Icon-type silhouette of an airplane. (Mainly to be used in Userboxes) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yesterday, I had the pleasure to guest post for Michelle Proulx, a talented young writer, author of Imminent Danger. Here is the link to her awesome blog, where you can find my blog post – The Point of No Return.
I hope that you enjoy the blog post and that you visit Michelle’s fun and upbeat blog – you will love it.
Congratulations to the three winners of a paperback copy of The Dinorah Chronicles – Ramblings of the Spirit! The winners are Marisol Lopez, Maria A Calixto, and Grace Rhema. Please let me know your address, so I can mail your copy 🙂 I hope that you like it. Thank you to all of you who liked my author page.
Here is a couple of videos that I found interesting to share.
Amazing, right?
Ramblings of the Spirit is available through Amazon.
When inspiration runs dry and you get a case of the blues, whether writer’s block is operating on the background or frustration knocks at your door, productivity suffers and boredom settles in – life’s loses its luster, gray days abound, and opaque hours seem to stop time. This may happen to anyone, at any time; I have been there. I want to share with you a simple system I came up with that will help you fight those blues and keep you from becoming bored or uninspired. I assure you that you will always have something to dream about, something to be grateful for, and something to do. That in itself can jumpstart your inspiration. I call this system my Inspirational Jars, and that is just what it is. I use three empty glass jars and I label each one – Love Notes, Pick a Chore, and Promise Jar. Each Jar has a purpose; each jar gives me something to do.
The idea is to sit down and write as many small cards you can and fill those bottles, and if one day you think of something else, just write it and deposit it in the bottle. If you ever feel bored, uninspired, and not knowing what to do, pick one card from one of the bottles and do/dream/plan/execute whatever you wrote on that card. If it is something you cannot do now, you can always put it back and pick a card from another bottle or from the same jar, or you can sit down and dream/plan how to work towards that dream or goal. You will never ran out of things to do if you keep filling those inspirational jars. Make them pretty, colorful and enticing. Have fun creating this system. Create your own system depending on what you want to do. For example, a jar for blogging topics, a jar for writing scenes or character names … Mine are just what I use to keep productivity and inspiration alive. Here is what my Inspirational Jars look like.
I hope that you enjoyed this tip.
As I might have mentioned before, now I am writing Book 2 of The Dinorah Chronicles – The Book of Sharon. I have to say that the approach to this book has taken me on a different journey, one that I did not plan but simply followed. Most of the time I don’t follow an outline, if an outline happens, it does while I am writing and for “memory” reasons, so I don’t forget and keep things in perspective, and don’t forget important issues that should be resolved throughout the novel. Must likely, I don’t necessarily know how the story is going to end, although I may have a faint idea. Sometimes, I think of something but it happens that a character has a better idea, and I follow – I let go. Must of the time, I find that this approach lets everything fall into place and all ties come together in the end. This is what happened with Ramblings of the Spirit (Book 1) – it set the path for The Book of Sharon.
This presents a challenge for me, as I am writing the story that I want to write, however this time, the story contains the book of the main character, which is also the contents of an ancient book. It is a book inside a book inside a book – I hope you understood that. It is a more complicated way of writing but I am up to the challenge thanks to Dinorah Sandbeck, the main character. Of course, I am excited about writing it, but also on beating the deadline of publishing before the end of the year, and ideally, by the end of summer/beginning of fall. It is a tight deadline, thanks to Dinorah Sandbeck. This of course, presents another challenge, not only will I have to write in my voice, but in Dinorah’s writing voice, and in the ancient tome’s style as well. No wonder why I have gone through so many cups of coffee during the day. I am honestly feeling the pressure from these two characters – yes, the ancient tome became a character in Ramblings of the Spirit, although it was introduced in Moonlit Valley – my first novel and the story who gave birth to The Dinorah Chronicles.
So this is what is going on with the second book in The Dinorah Chronicles trilogy, and this is why you see the counter at the upper right corner of this blog, as a constant reminder of the contract that I have with my characters, with the readers, and with myself. I have worked on the design of the cover as well, although it is not ready yet.
If you are unfamiliar with Moonlit Valley and Ramblings of the Spirit, these are available through Amazon, and you can even preview a bit. I am also doing a promotion this month for a free kindle download of Ramblings of the Spirit. And if you want the chance of winning a free paperback of Ramblings of the Spirit, you can like my Facebook page by clicking the button at the right on this page. You will be entered for a chance to win one of three copies. The winners will be announced on May 20th.
Since time is ticking and I am not even halfway my story, or Dinorah’s, or the Tome’s, I will try to limit blog posts to two or three a week, most likely two, at least until I have a handle on the first and second drafts. For the next few months I will be immersed in this novel, much so as a monk writing a doomsday book. It will be an interesting journey.
Writing the Domesday Book (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
All good things must be shared, so I am sharing this bit of information that is great for business owners and authors who work hard at marketing and promoting their business. I have looked at several print services for some promotional items for my novels – rack cards, pens … and decided to use Vistaprint since they had a variety of items. Well, I am glad that I chose them because I got so many great coupons and discount offers from them that I could not believe it at first.
To give you an example, on my last 2 orders for promotional items for my business all I had to pay for was the shipping, and I got 10 items free of charge. I got a lawn sign, 10 sheets of stationery, 25 magnets, 50 rack cards, 140 address labels, 50 rack cards for my business, 50 rack cards for my novel, and another 50 rack cards for my other novel on a separate order. All these items were free of charge, and all I had to pay for was the shipping. For small business owners and entrepreneurs, it does not get better than that. You might be thinking, was I overcharged for shipping? Not at all, shipping was what it usually is, and you can select to receive it sooner, the next day, or in 2 weeks, like I did. Right now, I have more than 5 coupons between mail and emails with great deals, which I will probably use before they expire. I am not promoting Vistaprint; I am just letting you know my experience so far, since I know many of you are authors and writers on a tight budget, and it is always good to know where to get the good deals. I used to print all my promo items by myself – flyers, business cards … but the cost of ink and paper has proven to be more expensive than ordering out, and the printing quality is better. Adding all these amazing coupons and offers, the cost is considerably less than doing it myself. I still keep my designs in case one day I run out and need to print something quick.
So far, the quality of items has been great. I am waiting for these last items to see their quality. I think it will be great; so far I have been happy with the items . This is all I wanted to share for today, and I will update you on this with a post and pics, once I get the stuff.
I hope that this post was of use to you.
Reminder:
I will be giving away three copies of Ramblings of the Spirit, the first book of the trilogy The Dinorah Chronicles. To enter for a chance to win one of the three copies, just like my Facebook page (link at the right of the screen on this blog) and that is all you have to do. I will announce the three winners on May 20, which is the birth date of the person to whom I have dedicated this book – my maternal grandmother.
English: A palette of watercolours and a brush. Deutsch: Wasserfarben und Pinsel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today, I announce the first Watercolor Friday on this blog, and hopefully, many more will follow. What is Watercolor Fridays? Well, every Friday I will celebrate other blogs, other’s achievements, inspire or gift something, whatever that might be at the time – a book, info, art … It is my way to celebrate this beautiful place we call home, our planet, and this wonderful community of writers/bloggers. Each one of us is like a small piece of watercolored paper scattered on Earth, and each one of us have something to contribute, a picture to paint in our journey, and of course to be celebrated, and hopefully, our colors will run into one another, thus enjoying what each one of us has to offer. I hope that you get to enjoy Watercolor Fridays.
To start our first Watercolor Friday, I want to celebrate and share with you five awesome blogs that I have read for a while and hopefully, you will get to know and visit them. I call them my oldies. Here they are.
Well, these are my five oldies that I am celebrating today to commence Watercolor Fridays. Hope you enjoy these as much as I do or more 🙂
From time to time, I like to share a post about some blogs that I am enjoying and recently have gotten to visit more often. Topics range because I like a variety of content. Here are five favorites that I have enjoyed reading more recently.
There are many more new blogs (for me) that I am enjoying, and some awesome blogs that I have read for some time. Maybe I will share those oldies on another post. I hope that you get to visit these and enjoy them as well.
Here is a small excerpt from my novel Ramblings of the Spirit, Book 1 of The Dinorah Chronicles.
“I picked up the book again and slowly placed it on my bed. I was not sure if opening it or let it be. I laughed at myself. The impression of the dream was so real in my mind that I thought I felt the book’s heartbeat. I turned to go to the kitchen when I heard a thump. I looked back; the book had opened. This time, I mustered the courage to look at the page. It was the page of the boy and the serpent; however, the image had changed. Now, I was looking at my dream. Spilled all over the ground were human hearts; next to the boy, I saw a key, and next to it a heart with wings that seemed to bleed. I grabbed the loupe from the nightstand to inspect the picture. There were initials printed on the heart – DS. What could it mean? Only one thing came to mind – Dinorah Sandbeck” – Chapter 21 – The Thump of the Bleeding Hearts.
I hope that you enjoyed that little bit; you can sample a little more on Amazon. Here is the official book trailer. I hope that you like it.
I have noticed a new trend here, fake blogs started by spammers. They are going through the trouble of setting up a blog, copying some articles, and visiting your blog, commenting, therefore passing as legit bloggers, and unable to be caught by Akismet. I even saw two of those “blogs” posting the same article on the same day, and it wasn’t a share or reposted article. Sometimes, you will get an invitation to write in their “so along the same lines as your writing” blog, and when you click on it, it is all a bunch of crap and advertising. I have even gotten a direct email through the WordPress system from one of those spammers. I never thought that they could get into your email. Usually, I am not this blunt in my posts, unless something really boils my blood – and that did. As a result, the misleading comment will go in the spam comment section, so Akismet can flag it.
Let’s keep WordPress what it has always been, a great community of bloggers sharing ideas and content, and not crap/spam. Fake blogs do not belong here.
I am sure that at one point or another we ask this question to ourselves. It is the big question, at the brink of figuring out existentialism, our own, our desires, our goals, but no – it is more than that, the big Why. But maybe that is not the only approach, or even the right approach; maybe, it is better to know that WE ARE HERE. Yes, we are here and what you do with your time here is up to you and no one else. Do you really need a why to realize it? Or, do you dare to realize that YOU ARE HERE, and that in itself is one of the greatest discoveries and mysteries. Dare to dream, but dare to accept that the infinite lives in you and you are here, in the infinite, while you try to figure out why. Once you accept this, the why will be secondary to the greatness that you heart will experience, to the deep communion with all it is, and all it is inside you, and all is everything.
I came across this awesome NASA Timeless Earth video posted by youtuber boatright. Watch it, and pay attention at how you feel when you are watching, and enjoy it because yes, you are a part of all that – of everything. All I can say is that I am glad that I AM HERE.
Inkspeare 