This Is Me--2024 A to Z Theme

My A to Z Themes in the past have covered a range of topics and for 2025 the theme is a random assemblage of things that are on my mind--or that just pop into my mind. Whatever! Let's just say I'll be "Tossing It Out" for your entertainment or however it is you perceive these things.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Hear Me Roar! --Nancy S. Thompson Guest Post

             Some of the most visited posts on my blog and some of your blogs have been those dealing with blogging.  Can you imagine that!   We love blogging so much that we even love to read about it.  Today we get some more thoughts about blogging from Nancy S. Thompson.   Nancy recently released her book The Mistaken which has been getting very favorable reviews.   You can visit Nancy at her own blog. 


Hear Me Roar!


Thanks for having me back, Arlee.  While trying to come up with a topic we’re all interested in, I was made to consider what we all have in common.  Many of us are writers.  And we blog.  We do this for many reasons, but we all probably started for the same one, because, as writers seeking publication, we were told we needed to build a platform.

But what’s the point of that platform?  Is it simply a means to have your voice heard and hopefully get noticed?  Well, sure, that’s part of it, of course—a large part, no doubt.  But more than that, blogging is about sharing information.  Yeah, we can all Google just about anything imaginable and come up with some article or website, but blogging is more about sharing our personal experiences.  It’s really just an online diary, but one meant for public consumption.

We all use various forms of social networking—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, whatever—and they’re each good for their own brand of information.  But blogs are better suited to our purpose of making our voices heard in that it puts more than just a face to who we are as writers and, more importantly, as human beings.  It gives us heart, creates a fabric woven with threads of our accomplishments and failures, our dreams and expectations, our needs and losses, and, more than anything, our desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, something that needs us just as much as we need it.  A community. 


Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest, they just give our audience a tiny glimpse of who we are, single frames in a two-hour movie.  Our blogs are more of a bridge that leads to the very essence of who we are and what we value most.  It’s a place to employ creativity, exhibit perseverance, and build trust through consistent, honest content that both educates and entertains.

While relevance is always important, I think, as far as our blogs are concerned, it’s less about cosmic relevance and more about how we’re relevant to each other, one on one.  I read other blogs to learn what worked for that writer, where he got hung up on his journey, how she found the best way to write a query, if traditional publishing is the only legitimate path, and all sorts of other things.  Yet for each person, the answer is completely unique, and I am made to consider how their choice might, or might not, work for me.

Through it all, blogging has led me to—and made me a part of—a community like no other.  Though wholly virtual, the relationships are authentic and absolute, and that is the very heart of blogging, to be able to touch and affect those you cannot see, yet still hold in the highest regard.   

        How has community been valuable to you from a blogging standpoint?   Why do you blog?    What unexpected rewards have you received from blogging?    Do you feel that you have built that all important "platform" that is recommended for writers or those in a specialized field?




Praise for The Mistaken:

The Mistaken“A deliciously slow burn that builds to a ferocious crescendo, Nancy S. Thompson's THE MISTAKEN kept me riveted until the very last page. Tyler Karras is a complex and flawed protagonist, and his redemptive journey makes him the perfect anti-hero. This psychological suspense is a standout, and I can't wait for Thompson's next book.”
~ Jennifer Hillier, author of  CREEP and FREAK

“Nancy S. Thompson's debut novel, The Mistaken, is a first-rate thriller full of hair-raising twists and turns.  Pursued by the police and the Russian mafia in San Francisco, brothers Tyler and Nick Karras are fascinating, fully-drawn, desperate characters.  The action is non-stop.  Thompson's taut, intriguing tale of revenge, mistaken identity, kidnapping and murder will keep you enthralled and entertained.” 
~Kevin O’Brien, New York Times Bestselling Author of DISTURBED and TERRIFIED

“Fast-paced and emotionally gripping - once the ride begins, you won't stop reading until it ends."  ~Alex J. Cavanaugh, author of CASSAFIRE and CASSASTAR

http://nancysthompson.blogspot.com/


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Friday, November 16, 2012

Just for the Record, Should I Keep My Vinyl?

Vinyl record collection at student-run CKMS st...
Vinyl record collection at student-run CKMS station at the University of Waterloo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
         The recent passing of my step-father has put me in a reflective state of mind.   I look at my life--the experiences I've had, the material possessions I've accumulated, the people I've known--and I consider the concept of value.  I think about all the stuff in my closets and my garage.  Maybe it's time to get rid of some of it.  That's what I've been thinking.

          It could start with my vinyl record collection.  My turntable has been disconnected for a few years and  now is piled up with CD's and DVD's.   I don't listen to vinyl records anymore.  I don't even listen to CD's that often.   Maybe an hour or two per day--sometimes even as much as three hours--I might spend playing CD's in the background of my life.   If I'm on a road trip I might listen to as many as twelve CD's on a long driving day, but those trips don't happen that often.

         I don't plan to get rid of my CD collection anytime soon, but I am thinking about those vinyl records.  Don't get me wrong.  I truly appreciate my record collection.  I've been collecting those albums since my junior high school days--1964 is when I bought my first record album and I still have it.  I got rid of all of my 45's at the end of high school, but I kept the albums.  I've always treasured those albums.  But if I'm not listening to them then what's the point of keeping them?  I not curating a museum.

        Craig's List is tempting me.  I'm thinking that I could try to list the whole batch for maybe a thousand dollars firm and see if I get any bites.  I don't recall how many albums I have.  There might be as few as 300 or as many as 900.   It's no gigantic collection by any means, but it's reasonably respectable considering some of the albums included in the bunch.

           On the other hand I could try selling them off piecemeal.  Seems like a hassle, but the profit potential could be much better than getting rid of them all at once.   I'm not sure that I want to deal with the extended process of moving these out the door one by one, but when I look at some of the prices on the web of some of these gems I could potentially be getting as much as one or two hundred dollars or more for some of them.  That is if I am to believe that anyone is really paying these prices.

            These records.   They've been a part of me and my history.  There are memories in the music that accompanied times, places, and people in my past.  I have many of these records on CD now so the music wouldn't be totally lost to me.  The fact that I haven't been listening to them makes these records less a part of my life now.  They take up space.  They collect dust.  They kind of annoy my wife for whom these records have no meaning.  

           If I get rid of my records, I'm not getting rid of the memories.   I'm getting rid of stuff.   This is stuff that may be a boon or a burden to whomever is left with them when I leave this Earth.   I hope that departure is a long way off, but we never know when our time is up do we.  Maybe it's better to clean up our messes before we head out.  Kind of like helping clean up at the end of a party before we go home.

            Anyone want to buy a record collection?

            What do you own that you think it might be time to get rid of?   Has anyone had an experience selling things on places like E-Bay that they'd like to share?   When liquidating your life, would you rather avoid the prolonged hassle by just taking care of everything all at one shot?



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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Birth of a Novel: Paula Martin Guest Post


      Paula Martin has a new novel out and she's here today to tell you about it.   Wishing you success with it, Paula! 

The Birth of a Novel

When I went to Egypt in the fall of 2010, I had no idea the trip would result in a novel. I was more interested in seeing all the places I’d always dreamt of visiting, especially the Valley of the Kings and the Abu Simbel temples, which exceeded all my expectations.
Cruise ships on the Nile

It wasn’t until the penultimate day of our Nile cruise that the first seed was planted in my mind. I was relaxing on the sundeck of our cruise ship which was moored at Aswan. There are so many ships that they have to be moored four abreast, and the sundecks of neighbouring ships are more or less level with each other. I started to wonder if it would be possible to vault across the short gap (about 3 or 4 feet) from one sundeck to another. Not that I had any intention of trying it, you understand. My days of vaulting anywhere are well and truly over!

That evening, I put the question to one of the friends we had made during the cruise. He walked across to the rail, studied the gap for a moment, and then said, “Well, I wouldn’t try it now, but I could have done it easily when I was in my twenties or thirties.”

First piece of research completed – it was possible. And I could envision my hero doing his death defying leap (slight exaggeration) to be with the heroine.

So what now? Are the hero and heroine guests on different cruise ships? But the cruises only last 5 or 7 days, so what would happen when they returned home? No, I needed to have them both living in Egypt. So maybe my heroine could be a tour guide on a cruise ship.

What about the hero? On a flight from Aswan to Cairo, I read an article in the flight magazine about an archaeologist who had explored a hidden tunnel leading from the burial chamber of one of the pharaohs’ tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Hmm, maybe my hero could be an archaeologist in the famous Valley.
With the setting and the two main characters in place, it was time to start thinking of the complications and conflicts that would prevent the course of love running smoothly. What if the heroine had an Egyptian boyfriend who was pressurizing her to marry him? And what if the hero had lost the funding for his project after breaking his engagement to his sponsor’s daughter?
Temples at Abu Simbel

I wrote the first two chapters at the hotel in Luxor where we spent a week after the end of our cruise. The very nice Egyptian in the hotel bookshop acquired a notebook for me – I even managed to get him to understand what I meant by ‘spiral bound’! Writing in longhand reminded me of my early (pre-computer) writing days.

As well as writing, I also devoured the three books I bought at the bookshop, all about Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. This was only the beginning of my research. Once I got home, I transferred my scribble to the computer, and got on with the rest of the story, which ended up with far more twists and turns than I'd first envisaged. I wished I could go back to Luxor and explore the city more thoroughly, but by this time the revolution had started and Egypt became a no-go area for tourists for several months. Instead, I had to rely on websites - especially maps and photographs of modern Luxor and the west bank, cruise itineraries and ships, train and plane schedules, and even shisha bars. I also learnt so much about Ancient Egypt as I checked and re-checked my facts.

However, I never did manage to bring in the scene where the hero vaults the rails between the two cruise ships! But I did call my hero Ross, after the cruise-ship friend who told me it could be done.


Blurb:
Neve Dalton loves her job as a tour guide on a River Nile cruise ship as much as she values her independence. She isn’t ready to settle down with her Egyptian boyfriend, despite his repeated proposals and his father’s desire to see him married.
Nor is she ready to meet Ross McAllister, a compelling and fascinating archaeologist. She struggles against her growing attraction to him until she can no longer ignore what her heart is telling her. This is the man who sets her soul on fire.
After breaking up with her boyfriend, she starts receiving cryptic messages, and Ross’s work in the famous Valley of the Kings is threatened, Neve has to make a heart-breaking and life-changing decision which seems to be her only option.
Can they discover whose enmity is forcing them apart before it’s too late?


Short Bio:
Paula Martin had some early publishing success in her twenties with short stories and four contemporary romance novels, but then had a break from writing while she brought up a young family and also pursued her career as a history teacher for twenty-five years. She has recently returned to writing fiction, after retiring from teaching. and has had four romance novels published since June 2011.
She lives near Manchester in North-West England, and has two daughters and two grandsons. Apart from writing, she enjoys visiting new places and has travelled extensively in Britain, mainland Europe, the Middle East, America and Canada. Her favourite places are the English Lake District and Ireland. She’s also interested in musical theatre and tracing her family history.


Links

Find all her books on Amazon



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