The Cuckleburr Times » author

Life Zigs and Writing Zags

A Guest Article Writer — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:00:21 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Paula Renaye, Author of The Hardline Self Help Handbook:What Are You Willing to Do to Get What You Really Want?

When we look back on our lives and think about how we got to where we are, it is never a straight line. That’s a good thing! It’s the zigs and zags that make us who we are. Whether mine were all necessary is a different matter!

As for my writing career, it’s hard to say exactly when, where and how it all started. Was it when I was old enough to hold my first book? Was it because of my exposure to journalism in high school? Well, that’s certainly the first writing contest I recall winning. Then again, my promising journalism career in college was important too, except that I walked away from all that for “love”—big huge zig-zag.

Of course, there really isn’t a true line in the sand that I stepped over and proclaimed myself a writer. It took a while for me to get in sync with where my heart had always wanted to go.

If I have to pick a point where that inner knowing grabbed me by the throat—kind of literally—and said it was time to get busy, it was when my dad died suddenly in 1991. I did not handle it well, and the turmoil unleashed a lot of things that had been bottled up for many years. And it came bursting out in a really odd way—I started hearing songs in my head.

The lyrics and melodies would just pop in so I started writing them down. After a while, I had a pretty good collection—a couple of local groups even played a few in public venues, which was really fun. But since I was neither a singer nor a musician, I didn’t really know what to do with them—or myself.

I was, however, really enjoying writing again and wanted to do more. So, I found a local writers group and joined in. A couple of people were writing poetry and short stories, but most were writing novels. Well, I thought, I wanted to do that!

I’d read zillions of books and I saw no reason why I couldn’t just whip one out. So I did. Here is the first line of the first book I ever wrote: Still holding the warm gun, Maddie lifted her skirt and ran for the buggy.

Now, seriously, it’s a pretty good line! That book actually won several contests right out of the gate, but never made it to print. My first published novel was Hot Enough to Kill, a humorous mystery that was featured in Redbook. My second, Dead Man Falls, won the 2001 WILLA Literary Award for Best Original Paperback. The third, Turkey Ranch Road Rage, was released last year and I’m working on Killer Moves in all my spare time.

So, you ask, how did it happen that I went from writing funny mysteries to self help books? Well, if you’d read my fictional tales you wouldn’t need to ask that question!

Actually, after the first book came out, life happened. The second book was already set to be published, but life kept zigging and sagging—and not in a good way. In short, death, divorce and delusion took a toll. And, like many people, I started searching for ways to ease my own pain.

I spent a lot of years feeling like I was just treading water—I knew I needed to do something, but I couldn’t see what or how. I love the movie The Secret, but when I was in that stuck place, the only thing I was capable of manifesting was more pain. I needed a pre-requisite class—I needed the secret before The Secret!

Over the course of about ten years, I started some version of a self-help book at least six different ways, but it just never came together. I knew what I wanted to do—to help people who were in the same boat I was, people who feel stuck and yet were afraid to be un-stuck. I wanted to give people in pain, as I had been, a simple and direct roadmap out of it.

That’s really what The Hardline Self Help Handbook is about. It’s a do-it-yourself short course based on what I learned on my own jagged journey and what I now do with my coaching clients and in my workshops. It’s a step by step guide to help people figure out what they really want in their lives, why they don’t already have it—and how they can.

And while the title of the book let’s you know you’re in for some tough love, and with times as they are today, it’s exactly what a lot of us who have been zigging and sagging need and are ready for. Which is exactly why the subtitles asks: What Are You Willing to Do to Get What You Really Want?

Take the challenge, do what you need to do, make your zigs and zags a little less harsh and start living your joy!

Paula Renaye is a professional life coach, motivational and empowerment speaker, regression hypnosis practitioner and award-winning author in both fiction and nonfiction. She has been a consultant for 18 years, holds a degree in Financial Planning and is a member of the International Association of Coaches. Her passion is helping people face reality and take personal responsibility for their choices in order to reclaim their own power and live the life they really want. For special book tour bonus materials and a link to purchase the print book at a discount, visit www.hardlineselfhelp.com. The book is also available here at http://www.amazon.com and on Kindle.

Book Excerpt: Keys to The Kingdom by Senator Bob Graham

A Book Excerpt Author — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 06:15:57 +0000

July 15
Washington, D.C.

At 10:15 Friday morning Tony arrived at the senator’s hideaway in the Capitol, one of seventy offices secreted throughout the Senate wing. Ranging from cubbyholes to ornate suites, they were assigned depending on that truest acknowledgment of status in the upper chamber, seniority. As seventeenth in years of Senate service, Billington had a room that overlooked the east lawn, decorated with furniture from the Senate storeroom and landscape art of his state.

“Mr. Ramos, have a seat,” the senator greeted Tony.

“Thank you.” He sat on the end of the sofa closest to Billington’s desk.

The approving smile and tilt of the head indicated the senator was intrigued with Tony’s athletic grace and presence. “Mr. Ramos, before we go to the subject of our meeting, may I ask if you had a relative with your name who played infield for the Havana Sugar Kings? As I recall, you look a great deal like him.”

Impressed but not flustered, Tony replied, “Yes sir. That was my grandfather in the old Florida International League. I’m surprised you would remember that.”

Billington placed his hands behind his head and stretched out in the desk chair. “My father loved baseball. When I was growing up, we had season tickets to the Miami Sun Sox, and he and I drove in from the farm to almost every home game. The Sugar Kings were the dominant team in the league. Dad especially liked your grandfather’s grit and hustle.”

“I wish I’d been able to see him play.”

“You would have been proud. I remember when Dad told the sports editor of the Post about Tony Ramos and several of the other Cuban ballplayers. He said the Washington Senators should pick them up; the only thing they could do would be to improve the weakest team in the American League. But that was a couple of years before Jackie Robinson broke the color line, and the Senators were not about to do that in a southern-culture town like this one.”

“That was my grandfather’s dream, to play in the major leagues, and I know he would want me to thank your father.”

Billington paused to pour two glasses of water. After offering one to Tony he sipped and continued, “That was yesterday and today is now. I’d like to ask a question.”

“Yes sir.”

“Mark Block is not an easy grader, and he has given you very high marks. I’m satisfied you have several of the aptitudes we will need for the inquiry, so I’m more interested in motivation. Why do you want to break your INR career path to take this on?”

Tony leaned forward. “I think the president has fundamentally mischaracterized 9/11 as the beginning of a war on terrorism. It is not a war unless we make it one. This is not a war. It is an intelligence and paramilitary operation against a relatively small and enormously out-gunned enemy.”

“What do you mean by ‘relatively small’?” the senator asked.

“A week after 9/11, my current boss asked the head of the INR how many terrorists were there in the world?”

“And what did he estimate?”

“He said if you define a terrorist as a person who has been through training camps like al-Qaeda’s in Afghanistan, or Hezbollah’s in Syria or Lebanon, and who belongs to an organization prepared to use those acquired skills, he estimated 100,000. I don’t disparage that figure, but it’s hardly the Viet Cong, or Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf.”

“So, that’s why you want to join our inquiry staff?”

“Yes sir. To understand the nature, objectives, and capabilities of our enemy. And also to understand why we have exaggerated its threat. Those are some of the questions I think your inquiry can answer.”

“Tony, that is a very thoughtful statement of our mission. I want you on the team.”

The above is an excerpt from the book Keys to the Kingdom by Senator Bob Graham. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Senator Bob Graham, is a former two-term Governor of Florida and served eighteen years in the United States Senate. He was appointed by President Obama to co-chair the National Commission on the BP oil spill and served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

He is recognized for his leadership on issues ranging from healthcare and environmental preservation, and for his ten years of service on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — including eighteen months as chairman of the Committee. In 2004, he authored Intelligence Matters, based upon his experiences during the Joint Inquiry and its analysis of the run-up to the Iraq War. After retiring from public life, he served for a year as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. While there, he wrote a book about civic participation entitled. Currently, he chairs the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida.

Bob and his wife, Adele, reside in Miami Lakes, Florida. For more information, please visit Bob Graham’s Web site and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Author Interview: Lin Pardey, Author of Bull Canyon: a Boatbuilder, a Writer and other Wildlife.

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 06:22:08 +0000

Thanks to Maryglenn for sharing this interview with Lin Pardey, author of Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer and other Wildlife.

How long did it take you to write Bull Canyon
I wrote the bare bones of the first five chapters almost 20 years ago. They languished in a file folder for twelve years. A chance encounter with Maria Eugenia Bestani, a professor of English Literature from the University of Tucuman, Argentina made me reconsider those chapters. Even with her encouragement and the enthusiasm of Kathryn Mulders, a Canadian literary agent, 8 years passed before I was fully satisfied with the manuscript. That’s 20 years from inception to completion—not a record but definitely a long gestation.

Which part of the writing process did you find easiest?
The story telling. Getting the individual incidents down on paper, especially those about my neighbors, the floods and all aspects of building the sheds and boat.

Which part of the writing process did you find most difficult?
Eliminating over half of the stories and incidents I put down on paper. I had such a treasure trove to choose from. I knew I had to be selective so each incident paid off and helped the plot progress toward a logical conclusion.

How was the process of writing Bull Canyon different than the process of writing your previous books?
The vast majority of the chapters in each of my previous ten books had started life as magazine articles, rather like a series of sailing stories. Since editors bought and paid for the stories, I had almost immediate feedback and validation of my efforts. Later, the individual articles were combined into a book with the addition of a few connecting paragraphs. Bull Canyon is, in effect, the first book length story I have written.

I also had an intimate knowledge of the people who would be reading my previous books, as those books were aimed toward other sailors, armchair or actual. At first I tried writing Bull Canyon for my regular readers. But Maria Eugenia convinced me the story would resonate with a much broader audience. This created a new challenge—being sure I didn’t bore non-sailing readers, and at the same time describing how my sailing life influenced so much of what happened during the years in the canyon.

How long after you left Bull Canyon did you begin working on the manuscript?
I always keep a journal, jotting short notes each day. Interestingly, I chronicled the majority of the story about the great car crash within days of it happening. It was such a bizarre event that I didn’t want to forget any of the details. I didn’t actually sit down to write the book until eight years after we left the canyon.

Did writing the manuscript make you homesick for Bull Canyon? If so, how?
No, not homesick, but it definitely brought back a flood of memories. In fact, one of the most enjoyable parts of writing this story was reliving those years with Larry. We spent hours reminiscing, laughing over the crazy incidents, metaphorically patting ourselves on the back as we reflected on the successes we had in spite of some quite daunting roadblocks.

What was your favorite part of living in Bull Canyon?
The parties! Big ones, small ones. The old stone cottage had a magical quality about it. The quiet of the canyon and the beauty of the hills around us helped our visitors slow down and relax. Almost all our friends who drove out stayed for a night or two. Then the warmth of the oil lamp light, the intimacy of the roaring fire seemed to evoke wonderfully wide-ranging conversations and music. Even better, since we had lots of room around us, it didn’t matter how many people showed up for two or three times a year pot luck occasions. It is amazing how many friends trace the origins of their relationships back to those country weekends at the old stone cottage in Bull Canyon.

Least favorite?
Mud and dust. I don’t think either of us was prepared for this aspect of country life. Remember, we had just spent eleven years on a small sailboat anchored out in quiet lagoons, sailing across oceans. One of my favorite aspects of life afloat is, though it may sometimes be wet or windy, it is almost always clean and dust-free. Of course being allergic to the desert plants and insects was a close second.

What was the hardest part about leaving Bull Canyon?
Saying good-bye to Cindy. I still miss that lovely dog and the long walks she lead me on. Right from the start leaving had been part of the plan. For a few years, while we were caught up in the California dream, we did contemplated making the old stone cottage part of our long term life. But my allergic reaction and the break down of Barbara and Jimmie’s marriage changed that. So in the end the cottage had to be sold.

How did your time in Bull Canyon change you?
I gained tremendous confidence in my ability to earn my living as a writer. I also felt less intimidated by the challenges I’d later face as we set off to sail around the Great Southern Capes because I realized almost anything would be easier than trying to control the forces of nature, and the inter-neighbor politics we’d seen in Bull Canyon.

How did your time in Bull Canyon shape and influence your work as a writer?
I never had formal training as a writer; numbers, math and engineering were what I was attracted to as a youngster. Until we moved to Bull Canyon, the few things I’d learned about my craft came about from reviewing stories after editors had massaged them (or hacked them up to gain space for advertising) into magazine articles, and by dissecting why particular articles were purchased quickly, why others were rejected. Once telephones arrived in Bull Canyon, I found myself working directly with Patience Wales, an editor at Sail magazine who had a successful background in short fiction. She gave me dozens of hours of one-on-one editorial training and plot-shaping advice. From her I learned the difference between a vignette and a story and, hopefully, used this lesson well.

If you had to pick the “best” lesson Bull Canyon taught you, what would it be?
I have always prided myself in being a highly organized person. But living in the canyon taught me to be far more flexible about changes to what Larry called my “tidy little plans.” I also learned going right to the top is often the only way to muddle through a bureaucratic situation.

It is fascinating to watch the progress of Taleisin through the pictures in Bull Canyon. What was it like to see Taleisin taking shape before your eyes? Was it bittersweet in any way in that it represented a time when you would leave Bull Canyon?
The only thing I like better than watching things being built is being part of that process. Watching Taleisin take shape was utterly fulfilling. Each new piece of timber that was fitted then varnished felt like a reason to celebrate. At first, I didn’t want the construction to go too quickly as I was enjoying the adventure of being on shore, savoring canyon life. I came to love our daily routines, my writing time (and wonderful office,) contact with my family. But as the frames slowly began to look more like a boat that would carry us onto new adventures, I began feeling ever more restless. Looking back, I feel blessed that the project and our time in Bull Canyon lasted just long enough.

Did the two of you ever drive each other crazy?
Although we worked together on the whole project, we both had our own jobs to do. When we weren’t working separately we were scheming and planning and wishing there was more time to spend with each other. Then I tended to be away on my own for twice a month shopping expeditions. Twice during the four years, I was off for 3 week long special events. Thus when readers envision us being constantly together 24/7 they are getting the wrong picture. On the other hand, we and others like us who share careers find it hard to imagine what it is like sharing their partner with jobs that fill the best hours of the day. Soon after we began building our first boat, 18 years before our Bull Canyon project, Larry asked me to quit my day job and work with him. His reason, “You wake up rushed and in a hurry to go off for 10 hours to work for someone else. Then you come home tired and often grumpy to spend the evening with me. Some employer gets all the best hours of you for money and I get the little that is left over for love.” In Bull Canyon we definitely shared the best hours. But as you’ll learn in this book, tensions do occasionally rise so we have come up with rules for handling them.

What do you hope readers take away from Bull Canyon?
The most important aspect of our Bull Canyon life was the growth it created in my marriage. By working as a true team Larry and I built something far more successful than either of us could have conceived of doing by ourselves. If this book inspires even one reader to work in true partnership with their spouse, then it will not only have been an enjoyable project but an emotionally rewarding accomplishment.

Did you ever envision writing a memoir? What finally convinced you to take the plunge, so to speak?
I never considered writing a memoir. I have written many tales about my sailing adventures but in those I rarely discussed the emotional aspects of my life. This book did not start out to be a memoir. But as it came together, it took on a life of its own. At first it was my mother sneaking her way into the manuscript. I had to examine my relationship with her. Then it was having to explain how I related to my canyon neighbors. Only when I accepted that this was a memoir did I figure out how to draw the story together.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
Just when I decided to write my first magazine article in Cartegena, Columbia, Larry and I were invited to dinner by the owner of a local restaurant. He introduced to his wife, Penny Lernoux, a professional journalist and at the time, head of the South American International Press Bureau (see Penny Lernoux-Wikipedia for more). She generously invited me to spend the next morning at her home. When I arrived she handed me a note book and said “write about something that happened at dinner last night.” She left the room without giving me any further instructions nor time for questions. So I sat and pondered then wrote. Two hours later she came back in, stood at the door about 15 feet away from me and said, “Show me what you’ve written.” I held up the notebook and fanned out the pages. She tossed me red pencil and said, “Get rid of half of it.” Then Penny turned and walked away. An hour later she came back and quickly thumbed through my heavily red penciled pages without reading them. “I’ve taught you all you need to know; one—there is a story in everything you see or do, and two—half of what you wrote doesn’t have to be there.” After she made up a tray of coffee and sandwiches Penny did sit down and skim through my words and add, “Learn those lessons and you’ve got a good chance since you obviously know how to string words together.”

What is the worst piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
Soon after I started writing sailing stories almost 35 years ago, a magazine editor took me to meet a quite famous London literary agent. “Haven’t been attacked by any sharks? Haven’t been eaten by a whale? Forget it, no one will read a book that doesn’t have a really dramatic story.” It was about three years later that our first sailing book was published. It told about life on a small boat and the interesting encounters we had with people along our sailing route. There are no big dramas, only a few days of stormy weather and lots of fine sailing tales. Cruising in Seraffyn has now sold over 50,000 copies and is still in print and available as an eBook, and people still write to tell me they how much they enjoyed the story.

What’s next for Lin Pardey book-wise? Do you have other books in the works?
I have already begun work on a book about the adventures we had on the boat we built in Bull Canyon. I also have notes for a second book I want to call The Compelling Power of Adventure.

Thanks Lin for sharing that with us! – Ed.

Bull Canyon (Hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-929214-67-9, $24.95, 6 x 9, 304 pages; eBook, ISBN: 978-1-929214-66-2, $16.95, Category: Autobiography/Memoir; Midpoint Trade Books, distributor) is now available via all good bookstores.

Lin Pardey is the author of eleven books. She and her husband Larry have sailed more than 200,000 miles and received some of sailing’s most prestigious awards. The Pardeys have also created several instructional videos on offshore voyaging. They make New Zealand their home base, but spend part of each year cruising on board their engine-free 29-foot sailboat Taleisin. Visit Lin Pardey online at: www.linpardey.com.

Book Excerpt: Pitch Uncertain By Maisie Houghton

A Book Excerpt Author — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 06:05:01 +0000

I was born in 1940, a bad time for the world, but I never did anything bad until the day I cut off my hair and left it on the floor for my mother to find, a bright, hot pool of yellow curls.

I was four. It was wartime and we were living in a rented house in Winter Park, Florida. My father, an officer in the navy, had recently been stationed there. My mother and I, along with Sybil, my older sister by two years, and Elizabeth, “Tizzy,” a new baby of two months, had moved from New York City to be near him.

Florida, despite all its palm trees and relentless sunlight, seemed dark to me — the people and the houses. Unaccustomed to southern heat, my mother kept the old, verandaed house heavily shaded. The blinds were always down, the curtains drawn. Someone was always taking a nap, my mother, my father (but not together), the amorphous baby. Sybil and I tiptoed around the closed doors, but when we went outside the glittering light hurt our eyes.

In the kitchen was Lily Mae, the black maid. Marion Skillon, a trained nurse from Naples, Maine, was also there. Uncertain in a new land, my mother had persuaded Marion to make the long journey south. Marion, all starched whiteness and squeaking rubber-soled shoes, stuck to the new baby upstairs. Lily Mae ironed endless rivers of laundry and passed dead-looking platters of food in the shadowy dining room.

My father was almost never there. When he did appear, it was often with a swirl of laughing young pilots in uniform. They brought us shells from the beach that we never visited. They set us on their knees, putting down their drinks to balance us on their laps.

The afternoon I rebelled, my mother was a long while on the telephone. She wasn’t the type to chatter on. She served as a sounding board to solve other people’s problems. My mother had been called to the telephone during a rare treat: We had been having lunch alone together. Her low voice burred on as she twisted the cord in her hand. What was she saying? To whom was she speaking?

I slipped away from the dining room table, wandering sulkily through the muted rooms. On my mother’s desk a pair of scissors gleamed. Long and sleek, they were grown ups’ scissors, not the stubby, disappointingly blunt ones we used for paper dolls. I ran my hand over my head. My hair was the one thing about me that was different. In everything else I matched my sister — our seersucker dresses, our red sandals, our black eyes. But Sybil had two brown pigtails while I still had a baby’s fuzz of buttery curls. I thought about Marion Skillon in the mornings, twisting my hair into ringlets, wrestling the ribbon to the top of my head. “There now, aren’t you sweet? Now go and be good.”

Suddenly it was easy to pick up the slender weapon and start to cut. One tentative snip and then I was possessed with the necessity to act and be done with my boldness. My curls fell away like skin being shed by a snake. It went so fast I hardly knew what I was doing. I crept back to the kitchen to face Lily Mae. She stared silently. “Your mama be upset,” she said, shaking her head as she moved through the swinging door with a stack of freshly ironed shirts. A little panic seized me, but, almost gleefully, I hurried to stand defiantly before my mother. She was still sitting, unspeaking, by the telephone. She seemed unmoved. “Heavens, what did you do that for? It will take forever to grow out.” Marion peered at me over the banister railing. “You’ve lost your looks,” she sniffed.

My mother guided me toward the dining room. “We must finish lunch,” she murmured, rousing herself. The table looked half-ravaged, like my hair, with crumpled napkins and tired lettuce on the plates. I started to weep at the enormity of what I had done. Fat tears fell on my grilled cheese sandwich. “Don’t fuss, darling,” consoled my mother distractedly. She wasn’t even looking at me.

There was an unspoken lesson in that afternoon. My mother should have been angry but instead she held her tongue. Was it at that point that I learned to guard the peace, to mind my manners, to keep my mouth shut?

On my report card, the music teacher wrote “pitch uncertain.”

In school someone would grab me from behind on the playground: “whose side are you on? Lucy’s?” — the charismatic troublemaker, or “Kitten’s?” — the charismatic good-girl. It seemed easier — and smarter — to keep my mouth shut.

One day I came home from school tense, weepy from trying to please everyone. My mother uncharacteristically drew herself up and exhorted me to “Stick by your guns, have the courage of your convictions.” Most important of all, “Be yourself!”

“But how do I know who I am?” I wondered.

Growing up, I swam like a fish in the clouded waters of family life.

My family was large, consisting mostly of women. Since I was born in 1940, the men in the family were soon absent, sent as soldiers to Europe or as naval officers aboard ships to the distant Pacific.

I remember not only my mother’s mother, “Gran,” as we called her, but also her mother, my great-grandmother, erect, dignified and austere in her long dress. The family I remember also harbored a great-great maiden aunt, several great-aunts and endless pretty cousins. During the war we stayed intermittently with my mother’s mother, Gran Jay. Though a young widow at fifty-two, she still kept a rambling house in what was then the quiet countryside of Long Island for her five daughters and one neighboring daughter-in-law.

Gran ran her house as an ark, the center of an otherwise fragmented family life. Her daughters dipped in and out of this comfortable, familiar world, using it as a kind of sacred place, sometimes for absolution and redemption, sometimes just for temporary sustenance, always for nourishment.

The above is an excerpt from the book Pitch Uncertain: A Mid-Century Middle Daughter Finds Her Voice by Maisie Houghton. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2011 Maisie Houghton, author of Pitch Uncertain: A Mid-Century Middle Daughter Finds Her Voice

Maisie Houghton, author of Pitch Uncertain: A Mid-Century Middle Daughter Finds Her Voice, was born in New York City, grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fifties and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1962. With her husband, she has lived in Corning, New York, for over forty years. Pitch Uncertain is her first book.

For more information please visit TidePool Press.

How The Ego Co-Opts Feelings

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:54:10 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Richard Moss, Author of Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence

In an evolutionary sense, feeling is a much older mode of consciousness than thinking. The large brain and highly convoluted cortex that supports the thinking of modern human beings is a newer development than the midbrain and thalamus that govern most of your feelings. It is feeling that dominates a young child’s experience because until the ego has developed, thinking is very limited.

Just watch babies, and you can see that they are constantly experiencing ever-changing feelings, from utter bliss and contentment to screaming distress and misery. A young child feels his own internal reality as well as the emotional environment around him. But he does not yet realize that some feelings arise from within himself and that others are being stimulated from outside.

Now try to imagine how a baby learns to deal with feelings as her ego develops, and she begins to see herself as a separate self: Gradually, feelings that seemed to come and go without cause become objects of consciousness that the ego interprets as self. The baby begins to identify with the feelings and to regard herself as happy or unhappy, good or bad, according to the nature of the feelings. Once the ego has claimed these feelings as self, her only defense against them is to try to turn the untamed into the tamed through thinking. In other words, the ego turns feelings into its emotions.

I think this is why the emotions of children change so quickly. A few weeks ago, for instance, I was with a friend and his five-year old son. In the course of an hour or so, the little boy was smiling and happy, closed and complaining, angry and demanding, timid and clinging, crying and inconsolable. . . round and round. The father expressed concern because his son seemed more disturbed and emotional since starting kindergarten. Moreover, whenever his son expressed any unhappiness, the father wanted to immediately do something to take that emotion away; such a normal response for a parent who imagines that something is wrong.

But what I saw was completely normal and to be expected. I saw a young ego trying to come to grips with the flux of feelings (some of them agreeable, and others confusing and dark) that were arising in him because of so many things: having a new daily rhythm, being away from his family more, being in a new environment surrounded by new people (teachers and children with all their own behaviors and emotions), and even the changing of his own growing body.

I could just imagine his young ego bombarded by feelings and his mind racing with thoughts. And because a child has no way to meet feelings with focused-spacious awareness and no way to evaluate his thoughts, those feelings are instantly co-opted by the ego and invariably turned into emotions. For me, it was like looking at the history of humankind and how the thinking mind inevitably makes us all crazy once that which is not of the ego (feeling) has been appropriated by the ego.

How can you tell if your ego has appropriated a dark feeling? You find yourself compulsively thinking. Your mind will spin with story after story about what is wrong with you, what strategy to pursue, why your situation is hopeless, why your life is ruined or meaningless, or how you can save yourself. It will find every way it can to attack you, judge you, blame others, or even attack them. It will make you guilty, resentful, terrified, hopeless, impulsive, and aggressive. . . one after the other. It is frantically trying to create a known (albeit, terribly amplified) misery in a desperate attempt to be in control of an unknown and ultimately unknowable feeling that it doesn’t even realize that it is reacting to.

But the ego can never control what comes from a deeper ground of consciousness. Even though thinking is a newer evolutionary development that has given human beings great power, it is the wrong mechanism for addressing feeling. The more your ego spins stories in the face of abysmal feeling, the more miserable you come. It is the thinking mind that drives a person to suicide or to abusing drugs and alcohol — not the actual feeling.

Until you understand what is happening to you and can stop your thoughts and instead turn your full awareness with focusedspacious attention directly toward the dark feeling, you might as well be in hell. Indeed, I believe this is the only hell that exists, and it is purely mind-made. The abysmal feelings in themselves are never as terrible as what the ego creates to try to control them.

The above is an excerpt from the book Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence by Richard Moss. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2011 Richard Moss, author of Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence

Richard Moss, MD, author of Inside-Out Healing, is an internationally respected leader in the field of conscious living and inner transformation. He is the author of six seminal books on using the power of awareness to realize our intrinsic wholeness and reclaim the wisdom of our true selves. He lives in Ojai, California.

For a calendar of future seminars and talks by the author, and for further information on CDs and other available material, please visit www.richardmoss.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

The Power of Intention

A Be My Guest Author — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:52:37 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Pascal Marco, Author of IDENTITY:LOST.

I’ve had fun quoting Oprah’s “There’s no such thing as a coincidence” mantra and I will tell you I have fully embraced this belief with Lady O. She has been the world’s #1 proponent (besides my own personal life coach and wife, Karen) of the belief of the power of intention.

I guess it’s really all about letting go and having fun. Children embrace this belief by playing and using their imaginations. I was once like this with my own creative imagination, many, many years ago. But for various reasons (some valid, some purely weak excuses) I hid and buried my desire to create for decades.

Then it all changed about five years ago.

Through a series of remarkable, serendipitous events, things started to happen. Some would call them coincidental but for me they had a distinctly stronger message than just mere happenstance occurrences. One of the first was when I attended Game 5 of the 2005 ALCS Championship when the Chicago White Sox visited the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. If my White Sox won then they would be playing in their first World Series in 46 years. Chance got me and a friend not only into a game when we were told no tickets were available but had us sitting in the opposition owner’s box seats with his family.

The White Sox won and that event spurred me to write a story about it. That story turned into half-a-dozen more I wrote over the next year on a White Sox fan web site. By this time my desire to write had been rekindled and I began to think about this story I had locked away for over twenty-five-years.

I had recently sold my business, which provided me with a very modest profit, enough I hoped to give me a brief amount of time to not have to work full-time. I took that time to look for my notes I had kept along with newspaper clippings about that story only to find that after moving a few times over those 25 years I had misplaced the documents. The power of the Internet and the help from a friend’s daughter who attended a Chicago university, allowed me access to the Chicago Tribune’s historical archives.

I plunged headlong into finding the details of that crime that had been committed along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago’s Burnham Park. Along the way, I discovered this rich, long forgotten history of the area where the crime occurred. That took me down another road and re-ignited my love of history. By this point I was completely hooked and spent many months researching, reading, and writing.

It was at about this same time I stumbled upon a local writers group called the Scottsdale Writers Group. I was back to work, keeping afloat a fledgling Internet business I had started, which now consumed the majority of my time. But I was too deep into my pledge to myself to not quit on my dream of writing this story. So, with some trepidation, I walked into the SWG one day and announced I’d like to join. I was warmly welcomed by such an unselfish group of people, all willing to help me (as well as themselves) develop our writing skills and story ideas.

After two years of bringing in a new chapter every other week, I was done, and my novel (with the working title “The Murder of Manny Fleischman–Last of the Black Sox”) was complete. How naive I was because from that point forward the real work had only just begun.

That was March 2008 and about two months later I had another serendipitous event occur that would change my life forever. I was summering in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and one day saw a small poster at the library in nearby Fontana, announcing that New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor would be in town signing his latest book. I had never heard of Brad Thor but I knew I had to go to this event. When would you ever expect to meet a NY Times best-selling author in Fontana, Wisconsin? So with my wife and brother-in-law at my side, went to meet Mssr. Thor.

It was a very intimate signing for his latest book, THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, but that setting gave me an opportunity to speak with Brad. I admitted to him I had never heard of him but that as a budding writer I felt compelled to meet a real author, let alone a best-selling one. The words gracious and warm don’t do justice to describing Brad’s demeanor toward me and when he found out I had a completed manuscript he immediately recommended I attend ThrillerFest in NYC. He told me if I got there to “look him up” and he’d be happy to help me in any way he could.

When I got to my computer and investigated this event, I was blown away at the cost. The event was less than two weeks away and putting a last minute trip to NYC added to the financial challenge. We were stretching (squeezing) dollars at this point and as far as I was concerned, if there was a definition of a trip we could not afford, this one was it. But Karen scoffed at my fear, dismissing the thought of my not going. “He invited you, didn’t he?” she reminded me. “If you really want to get this manuscript publish you have to go.”

I paid the last minute airfare, booked the mid-town Manhattan hotel, sent in my non-member attendee fee. When I landed at La Guardia, I hailed a cab and headed to ThrillerFest 2008.

And…well…here I am now, ready to see my novel on bookstore shelves across the country with its release this week.

There are no coincidences anywhere in this tale. It is just a story of a naive guy who grew up on the southeast side of Chicago who always kept believing even someone like him could one day make his intentions come true. And so can you.

Pascal Marco was born and raised on the far Southeast side of Chicago, the grandson of Italian immigrants. Listening to his father’s advice, he stayed close to home and graduated with honors from the University of Illinois – Chicago with both B.A. and M.A. degrees in Communications and Theatre. He’s thankful and blessed he grew up in the Windy City, a place which helped inspire him to create the rich and unforgettable characters in his debut thriller novel, IDENTITY: LOST from Oceanview Publishing. Visit Pascal at www.pascalmarco.com and join him and his fans on Twitter and Facebook.

The Good China

A Guest Article Writer — Sat, 28 May 2011 07:02:16 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Eric Poole, Author of Where’s My Wand?: One Boy’s Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting.

A while back, a friend of mine told me that her mother’s aunt used to stand in front of the stove, cooking dinner, wearing a full-length mink coat and her best jewelry.

This is my kind of woman. Not just because she sounds slightly insane and obviously doesn’t care if somebody breaks a tooth on a diamond brooch in the meatloaf; but because this kind of behavior represents a “live for today” attitude that I pretty much suck at.

Don’t get me wrong, my furniture isn’t covered in clear plastic (yet). I don’t reuse toilet paper (yet). I do manage to have a little fun. But all too often in my life, I’ve “saved the good china”.

And then, I lost a work friend to diabetes. And another friend’s longtime partner to AIDS. And last week, my partner’s twin brother to liver disease. All of them in their 40′s. All in the space of a few weeks.

And I began to think that life is waaay too short. So maybe I should just go crazy. Maybe I should take a trip around the world or try out for America’s Got Talent or blow all my money on a talking robot.

Of course, I can’t take months off of work to backpack the world. And it’s unclear exactly what talent I actually have. And I don’t really need one more person yelling at me on a daily basis.

Maybe I’m just too practical for my own good. I’ll probably end up in the spirit world going, “Damn, why didn’t I show up at Starbucks in my SpongeBob p.j.’s? Why didn’t I hand out $100 bills at homeless shelters? Why didn’t I rent an Amish buggy to drive to a rave?

Which leads me to a question: What constitutes “living for today”, and what is just plain irresponsible?

Trying to balance having a life of No Regrets with the possibility that you might outlive both your money and your liver is not exactly easy. I’d kinda prefer not to hit my expiration date lying in some gulag nursing home staffed by Nurse Ratched and the guy from Saw.

So what’s the answer?

Maybe Controlled Crazy. Maybe I’ll travel as far around the world as I can get in two weeks. Maybe I’ll try out for a stand-up comedy class at the Improv. Maybe I’ll blow $100 on a talking pedometer.

Hey, baby steps.

Eric Poole, author of Where’s My Wand?: One Boy’s Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting, is a VP of marketing for a major media company and the winner of more than thirty advertising awards. He was once called “the best undiscovered writer I’ve ever met” by Tracey Ullman, an accolade he continues to live up to. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner of nine years.

For more information please visit http://www.ericpoole.net, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Book Excerpt – Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race by Todd Buccholz

A Book Excerpt Author — Fri, 27 May 2011 22:17:43 +0000

The New Original Sin: Capitalism

In my view, during the twentieth century capitalism became the new original sin. Just as original sin expels human beings from Eden, capitalism becomes the new sin that prevents us from returning to Eden. If we could just expunge the drive to compete, and the desire to acquire, we could finally claw our way back to that noble, leafy, and peaceful place we left behind in Genesis, where we never wanted anything, let alone tried to get it. I will call such believers Edenists. (Note that even atheists can adopt an Edenist mind-set).

When happiness gurus get on a roll, they take individual advice and extend it to all of society: Not only should you take a timeout, but the entire economy should be given a timeout, or the economic equivalent of Ambien. Shut down capitalism and replace it with a kibbutz for three hundred million people. Why? To prevent envy and to drain our competitive juices. The happiness gurus believe that competition is cancerous, eating away at our souls and our chances for happiness. If we could just stomp out competition, we could achieve self-realization and bliss. Rather than relying on policy non sequiturs to achieve happiness, we would be better off dressing up like Druids and prancing around the rocks of Stonehenge hoping that it will help us pay our mortgage bills. (Yes, such tours are available.)

In fact, if you would like to visit an ancient economy stuck in Stone Age splendor, plan a trip to Bhutan. This little nation, with a per capita GDP about equal to the summer take-home pay of a kid’s lemonade stand in Des Moines ($1,400), is tucked in the Himalayas and has swallowed almost all the happiness potions. The king has forsworn gross national product, and instead requires his country to pursue “gross national happiness.” The king banned Coke and Pepsi (so smugglers sneak in the contraband). There is a national uniform for professionals, most buildings look the same, and “tourists are taken to all the same places and served the same food,” wrote one visitor, who couldn’t find Starbucks or espresso but did discover a valuable cache of Nescafe instant packets. Bhutan also mandates Buddhism as a state religion, so no one can be envious of anyone else’s creed. It appears that gross national happiness requires a lot of uniformity and government control in order to beat out the urge to compete.

I admit that now is not a popular time to link happiness with competition. I understand the rage in Western countries against the failings of modern life, especially following the financial market meltdowns of 2008 and 2009. Didn’t hypercompetitive bankers lead to the ruin of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns? Didn’t supercompetitive brokers baying for bucks in trading rooms nearly bankrupt the world? Didn’t reckless oil drillers lead to a devastating spill in 2010? So why not join the globalization protestors and hurl rocks into plate-glass windows at Starbucks? Maybe that will bring us joy. After all, as the financial markets thrash us and threaten our jobs, we are tempted to give up on modern life. So long to 401(k)s, ski vacations, and bucking for that salary hike that I wasn’t going to get anyway. I sometimes wonder if Sarah Palin boasts of her gun skills because she worries that the only industries left in America will be hunting and gathering.

No doubt, amid the financial wreckage, we all felt cheated, by the CEO crooks, the mortgage broker morons, and the short sellers. And we feel a natural yearning to go back to simpler times, to some Eden that exists in our Jungian memory. Maybe throwing rocks will remind us of how jolly we were during the Stone Age.

But “Kumbayah” does not work. Sitting around a metaphoric campfire, holding hands and singing communal songs does not make human beings happy. Sweaty, yes. Sooty, perhaps. But not happy.

More tourists have trampled on Thoreau’s Walden Pond snapping photos than have seriously considered giving up their cell phones to pick berries. We are delighted to try pomegranate juice — in the hope of finding the secret to clear skin and lower blood pressure — but virtually no American will plant his own bush and give up television. We may embrace symbols of a more homemade life, but these are tokens of wishful thinking, not titanic changes of substance.

Are we just selfish hypocrites who have fallen too deeply in love with a synthetic commercial world, with all its gadgets and traffic? Happiness books typically implore us to surrender our raw capitalistic drives, to levy taxes on high earners, and to derail the rat race before the entire world turns into a human-size Habitrail, plastic and pointless. And speaking of a Habitrail, these Edenists claim we are spinning on what has become known as the hedonic treadmill, so that the more we have the more we want. Typical advice: “Don’t worry, be frugal.” Or reach for the Prozac.

In my book, Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race, I take on a seemingly preposterous task, employing the latest research in neuroscience and behavioral economics to argue the opposite: It is the race itself — sloppy, risky, and tense — that can bring us happiness. It is the very pursuit of love, new knowledge, wealth, and status that literally delivers the rush, lights up our brains, releases dopamine, and ignites our passion. Furthermore, I’m going to argue that the cause and effect between competition and happiness is hardwired into everyone of us. Some of the results will surprise you. Competition makes people more fair, and it also makes them taller.

Neuroscientists report that when a person begins to take a risk, whether it’s gambling or ginning up the nerve to ask a pretty girl to the prom, his left prefrontal cortex lights up, signaling a natural high. Alpha waves and oxygenated blood surge to the brain. Sitting alone in a pup tent does not yield the same effects. Likewise, our competitive juices cannot be separated from our desire to learn more. Ironically, those who deride competition are often the first to exalt education. They seem to have images of Plato sitting on a log. I exalt education, too, but it is foolish to pretend that desires do not press us forward to learn more, to gain more knowledge, and therefore to get smarter. The contented do not grow smarter, they grow moss.

The above is an excerpt from the book Rush:Why You Need and Love the Rat Race by Todd G. Buchholz. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2011 Todd G. Buchholz, author of Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race

Todd G. Buchholz, author of Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race is a former White House director of economic policy, award-winning teacher at Harvard, managing director of the Tiger hedge fund, and was a fellow at Cambridge University in 2009. He is also a founder of Two Oceans Management, as well as coproducer of the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit Jersey Boys. A regular contributor to NPR’s Marketplace, he appears monthly on PBS’s Nightly Business Report and his book New Ideas from Dead Economists is used in universities throughout the world. Buchholz has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Reader’s Digest. He lives with his wife and daughters in Southern California.

For more information please visit http://www.toddbuchholz.com and follow the author on Twitter.

Book Excerpt – Spinning The Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion by Kendall Coffey

A Book Excerpt Author — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:08:30 +0000

A Media Primer for Spinners

For all the fascination with trials in the court of public opinion, no one really knows how much media campaigns actually affect the verdict. Ultimately, what matters is winning the courtroom battle for life and liberty rather than the contest over the next news cycle. No matter how important publicity may be to clients, the best press releases are written about winning, just as woefully bad news follows defeat. The legendary Johnnie Cochran had the memorable sound bite,”If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” but without the jury’s own words of “not guilty,” his phrase would have been pointless rather than timeless.

That said, even if the benefits of spin are difficult to quantify, there are many reasons to believe they are not illusory. Studies conducted of mock jurors — simulated jurors in simulated trials — suggest that negative news contributes to negative verdicts. And even though real jurors routinely deny that they are media influenced, it is undeniable that cases are decided by jurors who are media exposed. It is neither necessary nor realistic, however, to disqualify jurors simply because they were previously subjected to onslaughts of publicity about a case — the law does not require an empty mind, only one that is open. Although mediadrenched jurors must assure the court that they will be fair and will consider only the evidence and law presented inside the courtroom, those assurances are more comforting when the groundwork for fairness has been laid by balanced news coverage.

Once selected, jurors are instructed repeatedly to avoid media coverage of the case they are deciding. The law assumes that they honor their oath, but common sense says some may not. And even jurors who read nothing about a case live among others who may be reading everything. When a community is buzzing about a trial, no one wants to be remembered as one of the jurors fooled by clever defense lawyers into acquitting a notoriously guilty defendant.

The ears of judges often have chronic buzzing, particularly because they are not prohibited from following the news coverage of their cases. The law presumes that judges will ignore the media monsoons drenching the courthouse and decide every legal issue as if nary a drop had fallen. If we assume, though, that judges are real people who live in the real world — sometimes a world of judicial elections — it follows that they are acutely aware of community feelings about mediaintensive cases. And judges live in more than one community. Most care deeply about maintaining respect from their peers in the courthouse and from the attorneys who practice in the same locale. Because the legal community reads newspapers much more than most, the articles that judges and lawyers will be reading should be balanced as much as possible if the playing field is to be level.

Legal icon Dershowitz recently recalled some advice he received from a local lawyer when he was handling the appeal for convicted wifekiller Claus von Bülow: “The only way you can win this appeal is if these three judges (all male back then) can explain to their wives why they let off a wifekiller.” Absorbing the daunting reality, Dershowitz focused not only on the legal brief but also on facts about the medical evidence that would raise questions in the minds of reasonable readers.

Good press is also a recruitment poster for lawyers, experts, and even fact witnesses. Winnability magnetizes cases. Lawyers and experts may be mercenaries, but even hired guns prefer to be retained by winners. For the top professionals who can pick and choose their cases, many prefer a cause that is acclaimed to one that is being defamed. Even fact witnesses, the main determinant of most cases, can be more effective if they believe their testimony will be featured in a success story. Just as many prefer to join the team with all the cheerleaders, horrible publicity can impair recruitment efforts. (Note: large, upfront payments to attorneys and experts can make even beastly cases seem beautiful.)

Occasionally, the fear of negative publicity can inspire the parties to negotiate a solution before the judicial process reaches its own conclusion. Several years ago I represented a woman who shipped herself to the United States by plane, arriving inside a DHL box. This elegant but — no surprise here — petite client might have had an uphill battle seeking asylum to remain here. In theory, a socalled stowaway is among the least favored of all newcomers for purposes of immigration law. Her case began to attract attention, however, because while gift DHL packages are common, a gift immigrant understandably created a news stir. As press interest intensified over her battle for asylum, we held our fire and postponed the everpresent temptation to trashtalk the immigration service for trying to deport a young woman who was obviously courageous, even if too ingenious for safety’s sake. The government’s press anxieties actually helped us make a deal providing that if the authorities agreed not to send her away, we would keep the television cameras at bay. Along with downsizing our press strategies, we assured the government that our client would travel with passengers rather than inside packages in the future.

The above is an excerpt from the book Spinning the Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion by Kendall Coffey. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2011 Kendall Coffey, author of Spinning the Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion

Kendall Coffey, author of Spinning the Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion, is a former U.S. Attorney who headed the largest federal prosecutors’ office in America, is the founding member of and a partner at Coffey Burlington, PL. Following his service as a U.S. Attorney, he was closely involved with the Elian Gonzalez case and the 2000 presidential election recount. A leading media commentator on high-profile cases, he has appeared on the Today Show, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Headline News, as well as hundreds of other nationally televised programs.

For more information, view Kendall Coffey’s Web site and follow him on Facebook.

Book Excerpt- Awakening Consciousness: A Woman’s Guide! by Robin Marvel

A Book Excerpt Author — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:42:41 +0000

Your personal vibration is a lot like your fingerprint, it is unique to you as an individual. Each moment we have the opportunity to raise our vibrations resulting in a healthy mind, body and spirit. Living a conscious, positive lifestyle will encourage a strong inner core as well as raise your vibrations. You have the opportunity to enhance your life experience by choosing to experience life with elevated vibrations. Raising your vibrations will benefit you and all those you come in contact with.

Use the space below to list where you feel your personal vibrations may be low. Use this list to learn what areas you need to work on to raise your personal vibrations. [Note: book is lined anywhere it says "use the space below" in this excerpt, to allow you to do so.]

5 Surefire Ways to Raise Your Vibrations

These five steps are easy, powerful ways to increase your personal vibrations.

#1: Live in Gratitude

Each moment that you are able to find gratitude you raise your vibration. Next time you forget your attitude of gratitude stop and take a look around. Find something as simple as a plant in your living room. Take some time to appreciate the beauty that plant has added to your life. This works to shift your attitude because it is impossible to be in a state of gratitude and unhappy at the same time.

Make a Gratitude List~ use the space below to list some things you are grateful for.

# 2: Visit or call a friend with a positive personal vibration.

Just being in contact with a person with a positive personal vibration will boost your vibration in an instance. High vibrations always dominate low vibrations in all situations. Socialize with those with high personal vibrations and elevate your spirit.

Positive Vibration Friend List~ Use the space below to list your friends that will help raise your vibrations.

Friend Phone Number

# 3: Hold Your Power

Holding your power means being true to you. The demands on a woman can often leave us feeling overwhelmed with things we need to get done and taking care of everyone else. You have to remind yourself that it is okay to say no. This means saying no to your spouse, your children , your parents, your boss and the list goes on and on. Nurturing yourself is so important because if you are not true within yourself , you can not be true to all those in your life. Taking the time to honor who you are does not mean you have to go out and spend money on yourself, it just means devoting some time to you.

Ways to nurture yourself

* Reading your favorite book

* Allowing your husband or friends to take the kids for a couple of hours

* Ordering dinner in

Use the space below to list ways that you can hold your power

# 4: Practicing Acts of Kindness

Doing nice things for others is a surefire way to elevate your vibrations. Every person you encounter is busy on their own path. Offering a kind smile or a complement can change the moment as well as their entire life, not to mention the change it creates in your life as well. A great affirmation to practice while exploring acts of kindness is “because nice matters”. Do not underestimate the distance kindness travels.

Use the space below to list some Random Acts of Kindness you can implement into your life.

# 5: Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Your body is your temple. You have the opportunity to decide the health and wellbeing of your body. By nurturing your body with positive energy, good foods and exercise you are creating a strong, resilient healthy lifestyle. Living a healthy lifestyle includes taking care of your integrated whole. This includes your mind, body and spirit. All low vibrations and illnesses start on the inside and reflect throughout your life. Some great ways to live a healthy lifestyle are eating good foods, practicing positive affirmations and exercising your body.

Use the space below to list some ways you can treat your body as the temple it is.

Robin Marvel is an author, Empowerment and life positivity coach, energetic specialist and motivational speaker for children and adults. She is also the senior editor for Marvelous Spirit Press. Using tools from her “Awakening Consciousness” book series she is expanding creativity and self awareness in beings everywhere. To learn more please visit her website at http://www.marvelousempowerment.com

The Addict in Me

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:00:27 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Rain Mitchell, Author of Tales from the Yoga Studio.

In advance of the publication of my novel, Tales from the Yoga Studio, I spent a portion of the Fall talking it up to as many people as I could. I was trying to promote my book as a good reading group selection, and attempting to convince everyone I know who is either a big reader or a yoga practitioner (or both) that I thought they’d have a lot of fun with it.

In the midst of all this self-promotion, one friend said, in a slightly peeved tone of voice, “So what are you reading right now?”

I hesitated for a minute and then mentioned that big fat novel that everyone was supposedly reading, the one whose author was on the cover of Time magazine and, even more famously, on Oprah.

“Enjoying it?” she asked.

“Well, I’m just at the beginning,” I confessed.

What I didn’t tell her was that I had bought the book over a month earlier and had barely read twenty-five pages. I’d given myself the usual excuses for why I hadn’t made more progress — too busy, book too dense, don’t like the print. And so on.

But when I went home that night, resolved to dip into the book and really make a dent in it, I had to face the truth. For months (okay, years) I had been too Internet-involved/distracted/addicted to do even a fraction of the reading I did throughout my life. My mother was an English teacher, and my sister and I were brought up to love books. I never (and I mean never) left the house without carrying a book. No matter what happened — car breaking down, traffic jam, mom in grocery store for too long — it would be a perfectly fine day because I had my book with me, and that’s all it took to make me happy. I’d choose the next book I was going to read before I was halfway through the one I was reading, and for my birthdays, I always asked for a gift certificate to our local indie bookstore. Vacations meant unlimited reading time, and I identify certain period of my life with the novel I was reading at the time.

But about five or six years ago, I began spending more and more time online. I’m not even sure doing what. I’m not a big Facebook person, I don’t “get” Twitter, I don’t gamble, and I’ve never (I mean it) had any interest in porn. But there were all those emails to check, all those YouTube videos to watch, all those news stories to read, songs to download, blogs to peruse, gossip sites to dip into, and real estate listings to drool over. Add it all up, and it spells hours. Hours. Daily.

Every time I sat down to read, I lasted about five or six minutes before I had to jump up and check my email or get a live update on something really important, like Angelina Jolie’s marriage or a reality star’s plastic surgery nightmare. The sad truth is, I had whittled down my attention span to seconds and had impaired my powers of concentration. As a result, for years, I had been struggling through a mere few novels a year instead of the two or three per week I had enjoyed before I ever heard of gmail.

When you spend a vast chunk of your life doing something that has no intrinsic value and robs you of the ability to do what you do love, something’s off balance. I’ve watched enough episodes of Intervention to know that I was hooked and out of control.

I decided, right then and there, to cut down to thirty minutes online per day. To monitor myself, I wrote down when I went online and when I went off, the way a dieter is supposed to write down everything she eats.

That lasted about twelve hours.

I went to a hypnotist recommended by a friend. I guess I’m not suggestible enough.

I tried to convince my nurse practitioner that I needed a prescription for Ritalin. She wasn’t buying it.

Then, around Thanksgiving, I had the realization that instead of trying to convince myself to stop doing something, I should take a more positive approach. Why not just try to encourage myself to read more and see what happened?

In the past, checking my email was the last thing I did at night and the very first thing I did upon stumbling out of bed in the morning. My new plan was to make a cup of tea, lie on my favorite sofa, and read for fifteen minutes before I touched the computer, before I did anything. It’s always good to start off slowly, as I learned in yoga classes.

What surprised me the most was that I initially found it painful to avoid the computer. I mean physically painful. For the first few mornings, I actually felt a kind of muscular withdrawal, as if my whole body was straining to sit down at the keyboard and go online. It hurt!

But fifteen minutes? I could do that. I was reading Maryann in Autumn, a novel by Armistead Maupin. Light, funny, and short chapters. Not too intimidating. Each morning, it got a little easier to avoid the computer, and by the fifth day, I found myself reading for half an hour. Then, without even realizing it, I started getting up a little earlier so I’d have more reading time before sitting down to write. A few chapters before the end of that Maupin novel, I was eagerly searching my bookshelves for the next book I was going to read.

Like any addict, I’m taking this one day at a time. But it’s now over three months since I started, and I haven’t missed a single morning. I usually read for at least an hour after I get up, and even better, I find myself reading instead of doing you-know-what in the evening as well. I’m back to reading about two novels a week, and I feel as if my concentration has improved in all kinds of other areas as well. I feel as if I have my life back.

When I was describing this to a friend, she said, “Gee, Rain, it sounds as if you’re getting addicted to reading books.” I happily admitted that I am. I always have been. And honestly, I can’t think of a more wonderful addiction.

So now, let me tell you about this novel I wrote . . .

© 2011 Rain Mitchell, author of Tales from the Yoga Studio

Rain Mitchell, author of Tales From the Yoga Studio, began practicing yoga as a teenager and is currently at work on the second novel in the series. Rain’s favorite pose is corpse. For more information, visit http://www.talesfromtheyogastudio.com/

Five Ways to Be Happier as You Grow Older

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:53:34 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Lewis Richmond, Author of the upcoming Aging as a Spiritual Practice

In researching my upcoming book Aging as a Spiritual Practice, I investigated a new specialty in psychology called “happiness studies.” One recent example is a 2010 Stonybrook University study that polled over 300,000 people and concluded the people in their fifties are generally happier than people in their thirties. The researchers couldn’t say exactly why, but they guessed that people who live longer have more experience at managing stress and knowing how to cope.

Happiness researchers have concluded that there are three factors that reliably increase happiness as we grow older — gratitude, generosity, and re-framing (this means seeing your situation from a more positive perspective). To these three I would add two more — curiosity and flexibility.

Gratitude.

During my one-day workshops on aging, I begin by asking people what they like about being older. Invariably someone will say “being grateful.” I follow up by asking the whole group, “What are you grateful for? What’s the first thing that comes to mind?” People speak of grandchildren, good health, free time, wearing what they want, the chance to travel, giving back to the community. Then I ask everyone to take up pencil and paper and expand that list. People are surprised at how long their list becomes, and how many simple things they are grateful for. One person included the ham sandwich she had just had for lunch. That’s right; one of the gifts of aging is learning to appreciate the small things. You can make a list yourself, or keep a gratitude journal. You too will be surprised at how much gratitude there already is in your life.

Generosity.

One aging study reported that if giving weren’t free, drug companies could market a great new drug called “give back” instead of Prozac. It’s scientifically proven: giving back and helping others makes us feel happier and more content. Giving is a universal spiritual value taught by every religion, and the desire to give back naturally increases as we age. It is part of our emerging role as community elders — something we can do into our sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond. Giving is indeed a spiritual practice, and it naturally lifts our spirits.

Re-framing.

This means seeing the bright side. Aging includes its share of reverses, losses and sorrows. That’s true for everyone; the difference is our attitude about them. Some people are more optimistic than others, but everyone can work at positive re-framing. Gratitude is one kind of re-framing; if we develop a cataract in one eye, we can be thankful for our good eye. If we lost money in the recession, at least we didn’t lose it all. It’s an attitude that can become a habit, if we work at it.

Curiosity.

Here’s a two word slogan to help you stay happy as you grow older: Be curious! Try new things. If you see an ad for a bird-watching class, and you like birds, take it. If you go into a bookstore, browse in sections you don’t usually visit. If you haven’t seen a friend in too many years, call him or her up — today! Curiosity is a key factor in healthy aging. There’s a tendency as we age to hunker down in our old familiar routines. Resist that temptation. Physical exercise grows new muscle, mental activity grows new brain cells, emotional engagement lifts the spirit. Curiosity keeps you young; cherish it.

Flexibility.

Things change as we age, and some of those changes are irrevocable. Our youthful stamina is gone forever; a dying friend will never return. In the face of these changes, do we become rigid and stuck in our ways, or do we roll with the punches? Flexibility is another kind of re-framing. If your knee goes bad and you can’t run, walk or bike. If you have financial reverses, cut back and make do with less. Try not to feel sorry for yourself. As aging’s reverses come at you learn to bob and weave. No matter what the issue, no matter how big the problem, there is always something that you can do. Never give up, never let aging get the better of you. This is how the “extraordinary elderly” do it — the ones who have beaten the odds to enjoy their old age to the very end.

These five principles for happiness as we age really work; science says so and common sense says so. You may already be doing many of these without realizing it. If so, good! Keep at it. Aging is the reward for having lived a full life.

© 2011 Lewis Richmond

Lewis Richmond is a Buddhist writer and teacher, and the author of the upcoming Aging as a Spiritual Practice, to be published Spring, 2012. Lewis leads a Zen meditation group, Vimala Sangha, and teaches at workshops and retreats throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. He has published three books, including the national bestseller Work as a Spiritual Practice. Lewis also leads a discussion on aging as a spiritual practice at Tricycle magazine’s online community site.

For more information please visit http://www.lewisrichmond.com/, his blog Living And Aging as A Spiritual Practice and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

The Quake That Shakes Us All

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:32:23 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Eric Best, Author of Into My Father’s Wake.

How prepared are people for the bigger reverberations of major events, and how to deal with them intelligently, of which the first step might be anticipation and planning?

As a longtime scenario practitioner, I have an aversion to certainties of all kinds, partly because it is always the unexpected that changes the way we think and subsequently must behave. Humans must live and work in a constant tension between confidence about what they think they know and flexibility in the face of incomplete information, and sheer ignorance. But how to identify what you do not know well enough and should consider?

Enter Japan’s earthquake and unfolding disaster. Were quakes of this kind uncertain? No, they were inevitable (and still are). Were those plants “safe?” No, they never were, located on the geological “Ring of Fire” that promises serious quakes from here to eternity.

The quake’s timing, however, was uncertain, and also the extremity of its effects. We must now all reconsider whether:

A nuclear cloud will get into the atmosphere and increase cancer risks everywhere
Anti-nuclear movements will extend globally as the world comprehends that it potentially shares in every other country’s nuclear risks
Nuclear plants should continue to answer the world’s energy appetite, given what we now know, and know that we know
Recalculation of insurance liabilities will render nuclear energy just too costly
Makers of potassium iodide pills are suddenly a valuable stock investment (Or are you too late?)

I mean this last only partly facetiously. It says something about positive pricing effects in negative macro conditions.

Vital lessons may be taken from Japan’s experience – which, pray, does not continue to multiple meltdowns and swathes of dead areas of Japan from nuclear contamination. One lesson might be in the approach that executives and managers take to major “uncertainties” that are likely to unfold at some level and at some point reasonably soon. Don’t we know what some of them are?

As much as a U.S. Treasury-market collapse, Middle East (Libya, Saudi-Bahrain) disruptions, oil prices above $120/bbl, rapid global inflation, European financial meltdown and China disruptions are known to be real and proximate possibilities, many corporate and public policy leaders have not really taken the time to think these through.

Scenario thinking continues to be an invaluable tool in the risk-manager’s toolbox because it allows for the unthinkable to be more easily thought and for the unspeakable to be spoken in ways that may be heard and acted upon in time. Examples are many of risks that were contemplated with scenarios and where subsequent actions saved millions or produced strategic options that were acted on profitably. Lives might well be saved as well.

Maybe Japan’s quake has shaken the rest of the world enough to reconsider how prepared we are, and are not, on some of these fronts. “What if?” remains a powerful question for managing future risk, but only if you really ask it – the right way with the right people around you – and think it through.

Then you must act.

© 2011 Eric Best

Eric Best is an author, speaker, and strategy consultant to individuals and corporations. Educated at Hamilton College, Harvard and Stanford Universities, his background as a journalist (Lowell Sun, USA Today, San Francisco Examiner), futurist (Global Business Network, Morgan Stanley), and solo ocean sailor (SF-Hawaii and back, ’89 and ’93) inform his insights. The father of three, he lives and maintains offices in Brooklyn, NY, where he currently consults for a global financial firm and is working on two new books.

For more information please visit http://ericbestonline.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

12 Bits of Advice For a Rewarding Life

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:54:26 +0000

This Be my Guest Author Article is by Tina Sloan, Author of Changing Shoes: Getting Older -Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace.

1) Be True to Yourself. Always make sure that the shoes you wear are your own. That way your feet will know where to take you.

2) Never Compromise All of Yourself. The truly great thing about women dating at our age is that, unlike in their younger days, most are not willing to compromise.

3.) Claim Your Feel Good Energy. I think, more than anything, feeling sexy and desirable is about energy. It’s all about tapping that flirtatious instinct that all women have.

4.) Live in Kindness and Generosity. We need to be generous with the women following in our footsteps in the hope that they will be generous with us.

5.) Embrace Change. Change often leads us somewhere interesting, whether we’ve looked for it or not.

6.) Expect Bitter-Sweet Moments. There is perhaps nothing more rewarding for a parent than watching your child grow up and spread his wings- and for many, nothing more heartbreaking at the same time.

7.) Prepare to Reinvent Yourself. Kids bring so much energy into your life- different people and all sorts of new experiences and ideas. When you get older, you have to generate that energy yourself, and you have to work at it.

8.) Give Back. Nothing quite prepares you for the unsettling feeling of being called upon to care for those who once cared for you.

9.) Persevere. We do learn something about ourselves when we are up against the wall, and we do most certainly come out stronger.

10.) Draw Your Own Map. Aging is like a marathon. The key is to stay in the race and continue putting one foot in front of the other until we cross the finish line on our own terms.

11.) Choose to Live Rather than Exists. You have to learn to silence the voice that tries to cajole you with excuses and reasons why it would be better to just sit this one out.

12.) Don’t be Afraid of Falling. Whenever I wondered if I was brave enough to take another chance, or stretch beyond my normal range, or try something completely new I remind myself that I was an expert at the fine art of falling, and that most of the time, I landed on my feet.

Copyright © 2011 Tina Sloan, author of Changing Shoes: Getting Older -Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace

Tina Sloan, author of Changing Shoes: Getting Older – Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace, played the role of Nurse Lillian Raines on Guiding Light, which aired its final episode in 2009 after a seventy-two year run on radio and television. She has appeared on many other television shows, including Third Watch, and Law & Order: SVU, and in a variety of feature films, including The Brave One and Changing Lanes. She is currently shooting two feature films and touring nationally in her acclaimed one-woman show, Changing Shoes. She lives in New York with her husband, Steve McPherson. They have one son, Renny.

For more information please visit http://www.changingshoes.com/ and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Book Excerpt: Life in The Slow Lane by Thomas M. Sullivan

A Book Excerpt Author — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:54:08 +0000

I start the day teaching two girls. We’re driving past the library when I see one of our cars on the road. I’m not sure who’s instructing, but it’s probably Thomas. I abandon my route for the moment and have my student turn each time Thomas does.

Five minutes into this tailing, my driver asks, “Are we following that car?”

“Yup,” I say, “it’s one of ours. You two want to have some fun?”

“Sure,” the driver says.

Her sister in the back keeps quiet. Thomas’s car turns left and we follow, maintaining our distance.

“Now,” I say as we stalk our prey, “you guys know how much you hate getting honked at, right?”

My driver glances over and says, “Definitely.”

“Okay, this is a learning exercise,” I say. “We’re going to practice what not to do by doing it. Should we ever honk at someone just because we’re in a hurry?”

“No,” the girls respond in unison.

Thomas’s car turns right after halting at an intersection. Focused on her slow pursuit, my driver does a California stop, rolling past the stop sign. She does check for cars, so it’s safely illegal and I let it slide. We’ve got bigger fish to fry here.

“What do we do when someone honks at us?” I ask.

The girl in the back doesn’t say anything, but her sister up front says, “Ignore them and only do what’s safe.”

I’m impressed and tell her so. Thomas’s car stops at a four-way intersection and we slink up behind it. I glance at the girl driving.

“Okay, honk. But do it gently.”

I forget that she’s probably never used a horn before. She leans into the steering wheel with both arms, pressing down like a celebrity chef kneading dough. The horn blares out a sharp, extended honk. The girls erupt in laughter and I see a face pop into the side mirror. It’s Thomas all right, but I doubt if he knows it’s us. Our car lacks the required student driver marking on the front, so we probably appear to be just another impatient jerk. A few second later Thomas’s car turns right and we turn left. We all agree that his driver handled the situation perfectly.

* * * *

Later that day I’m cruising down the road with a young girl doing her second lesson. She’s glumly recounting a lesson she had last week in which her instructor yelled at her for making a right turn too fast. Whoever this is (I don’t ask and don’t want to know), it sounds like a staff infection to me. From my driver’s hesitant tone I can tell that she’s confused by the experience, knowing something isn’t quite right but not sure if she should be bringing it up.

“Were you told to slow down before the turn?” I ask.

“No,” she squeaks, cowering slightly.

“Well then,” I say, “you didn’t do anything wrong, because you didn’t know any better. Case closed.”

We roll up to an intersection and stop for a red light. Waiting for the signal to change, it occurs to me that this instructor may himself need a lesson. He should be fitted with a remote controlled explosive vest, put behind the wheel, and told not to make a mistake. With someone watching from a helicopter overhead, finger on the trigger, he’ll learn just how nervous these kids feel.

Being a good teacher is easy. I know, from kids’ comments and my past experience, that I’m decent at the job. It’s simple, if you follow one basic rule: Never make a kid feel bad for making a mistake. It doesn’t matter whether you’re teaching him math to prepare for college or you’re helping him avoid killing a pedestrian with his car. If a teenager becomes dejected while learning, they’ll want to stop.

We sit silently, watching the action in front of us. The intersection is a typical monster for this high-tech suburb, with drivers in multiple lanes each getting a brief chance to turn. I watch with dismay, but not surprise, as an SUV guns past us on a yellow turn arrow and squeals through the intersection.

The signal changes to green. My driver pulls away from the light and continues down the road. At the next intersection she swings left onto a secondary road, braking into the turn and accelerating out of it perfectly.

“There you go,” I beam. “Looks like you got the speed down now.”

She smiles and nods, and then admits that her turn with the last instructor was pretty hairy. I laugh, envisioning someone, probably the ex-cop from my training class, gripping the door for dear life.

I ask my driver, “So, how’s it going with other instructors?”

The girl opens right up, talking about her in-class experience.

“Our instructor told the class that the cops in Portland are all corrupt.”

I learn that after the class ended a few kids repeated this comment to their parents, who in turn called the police department. Someone from the police bureau then contacted the office. Oops. The kid in back leans forward between the front seats and adds his thoughts on the class.

“Yeah, he also told us to avoid the DMV in Gladstone because they hate white kids and fail them.”

They both laugh at this. Jesus, it’s Hannibal Lecture. My students find it funny that the instructor is teaching Driver’s Ed even though he has three fused disks in his back from a car accident.

No instructor is perfect. I make mistakes here and there. We all do. But there’s a matter of degree and avoidability. Going to this guy’s class must be as comforting as patronizing a speech therapist with a stutter. I wonder how long he’ll survive. Probably a while, given our staffing shortage.

We pull into a dead end and stop the car. My driver is about to parallel-park for the first time. She breathes in and lets out a nervous sigh.

“What happens if I hit the curb?” she asks.

“Well,” I say, “then we just try again. Don’t worry about it.”

I cover the steps used for parking, and the girl appears to relax. She looks toward the edge of the road and hits the gas to move. The engine revs with the car in place. Realizing that she’s still in park, she looks at me with a small smirk, and I grin back. She prods the shifter into drive, taps the gas, and starts rolling. As we approach the curb she speeds up at the last minute. Why she does this, I have no idea. It’s a first for me. The right-side tires grind violently along the concrete. As we jerk to a halt I tell her to approach the curb slowly and use the reference point. She apologizes.

“Hey, that’s how we learn,” I say. “Plus, what do we care? I mean really, it’s not our car.”

The four of us laugh. This line works every time, instantly putting kids at ease.

This spurs my driver to relate a story about her older brother: He’s sitting behind the wheel of the family car, which is parked in front of the garage. The entire family is in the vehicle, and they’re driving out to buy a used car, a graduation gift to the brother for getting his license. Just as he’s been taught, he turns to face backward in preparation for backing out of the driveway. He then hits the gas and proceeds to lurch forward, crashing into the garage. His graduation gift becomes a new door, which his parents wrap in a big red ribbon.

* * * *

At 7 pm I limp back from Starbucks to find my last student waiting in front of the recreation center. It’s the eighth lesson of the day and I’m completely exhausted. I’m wearing bright white tennis sneakers, only worn once, since my regular shoes got soaked during a run last night. The sneakers make me look like I should be working in a hospital. My student gazes at my footwear.

“Man, those things are bright!” he says.

I take a huge swig of coffee and look over at the kid.

“My regular job is as a nurse,” I reply. “I’m just doing Driver’s Ed until the lawsuit is settled.”

My student furrows his brow, but when I smile he flashes a wide grin and laughs. I love the sound. It’s the main thing keeping me going, and probably my students as well.

Thomas Sullivan’s writing has appeared in Word Riot and 3AM Magazine, among others. He is the author of Life In The Slow Lane, a comic memoir about teaching drivers education. For information on this title, please visit his author website at http://thomassullivanhumor.com.

Method Point of View

A Guest Article Writer — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:45:50 +0000

Have you been told your POV transitions are rough? That your POV head hops? That your characters lack depth? If so, perhaps this article may help you.

Consider the method-acting process developed by Constantin Stanislavski of the Moscow Theatre and continued by Leo Strasberg in Hollywood. That method is one in which the actor wills himself to become the character he’s playing. Some actors/actresses meticulously research their roles prior to filming/stage. Rene Zeilwegger worked two weeks in a London office to train for her role in “Bridget Jones’ Diary.”

What’s the point of this information in an article on writing? Thank you, I’m so glad you asked. Because in writing, the author must mentally become the character in whose point of view the author is writing the scene. Whether writing from the POV of the hero, heroine, villain, or a secondary character, the author must become that character and experience the scene from that character’s body and mind. Record only those things the POV character could experience.

Elementary example when writing from Mary’s POV:
Instead of: Mary could see John wondered what she meant.
That phrase from Mary’s POV might better read: John stared. Didn’t he understand what she meant?
Mary cannot know what John is thinking, she can only guess from his facial expression and body language.

Life experience determines a character’s thoughts, dialogue, and actions. The same is true for an internal dialogue—the character’s impressions reflect these past experiences. How would your character react differently than another in the circumstances of your scene? For instance, in my out-of-print story, The Most Unsuitable Wife, the heroine Pearl bakes pastry and bread to sell to the townspeople. When she meets a brown-eyed man, she thinks his eyes are the color of cinnamon. On the other hand, a storekeeper might think brown eyes the color of the new boots that just arrived. In my June 2010 release, Out of The Blue, heroine Deirdre thinks Mildred’s hair is like a sunset. Deirdre is a naïve young woman who’s been transported from 1845 Ireland to 2010 Texas and doesn’t realize the other woman’s hair is a freakish sight. In the September 2010 release,The Texan’s Irish Bride, heroine Cenora O’Neill believes rancher Dallas McClintock is wealthy because she saw the cash in his money belt from horses he’s sold. Living the life of a vagabond Irish Traveler, she has no concept of the funds required to operate a large ranch. Keep your POV character’s life condition in mind as your write each scene.

Don’t forget to surround the character with the senses. What does the character see, feel, taste, hear, smell, sense, and perceive as reactions from the others in the scene? Immerse the reader in the character’s impressions. Remember, though, express only what you as the POV character experience. No bouncing around. Yes, I know Nora Roberts can hop from one character to another in the same scene or paragraph. If you have her fan base and wonderful creative skill, you may too. Otherwise, follow the rules! No more than one POV change—with a smooth transition—in any scene.

Recapping, each of us is the sum of his or her experiences. Those life experiences color how we interpret and react to incidents. Keep that in mind when creating your POV character’s internal and external dialogue. If you master Method-POV, you will eliminate head hopping. More importantly, because you are deeply in the character’s POV, you will draw the reader in as well. That’s what we want, isn’t it? Readers who can’t put down our books! And, as they say on the movie set, that’s a wrap.

Article by Caroline Clemmons. As long as she can remember, Caroline Clemmons has made us adventures. Her career includes stay-at-home mom, newspaper reporter and featured columnist, assistant to the managing editor of a psychology journal, and bookkeeper. She and her husband live on a small acreage in rural North Central Texas with their dog and two cats. When not writing, Caroline loves spending time with family, reading, family history, travel, and browsing antique malls and estate sales. To learn more about Caroline and her books, please visit Caroline’s blog at http://carolineclemmons.blogspot.com and her site at www.carolineclemmons.com.

Book Excerpt: Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pajamas: Popular Expressions — What They Mean and How We Got Them

A Book Excerpt Author — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:50:11 +0000

This book excerpt is entitled Snug as a Bug In A Rug and comes from Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pajamas: Popular Expressions — What They Mean and How We Got Them by Judy Parkinson.

Snug as a Bug in a Rug.

A whimsical and comfortable comparison dating from the eighteenth century, although a “snug” is a sixteenth-century word for a parlor in an inn.

The phrase is usually credited to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote it in 1772 as an epitaph for a pet squirrel that had belonged to Georgiana Shipley, the daughter of his friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph.

Franklin’s wife had sent the Shipleys the gray squirrel as a gift from Philadelphia, and they named him Skugg, a common nickname for squirrels at the time. Tragically, he escaped from his cage and was killed by a dog. Franklin wrote:

Here Skugg
Lies snug
As a bug
In a rug.

However, there are earlier uses, as in a celebration of David Garrick’s 1769 Shakespeare festival. Seen printed in the Stratford Jubilee:

If she [a rich widow] has the mopus’s [money], I’ll have her, as snug as a bug in a rug.

And there are several similar variations from which the phrase may have sprung. In 1706, Edward Ward wrote in The Wooden World Dissected:

He sits as snug as a bee in a box.

And in Thomas Heywood’s 1603 play A Woman Killed with Kindness, there is:

Let us sleep as snug as pigs in pease-straw.

The above is an excerpt from the book Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pajamas: Popular Expressions — What They Mean and How We Got Them by Judy Parkinson. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Judy Parkinson is a graduate of Bristol University. She is a producer of documentaries, music videos, and commercials, and won a Clio award for a Greenpeace ad. Parkinson has published four books and has contributed to a show of life drawings at the Salon des Arts, Kensington.

For more information, please visit www.rdtradepublishing.com or follow the series on Facebook.

Book Review: Oracle Night by Paul Auster

A Guest Article Writer — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 08:29:16 +0000

Paul Auster’s novel, Oracle Night, explores the possibility that words can alter reality. The novel invites readers into the mind of Sidney Orr, an author living in New York with his wife, Grace. Sidney is doing errands in Brooklyn when he notices a stationary store in his neighborhood that wasn’t there before. The small building lures him in and once inside, Sidney makes a decision that the entire novel is based upon. He buys a blue notebook.

After months of not writing, due to a near fatal accident, Sidney returns to his apartment and opens the notebook. Like so many other descriptions in the novel, Auster’s portrayal of the author returning to his pen rendered a sense of being suspended in the moment. The blue notebook, purchased from a shop that disappears two days later, turns out to have a somewhat supernatural effect on Sidney. Sidney begins to spin out a story about Nick Bowen; a successful editor who is walking to the mailbox one evening when a stone gargoyle falls off of a building and barely misses him. Convinced that he was supposed to die and therefore he must now begin a new life, Nick impulsively walks away from his established life and boards the airport’s next flight. If this is starting to seem complex, thinking about Paul Auster writing a novel about Sidney writing a novel about Nick (who is editing a book called Oracle Night), well, that’s because it is. Auster artfully layers story upon story.

Absorbed in this structure, it is easy to lose a definite sense of when the story moves from Sidney’s thoughts about developing his characters and plot, to Sidney’s actual life. Yet, it is through this structure that the reader witnesses how words flowing from Sidney’s imagination impact the circumstances of his reality. Auster seems to do this on purpose, conveying the blurred places of imagination and reality.

Auster takes us into Sidney’s mind in an original and refreshing style by using footnotes from Sydney to consistently interrupt Sidney’s own creation of plot and character in the blue notebook. Three page long footnotes risk three pages of annoying the reader as an interruption to the original story. However, these footnotes accomplish quite the contrary. The footnotes are like windows into the author’s thought processes, like appetizers to later developments of Sidney’s actual life. For example, as Sidney invents the moment that Nick first meets his wife, a footnote directs the reader to Sidney’s personal memory of when he first met his wife, Grace:

Grace’s eyes were blue. A dark blue flecked with traces of gray, perhaps some brown, perhaps some hints of hazelish contrast as well. They were complex eyes, eyes that changed color according to the intensity and timbre of the light that fell on them at a given moment, and the first time I saw her that day in Betty’s office, it occurred to me that I had never met a woman who exuded such composure, such tranquility of bearing, as if Grace, who was not yet twenty-seven at the time, had already moved on to some higher state of being than the rest of us…that was what I fell in love with: the sense of calm that enveloped her, the radiant silence burning within.

Knowing about Sidney’s love for his wife Grace and how that love developed shapes the reader’s perception of events that happen in their marriage later in the novel. Sidney reveals this information through footnotes that interrupt the story he is creating about Nick. The use of footnotes creates a dynamic force that weaves together the stories of Nick and Sidney, and makes the reader more curious about Sidney’s life.

As the novel progresses, Sidney’s life becomes the focus of the plot. Sidney’s wife Grace seems to be hiding something and tension erupts in their marriage. Their family friend and famous author, John Trause, gets sick and his son escapes from drug rehab. The Chinese owner of the stationary store has a mysterious source of money and tries to pull Sidney into a strange friendship. In the story Sidney is writing, Nick gets locked inside a bombproof room in a warehouse full of historic telephone books in Kansas City.

Unfortunately, that is where Sidney leaves Nick. About halfway through Oracle Night, Sidney stops writing his story about the editor who abandons his old life for a new one. The novel’s emphasis shifts to what is happening in Sidney’s real life, although he continues to notice links between what he has written in his blue notebook, and what happens in his reality. The dismissal of Nick’s story was disappointing. When Nick’s story faded away from the pages, the intrigue of the novel faded with it. The events of Sidney’s life, though interesting, make the novel almost ordinary.

By the end, Oracle Night lost the energy it began with. It maintains its eventful plot, yet loses some of its playful subtleties. Oracle Night begins with dynamic originality of structure, style, and content. When the novel shifts from Nick’s creative story to focus on realistic, yet overly dramatic details of Sidney’s personal life, the book becomes less than satisfactory. But maybe this was all part of Auster’s plan to challenge his imaginative reader to accept reality and the need to persevere through it. Maybe he is challenging us to consider that regardless of the influence of time and words upon events, life still happens.

Book review by Danny Offer. Danny is a partner in the Facebook chat program Chit Chat for Facebook. The desktop Facebook chat application makes it easier to send a Facebook message to your friends whilst surfing the internet.

Protecting Your Child From Cyber-Monsters

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 18:58:26 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Jilliane Hoffman, Author of Pretty Little Things

Last December, New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that more than 3500 registered sex offenders had been purged from the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace in the state’s first database sweep for sexual predators.

That’s 3500 caught, convicted and registered sex offenders who’d actually used their real names when they signed up for a Facebook or MySpace page. That’s not counting all the deviants that haven’t yet been busted, pled to a lesser charge, had charges dropped, never registered their emails with their probation or parole officers, socially communicate using an alias, or live outside the Empire State. With that in mind, consider this sobering statistic: According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), the average sex offender offends for 16 years before he’s finally caught. In that time span, he has committed an average of 318 offenses and violated 110 victims.

Wow. Now just imagine who your kids may be chatting with online.

The explosion of the Internet over the past decade has spawned fertile hunting grounds for sex offenders. Kids, and particularly teens, live their lives instantaneously and out loud on social networks, where every detail from where they’ll be hanging out that night to who they’ll be with and what they’ll be wearing when they get there is posted for all of their “friends” to see. And those friends are not just the traditional bunch of kids you’ve known since elementary school. Social networking sites and chat rooms have literally opened up a whole new cyber-world to children. Online, they can be “friends” with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people from all over the globe, most of whom they’ve never met outside of a WiFi connection. And of course, as the tragic headlines constantly remind us, in this faceless cyber world not everything is kid-friendly and not everyone is who they say they are.

There are over 665,000 registered convicted sex offenders living in the United States. According to a study commissioned by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in every seven kids has been approached by a sexual predator online. That’s 13% of children who use the Internet. Sex Offenders no longer need to leave the comfort of their living rooms to find and “groom” fresh victims. Rather, with just the click of a mouse, they can mingle in chatrooms, send and receive child pornography, and, of course, purview the walls of Facebook and the posts of MySpace like they might entrees on a dinner menu, replete with helpful personal information and pictures. Just ask the detectives who work online undercover or the producers of Dateline’s popular To Catch a Predator — in this fast-moving cyber-world, a predator can be anyone he wants to be: A twelve year-old boy, Jay-Z’s agent, a modeling scout, a fourteen year-old girl. And teens, being the invincible bunch they are, always believe they’ll be able to spot a poser or a predator a mile off on the computer, when the truth is they can’t — oftentimes until it is way too late. They’ve already been groomed.

Back in the mid 90′s, in response to the headline-making abduction of eleven year old Jacob Wetterling of Wisconsin, and the sexual assault and murder of seven year-old Megan Kanka by her neighbor, a repeat child sex offender in New Jersey, the feds enacted a series of laws designed to warn the public of the presence of dangerous sex offenders and heighten community awareness on an issue that was literally moving in right next door to Joe the Plumber. Each state was charged with establishing a sex offender registry and implementing a community notification program. The theory behind which was simple: Knowledge is power. If a sex offender is going to be out and about in the community, people — and more particularly, parents — should arm themselves with information about their identities and whereabouts so as to better protect their kids. Without promoting vigilantism, making yourself aware of the scum living in your zip code that your children might very well come in contact with and warning kids appropriately can be a very effective crime-fighting tool. But in today’s world, where every kid has a cell phone in their pocket and a computer in their room, it’s just not enough.

My daughter was in the fourth grade when a fellow eleven year-old classmate was approached on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) by a 43 year old sexual predator who went by the screen name of “rooster69″ and claimed he was a 16 year-old boy. It wasn’t until he asked one of the little girl’s friends to send him nude pictures that one of the children finally spoke up. I thought I had more time to ready myself on the dangers of the Internet. I was wrong.

So what’s a parent to do? How can you make sure your kids are Facebooking with fellow thirteen year olds and not forty-three-year-old convicted sex offenders? I’m a big believer in the real world. Show kids the headlines. Let them read the stories of teens who disappeared or were assaulted after meeting up with someone they met online. The stories are out there, and there are plenty of them. Check out perverted-justice.com for a real eye-opener. Then talk to your kids about limiting the amount of personal information they post, particularly addresses and schedules; inappropriate posts and pictures; the new horrible growing fad of sexting; and finally, limiting the amount of “friends” they have and just what those friends are able to see. And as a parent you have to know of what you speak. So if you don’t have a Facebook or MySpace yourself, you better thoroughly check it out. And if you do allow your kid access to a social network, it should be a number one rule that he or she “friends” you with unrestricted access, so that you can monitor what he or she is doing.

Then make sure you do just that.

© 2010 Jilliane Hoffman, author of Pretty Little Things

Jilliane Hoffman was an Assistant State Attorney in Miami between 1992 and 1996. Until 2001 she was the Regional Law Advisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, advising special agents on complex investigations including narcotics, homicide, and organized crime. Pretty Little Things is her fourth novel, following the international bestsellers Retribution, Last Witness, and Plea of Insanity. She lives in Florida.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=1593156383]

Book Review: Hard Cache by Charles B. Neff

Mike — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 20:38:57 +0000

HARD – 1 : not easily penetrated : not easily yielding to pressure

CACHE – 1 : a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements
: b : a secure place of storage
2 : something hidden or stored in a cache
3 : a computer memory with very short access time used for storage of frequently or recently used instructions or data —called also cache memory

- Definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

My reading time is valuable to me. Much like a kid in a candy shoppe when I do find I can set aside a few precious hours for some alone time with a book I want it to be the best choice I can make. Just like the kid who wants the most candy he can get for his nickel, I want the most enjoyable or exciting book I can get for my time. The title Hard Cache (Bennett & Hasting Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-934733-57-8) did not reach out and grab me. Also I had never heard of author Charles B. Neff. For these two reasons I passed on grabbing this one off the shelf for several days.

But I must admit I kept returning to read the title. Hard Cache. And I would ask myself why the Author would use that spelling of cache. Because it was obvious from the front cover this was not a computer geek type book. We all know cache is something that stores things in the memory of our computer. Finally my interest in knowing why the author chose this title overwhelmed my sense of value for my time and I pulled the book off the shelf. Little did I know I was about to get the most for my nickel!

Blessed God,

I searched my faith for the message I know is there. The helpful, joyous message that I have accepted as the new center of my life. Your will is in everything. Even in the act I committed three days ago.
It was not my hand that lifted and moved the stone in its fatal arc. It was Yours. A life was not removed, but affirmed, and now knows the richness of the Kingdom Of Heaven.

(From Chapter 8, Hard Cache by Charles B. Neff)

Hard Cache took me some time to warm up to because I didn’t know what to expect and getting to know the characters is often times the weak point for me in any novel. My leeriness of this thriller soon ended and fast. By Chapter Two I found I was fully submerged and not only in the developing characters. So let me be clear from the start: Hard Cache has all the components a good thriller requires.

You have a compelling cast of central characters: Magnus Torval, a recently retired police offer; Mariela, Troval’s fiancée who despises the thought that he may one day return to the Police Department. Then there’s Greg Takarchuk, a member of the Swiftwater Police Department and son of Dmitry, owner of the local Russian antique store. And most importantly Leonid Kuzma, Pastor of the Family of Christ Church near Swiftwater.

These characters’ history and their interaction keeps the story moving along at a nice, interesting pace. Readers might pick any one of them as the novel’s protagonist. But I was starting to realize Hard Cache was going much deeper than any surface impressions I’d formed initially of individual characters and the book. Much, much deeper.

Someone is hiding something and whatever it is has the potential to destroy the lives of many. But wait. Isn’t that the same old story line played out in countless fiction novels? It would be if that was what was going on here. But it’s not. Dark and Evil things can consume your life at any time, young or old. At its worst you may become the vessel in which all secrets are stored. You may become “Hard Cache” .

Becoming “Hard Cache” at any age would be terrible. Becoming “Hard Cache” as a young soldier would be unimaginable. Try if you can to imagine what it would be like to spend a lifetime trying to exorcise an Evil so strong that mere words could entice you to murder women and children. Imagine trying to create a normal life in hopes the Evil forgets you in your old age. That it never returns. Now imagine during the ensuing years of creating this normal life the number of innocent people who may have come to love you, trust you, or follow you. What happens to them when you find that even after all these years, all your attempts, you are still…”Hard Cache”?

The back cover tells us author Charles B. Neff “has been an administrator at four U.S. universities and has led international development projects in Colombia and Russia. He has authored books on cross cultural learning and executive searches, and has written three previous novels.”

In Hard Cache Neff used his substantial depth of knowledge and experience well to draw the reader into a vivid image about life and just how easy it is for the power of evil to enter at any time. I would relate the real storyline and message of Hard Cache to another one of my favorite novels; The Stand by Stephen King because just like The Stand, Hard Cache will absolutely terrify you on a deeper level.

Learn more about Hard Cache and the author at http://www.booksbyneff.com. Hard Cache is available now at all good bookstores.

Review by Mike, who has loved books since Curious George Gets a Medal landed in his lap in 1962.