and flower,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">song-like sounds of the wind</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> shiver
through trees,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">shaking moonlight and moonlit patterns</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> on
blue white snow,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">glittering glaze and shadow shapes --</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> midnight
artistic masterpiece.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cowering in shadow with bent head,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> a
snowdrop sees only a snowy landscape,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">yet a symbol of hope and of death; </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">close to the ground where death lingers </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">underneath snow-packed
cemeteries, </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">where layers of dead, dried leaves --</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">autumn leftovers
--</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">protect root systems that will come alive</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> with
the spring thaw.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Before sun replaces moonlight</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">a mist moves in
and settles,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">curls up like a cat on a fleece blanket</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> dreaming
of a land of mist and moon,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> snow
and flower.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dorothy Kamm</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
Member-at-large of <a href="http://nlapw.org/">NLAPW.org</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The National League of American Pen Women </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">was founded by five adventurous and ambitious women writers in 1897 because the
literary world they wanted to conquer as journalists was exclusively a male
domain. Barred from the all-male Press Club, their indignation about such
discrimination against women made them decide to do something about it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now there are branches all over the United
States. Check us out!</span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-40180637681185700562015-05-14T17:23:00.001-04:002015-05-14T20:00:51.400-04:00Landscape Gardening with CARE <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><b>Landscape Gardening</b></span> is no longer simply a job of creating a well planned garden, grading the terrain, and then executing a plan of what to plant where. The 21st century brought about its own environmental necessities and eco-demands that have to be taken into account.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgln3Uv_m3adeIDTFGTNahdgmDmz66YdYqtB4MixbGT-51gHUx-CKHR4wMKS8yMXGHJChm2wzCRCFWU7jjat_GO8OaL4YRp-fM_reEAg0ibfIP5oguzOhWgetYhRmyaJJytqMrxCjnC1-g/s1600/Landscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgln3Uv_m3adeIDTFGTNahdgmDmz66YdYqtB4MixbGT-51gHUx-CKHR4wMKS8yMXGHJChm2wzCRCFWU7jjat_GO8OaL4YRp-fM_reEAg0ibfIP5oguzOhWgetYhRmyaJJytqMrxCjnC1-g/s320/Landscape.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>
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Through
combining workshop style assignments with research and ‘hands-on’
experience, the Wright Scoop takes readers through a process that uses
site plats to create landscape/gardens which respect an existing vista,
preserving and enhancing its eco health. For any style landscape should
not simply be a result of traditional design but be the right plant,
installed in the right place at the right (optimal) planting season -
creating eco-legacies of landscape green, sustainable urban/suburban
communities which enhance green space for today and future generations. </div>
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Project Back Ground</div>
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The
challenge for present-day homeowners, gardeners or Industry
professionals is to be naturalists with a "waste not, want not"
ecological commitment: become stewards of the land, caretakers for their
environmental communities. Through ‘hands on’ research, Wright
identified tips and strategies which enable the who, why, where, what,
how and when of landscape gardening - </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Who</b>:
Understand the factors which influence a landscape gardening
perspective; and then, describe it in terms of someone who presently
does and/or desires to 'dig in the dirt'.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Why</b>:
Define landscape gardens more in terms of a mission, a lofty
perspective such as 'green' - 'providing for present-day needs without
sacrificing the future'.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Where</b>: Location, location, location – conduct a site analysis which identifies climate and physical constraints.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What</b>: Combing the 'who, why and where' influence a landscape garden plan, develop goal statements which describe a proposed site.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">How</b>: List activities that accomplish the identified goals.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When</b>:
Using the 'what and how' activities, identify recommended installation
time-frame as well as recommended maintenance time-frame; and then,
create a landscape gardening schedule.</div>
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Enable
readers of her research to become known as a person who enables an
eco-legacy of CARE - conservation, accountability, recovery and
eco-efficiency.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSMNhKaT5xcg1ABQTp0hinaa6SA1It1DIv1UIdPCK0Bn2u2weRJlQxgMQxcGLqtrW7flsVG3OFcSFo_QEOFQaoJb9k-PYrO6bBFzodXK1u-H75XrqZ-ASiMO1-IiFXvPmhOuEXazjMjfs/s1600/Syliva+H..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSMNhKaT5xcg1ABQTp0hinaa6SA1It1DIv1UIdPCK0Bn2u2weRJlQxgMQxcGLqtrW7flsVG3OFcSFo_QEOFQaoJb9k-PYrO6bBFzodXK1u-H75XrqZ-ASiMO1-IiFXvPmhOuEXazjMjfs/s200/Syliva+H..jpg" width="173" /> </a></div>
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<a href="http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-richmond/sylvia-wright" target="_blank"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.examiner.com/gardening-in-richmond/sylvia-wright" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Sylvia Hoehns Wrigh</span>t</a> <span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">is a nationally recognized eco-advocate, contributing writer and communications specialist; in her spare time she is a passionate historian and member of the American League of Pen Women.(www.NLAPW.org). </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> As founder of the ‘Plants of CARE’ plant recognition program and
recipient of the Turning America from Eco-weak to Eco-chic award , the
Wright Scoop – Sylvia Hoehns Wright seeks to inspire people to create an
eco-legacy of CARE, a perspective of conservation, accountability,
recovery and eco-efficiency – ‘green’ America’s landscape! To review
and/or acquire copy, link to Sylvia's store <a href="http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/syhwright" target="_blank">http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/syhwright</a> or for details of Wright's eco advocacy, visit web site <a href="http://www.thewrightscoop.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">www.TheWrightScoop.com</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="mailto:Sylvia@TheWrightScoop.com" target="_blank"></a></span></span> <br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">In his review<b> Den Gardner</b>, executive director of Project EverGreen, says:"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Wright’s
eco-chic advocacy embodies every aspect of the consumer education
campaign we hoped to inspire. For, our vision is to become a global
organization that empowers people within communities to change society
through the responsible creation and preservation of sustainable green
spaces, such that the ever-increasing impacts of global warming in the
world are measurably reduced; because Green Matters! </span></div>
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-23007924420347408722015-05-01T17:45:00.002-04:002015-05-02T17:14:54.519-04:00The Art of Self-Publishing -- Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjYMDjEFaNLaGOH8MvLWSpfUAodFmGrC6DNK3lukmHKefzG4GAOmY9HCdsGa-QMYD3f1ANQ7hiLauDRkgMF3dzdnbEURuQZqXmZmI_zMmJie53z-gHiHW-IMgdfKyssVLK1R7LhTVpC3E/s1600/9781943274659_cov(8).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjYMDjEFaNLaGOH8MvLWSpfUAodFmGrC6DNK3lukmHKefzG4GAOmY9HCdsGa-QMYD3f1ANQ7hiLauDRkgMF3dzdnbEURuQZqXmZmI_zMmJie53z-gHiHW-IMgdfKyssVLK1R7LhTVpC3E/s1600/9781943274659_cov(8).jpg" height="290" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>So you have written a book and want to launch your baby</b></span> out into the world? With my first book <i>Next Time Lucky</i> I went through all the hoops to find an agent. After over 100 polite "No thank yous", a "very timely novel, but..." and some other gentle turn-me downs while encouraging my fresh writing style, I thought I had hit the jack pot. An agent from CA called me on a Saturday around lunch time --early in LA! She was even more excited than I was mentioning film rights! She just knew the right people in the industry and the perfect actress - Goldie Hawn- to play my protagonist, the matchmaker from Dublin.<br />
<br />
With all the excitement, I totally forgot the migraine I was nursing. My best friend and mentor, Millie (RIP), found my good fortune this reason enough to send me a bouquet of flowers congratulating me on my imminent success and fame.<br />
<br />
18 months later while I lived in suspended animation, it became evident even to me and my disillusioned, vainglorious, yet ambitious self, that this lady wasn't going anywhere. The promised movie rights would have been sold to her son for $1. Allegedly, he worked for a movie company -- in what capacity I never found out. Your guess is as good as mine. In the interim, I had learned about <a href="http://pred-ed.com/">Preditors & Editors</a><cite></cite>. Alas, too late!<br />
<cite class="_Rm"></cite><br />
The book was ready, overripe really, and something needed to be done before the timely touch turned into the timeless touch of a zombie.<br />
<br />
I decided to self-pub. With my latest book I dared to send my manuscript to a few publishing houses. A big no-no, as I was told years ago. The ones I chose did accept submissions by email, yet never deigned to answer or even acknowledge the receipt of my book. So much for that.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I Once Had a Farm in Ireland</i> is now up on Amazon for pre-order. Its paperback version will follow as soon as hubby as completed the complicated requirements of formatting. I use the remaining time until my chosen launch date, May 14, to send press releases out. Google <i>Press Release </i>and you'll find a number of websites where to publish your good news at no cost. They will also give you samples how to do that.<br />
Next, I will also refresh my connections with the local papers and TV stations by sending them the news release.<br />
For a while, release parties were popular on Facebook. Have you attended any? Did they work for you? I'd be curious to know.<br />
Then there is the minor matter of a media kit. More about that in my next blog.<br />
### <br />
<a href="http://www.siggybuckley.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>Siggy Buckley</b></a><br />
on <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Siggy-Buckley/e/B004N1FV9W" target="_blank">Amazon</a></span> Our Farm in the Winter <br />
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Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447546381460796864.post-80441967428680935142015-04-28T12:24:00.000-04:002015-04-28T16:07:31.549-04:00Ready to Publish-- Which Steps to Take?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">It's the most exciting time for a writer</span></b>
when she/he gets ready to publish a book. Given that most of us belong
to the self-pub'd variety, the fun and glory besides the work is loaded
on our own shoulders.<br />
How many years do we spend on writing it on
average? How many years do we go through numerous if not countless
revisions? Whether you are a fast writer and keep writing to get the
story out of your mind onto paper (computer) or whether you belong to
the meticulous type, like me, who corrects every sentence as soon as you
see it written down: n'importe quoi! It always seems to take forever
until we can launch our baby into the big old world.Ask a big,
traditional author how long it took him! Also years, sometimes. Unless
you are so well established that their publisher makes them write a book
a year.<br />
And a launch is not merely a publication date anymore.
While having the book revised and formatted so that it is ready for
print, some of us play around with title covers, asking fellow writers
and beta readers which cover image they prefer, which font, which
sub-title etc. After all, we want to get it just right. At least for our
own critical eye if not ideally for all the potential readers. So hours
are spent scouting through the allegedly free websites that advertise
free pictures ...and always get their hands in your purse and charge.
Find a talented cover designer who puts your ideas into print. And I
must say, I'm very happy with mine, Tayyaba Bano. Not just creative but
also reliable and affordable!<br />
With a little tweaking here and
there you soon make it to the launch pad and announce the title cover
reveal with much aplomb, send press releases out and maybe organize a
launch party; a virtual fest on Facebook. Lucky you if you have a
publisher of your choice. For first timers calculate in some days of
comparing self-publishing houses to each other. I have my experience
with 2 of the big names and could now decide quickly which one to go
for. The publisher of my choice at least gives you the illusion that he
can get you into bookstore by nature of being on the Ingram distribution
list. But buyer beware-- it doesn't often happen, definitely not
automatically. So another difficult choice has to be made: Do I spend
the extra $60 for my high hopes of making it this time for my paperback
version?<br />
First title around I learned how to buy a cheap ISBN and
how to register it. Formatting an e-Book is child's play.Well, Amazon
converts your manuscript almost automatically. Uploading is simple and
it will go live within 24 hours. The learning curve for me this time
round is figuring out how to offer the option of pre-publication orders.
I wish...!<br />
Still waiting for endorsements and reviews here which should go on the back cover or inside. I guess that could be added later.<br />
Since
there is practically no holiday between now that St. Patrick's Day is
over and Bloomsday (16 June), I could really go public any day. (Bank
holidays don't count!) Who knows about Mr. Blooms Day anyway? Nobody I
know ever really read <i>Ulysses.</i> And what has that got to do with an organic Irish farm and its farming life anyway?<br />
So without further ado I now give you my latest baby.<br />
<br />
I ONCE HAD A FARM IN IRELAND: LIVING THE ORGANIC LIFESTYLE<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRm58q37fazFWv7qwPYeubIBNa2ne7aX6d7MwBNycqqhBCa9lD8LFhiMWgZ6wAGR3sjaXzFyXbysUTouquNBKsDeOK7ja5Mzz_93VGJRlAGqZOmlyN0gYwaIAs-QAmdA0e4-QoZAPtOy8/s1600/kindle+Cover-v3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRm58q37fazFWv7qwPYeubIBNa2ne7aX6d7MwBNycqqhBCa9lD8LFhiMWgZ6wAGR3sjaXzFyXbysUTouquNBKsDeOK7ja5Mzz_93VGJRlAGqZOmlyN0gYwaIAs-QAmdA0e4-QoZAPtOy8/s1600/kindle+Cover-v3.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
If you'd like to review it, contact me and I'll send you a free copy!<br />
<b>Siggy Buckley</b>, the Ex Farmer's Wife<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/SiggyBuckley" target="_blank">On Facebook </a><br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/Hernibs" target="_blank">On Twitter</a><br />
I just noticed I forgot to mention the media kit.I'd be grateful if some other authors could enlighten us on that!</div>
Siggy Buckleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13109589783726381950noreply@blogger.com1