Humans are born with two eyes to see and one eye to know. 3rd dimension (3D) senses are the senses we have for human survival: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. The 5th dimension (5D) sense we have is knowing. Since we live in the 3D reality, or matrix, it’s easy to experience the 3D senses […]
via The Difference Between 3rd Dimension (3D) senses and the 5th Dimension (5D) sense — Jen’s Life
I was sent this Tweet a few days. I had no idea art collectors watched and brought books for the art work of the covers. (I have never transferred anything from Twitter. So bear with me if I gets it wrong.) Each tweet is what the book collector had to say. I asked the only artist I knows about this constituent or element of the art world and she said yes, it’s true. Collectors look at things differently. The art world is different from the literature world and a collector’s world is far more broader in what’s considered art in the literary world. That’s why collectors search for book art in antique stores. Depending on who designed it or painted it, the skills of the artist and many other factors such as blending of colors, brush strokes, pencil etching and etc. The cover can be worth a lot especially if it’s an original reprint. I also asked about the subject of ‘the cinematic look’ and what exactly was the woman referring to? She explained the collector was speaking of digital created or digitally remastered art. I then wanted to know does it make a difference? She said yes, because a shrewd collector can tell the difference between that which is created by hand and that created by digital. Art created by hand holds the highest value in the art world.
Now, my question is how can a writer appease both the art and literary world? Or do we just keep doing what we do which is write and let the two worlds of art figure it out? 🙂
How to Stay Alive as a Writer by Bernadette Benda
I am not the author of the original post. It’s a reblog.
How to Stay Alive as a Writer
You are a writer. You read novels and books on writing craft. You spend hours practicing writing and editing. You go to conferences and writing workshops.
Well that’s great. But that is keeping the writer alive, it’s not keeping you alive.
Yes, we are actually human beings after all.
While I am no health professional, I am a professional ballet dancer so that’s counts for something. I know some things about taking care of yourself.
Believe it or not , writers, you have to take care of yourself. Here are some steps.
How to Stay Alive as a Writer by Bernadette Benda
I have talked about this subject before although I had no health tips attached. But I feel these tips might help someone. I know it takes strenuous training to become a ballet dancer. Someone who knows about performing gravity defying leaps, taxing twists and turns certainly knows about taking care of herself.
I agree with Ms. Benda, all the work that goes into creating a book takes a toll on the writer. Whether the book is good or bad, books do not write themselves. A person wrote them all.
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This is the reason for what I said earlier. Well, whether stressed it earlier: You can’t go to every conferences and every writing workshops advertised. You can’t redo, rewrite the book until exhaustion. You can’t find every single error there is. You can’t spend beyond your means to carry out all these things. You can’t do all the things everyone is crying you must do to be a successful writer. All you can do is do your best. If anyone want complete, absolute, divine perfection then they better do as it’s advised in the popular sitcom “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl” quote: “they better call Jesus.” because you’re a human. You’re not a machine and nor are you divine.
Many authors, including myself tries to do all these things. And I did do them all for a long time. But I had to step back and realize my limitations. I realized that the only way to complete the series was to take care of myself. That’s why it took so long to complete the series. I slowed down my writing, and all other activities and begin writing at my own leisure pace. I didn’t have anyone telling me to speed up.
That’s why I wrote what I did earlier about leaving alone trying to find an agent and stop begging a big publishing company to take your work. It becomes too stressful. Life is stressful enough without adding more. Stress interfere with your creativity. Do it yourself. Publish your own work. You’ll probably be old and gray, and I mean eighty-five years old kind of old and gray before, and if ever one decided to take you on. And even then, they might say what you wrote fifty years ago is now passé. Send in an updated version of the work. Meanwhile you are on life support as they are still denying. Saying the same old things they said fifty years ago. You die with your work never published. That’s an unsympathetic story but it’s a real one. By no means am I suggesting do not seek an big publisher or agent. And I am very happy for anyone who finds one. But I am simply saying do not waste years and years sending stuff all over the net and mail in hope of finding one. Send a few out per year but in the meantime, do what works best for you.
Being a writer, you must be doggish with your time and resources. Decide what works best for you, not what all the talking heads are saying you could be doing. Most likely what everyone else is saying you could be doing involves spending money. All the workshops, conferences are all places you are most likely going to spend money not make money.
Don’t get me wrong, workshops are great. They are great ways to bounce ideas off other writers but what no one tells you is that the local community one, voluntarily taught by a retired English professor for free is equally good as the one you spent a couple of hundreds or maybe thousands to attend in some remote area where they are going declare you need such and such software to be a success. The software may cost more than the resort. But the software doesn’t write the book. You do.
The bottom line is.
If something isn’t healthy for you, then don’t do it. Be good to yourself.
With the summer months generally being slow months for online activities especially in the literary world. So, what is a primary online marketing author to do? Go to where ever the public is. When you go to the beach, take one of your own books. Someone is apt to ask you what are you reading?
When on vacation, leave your author cards everywhere you go. They are much lighter than an arm load of a few of your books. You will be surprised at who might pick it up and later ask questions about your work. Use the family road trip as a way to spread awareness about your books. You never know who is looking for what.
Even at the airport. Leave a card with the airport novelty store. They may order and carry your book. But keep in mind, that large international ones usually only carry those by the big publishing houses and well-known authors but it’s worth a try.
Don’t assume anything. Just because of your genre or character’s personality don’t assume who will be interested in reading your work. And as I said before, most of the times, those whom your work is geared toward most likely isn’t going to read it because they already have a favorite author in that genre. Like for example, most of my readers are men. That’s right. Most are guys. Believe it or not, guys read romance. They just don’t care much for the excessively emotional romance but they like love stories. You would think most would be moms due to the main character being a very protective mother, but most aren’t. Or at least those who have let me know they are familiar with the books aren’t Moms. Guys have told me they like how Ana always put Bea first regardless of what’s going down.
Another effective way to spread the word is use flyers. Most areas have community centers which have a public board. Use it. Schools, colleges and such have the same. Use them. Some places you must get permission first to post a flyer, but it’s usually isn’t hard to find the administrative office.
There are many creative ways to spread the word without costing you a cent. This paves the way for your Fall books you’ve spend your summer days getting ready.
Many new authors aren’t aware that when you publish your first book not only is book rated but your name is rated as well. Your author’s ranking can be and is more important than your book (s) rating.
Your name is a brand and it is very important to maintain it. Therefore, build it up and market it online and off. In many cases, you may find your name as an author ranks higher, sometime much higher than your books. When this happens, whenever people see a book written by you they will buy it from their prior experience in buying your work before. That’s why it’s important to make your work known publicly.
We all have bought books based solely on our previous enjoyment of an authors writings. I know I have.
This is Ana’s call out to do battle with her enemies. If they are brave enough to step from hidden shadows and confront her in the open.
I’m saying Happy Father’s Day to a wonderful, caring man who was my dad. I was blessed to know him. 🙂
This is a scene from the draft of
Jacob placed Ana in the bathroom with a game toy and forbade her to come out or take a peek until he called her. From his facial expression, he looked kinda crazy about the eyes. Like Helena’s eyes when she’s angry at her. So, he needed not worry. She wasn’t coming out not with him looking like that. When the door closed she ran herself a hot bubble bath and decided she would sit in this tub as long as she wanted without anyone yelling for her to come out, they had to use the bathroom.
Jacob opened the door with an ever-charming smile and invited the man inside. As he shook his hand to seal the deal, Ted, who waited behind the door, stuck the man in the upper shoulder with a cattle tranquilizer vets used to make cows easier to work on when ill. Ted drove it deep the moment the man walked in. Both knowing the man was a warlock they weren’t taking any chances—who knows what kind of magic he could
do? He had already proven he didn’t hesitate to kill. And with neither of them being warlocks they had to use something to restrain him.
Clint saw too late this was a trap. They never intended to give him the girl. Fighting the rapidly spreading lethargy, through foggy eyes he saw the man’s handsome dark face twisted and distorted into ugliness produced by pure unadulterated rage. Clint
sluggishly tried to raise his hand to freeze Jacob but Jacob punched him in the jaw, sending him flying over his bed landing between the two beds.
Jacob ran around the bed to the space between the bed where he had rolled into; not giving him a chance to defend himself with magic and stepped on his stomach, pushing him back down. He quickly straddled him, digging his knees deep into the man’s
shoulder to hold him down while Ted handed him the disposable gloves. Nowadays they can detect any biological traces on a person’s skin. He kicked and jerked but Jacob punched him again, breaking his jaw. Once the gloves were on he reached down with
much strength in broad shoulders and started choking him. Clint tried to fight for his life. He had done these very things to many others but used magic to subdue them. He clawed the man’s face, his forearms but Jacob squeezed with all his might. Clint’s mind
couldn’t, wouldn’t register, refused to digest it. He couldn’t believe he was actually about to die. This is the sort of things that happened to other people. Not him. He was over two hundred years old. The son of a Nephilim. The grandson of an ancient god. This was all wrong. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happened. He was supposed to die at home surrounded by his wife and many children.
“M******er, you don’t poison my kids and get the fuck away with it.” Jacob hissed through curled lips and hard clenched teeth to the dying man. “You thought I was just a dumb country hick who couldn’t figure out it was you who did it. It was you who tried to kill my baby!”
Clint tried to shake his head in honest reply to the question. But in the man’s steel vise like grip, his throat contracted when he tried to say, “No that wasn’t my inclination. I only wanted the property, not the child.”
With pleading, bugling eyes he sorrowfully looked into the other angry face peering over Jacob BuFaye’s shoulder. He met the eyes of a killer who never acted on his penned-up desire. His life was draining away. He steadily grew weaker, he softly flapped at the forearms whose owners had his hands around his neck, crushing his thorax. His brain was turning to mush, his oxygen was too low to conjure his mother. The man on him was
so angry his golden eyes were sparking fire. That’s when he realized the father wasn’t totally without a gift. His’ was minor in comparison to the girl’s but it’s there. He saw his plan slip away. But why was he dying? He only intended to hold the girl until they gave up the house and afterward dangle her alive before her distressed parents rescinding his agreement to return her. Sure, he planned to kill her, savor the joy of choking the life
out of the little body until she stopped moving and leave her body on the lawn to teach these proud people a lesson. These were his last earthly thoughts before darkness enveloped him and he closed his eyes in death. Ending a well-privileged life that begun
in another century, a different era so different from the one he expired in. The two men didn’t know they just killed the grandson of a powerful ancient god.
The night was still young and people were still out and about when Ted donned a pair of vet’s colorless gloves and drove the luxury hovercraft across town. He cleaned it of his DNA and left the big luxury hovercraft under an aging, rusty overhead bridge used by drug addicts to hide and do their dope in peace. He looked around the run-down, crime infested area and got out and bribed the druggies to say they never saw him nor did they know how the car got there; one look at the man told them they didn’t
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want no part of whatever he was involved in. Seeing that the way was clear he readjusted his demeanor and walked to downtown, catching a hovercab back to his motel room.
They had put Clint Tidwell in the motel’s closet. He left with Jacob the things from his car, the supplies needed to clean up the death discharge. Being a pathologist as well, granted him access to industrial biological degradable agent. Later that night, they intended to load the corpse into Ted’s SUV when the streets were clear but not well-lit. For this very reason, he and Ted specifically chose a cheap place that had no damn security
cameras watching the parking lot.
After cleaning up, Jac heard Ana splashing around in the tub, probably making a mess but so what? He didn’t have to clean it.
“Ana, sweetie. Come out that bathroom and go to bed. We got a long trip to Orlando tomorrow.” Jacob yelled in case the walls were thin and police questioned the neighbors if they heard anything.
unholypursuit