Geanna Culbertson's Blog, page 3

Optimizing Your Website for Success

A personal website can play a key part in your success, as this kind of platform serves as a very efficient way to communicate your brand.

As a general rule, everything that you put out into the world about yourself should have a purpose, an end goal. Each blog you write, picture you post, opinion you publish, and so on should be geared toward building your brand so that you can achieve that goal.

For example, if you are a YA fantasy fiction author like me, then you would want all your personal website content to reflect the voice of your writing, appeal to your target audience, and communicate the essence of your product so that you can achieve your end goal—persuade website visitors to initiate a buying action and purchase one of the books you’ve written.

In order to make that end goal a reality, your personal website needs to adhere to certain standards. First: consistency of brand. If your personal website is a reflection of you, it is vital that you remain constant with your messaging, (your main message here being who you are). Second: structure your website for easy user interface. Don’t make it difficult for users to find what they are looking for. Construct your site with simple navigation in mind that appeals to what someone would inherently search for. Third: optimize your site for best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices, including—

Make your site mobile-friendly.
Have a clear menu bar with tabs to the most important pages/info.
Display easy access to the right kinds of contact information.
Have properly formatted title tags and meta descriptions.
Provide a clear portal to all of your optimized social media outlets.
Enhance you site’s textual content for keywords.
And have an intelligent internal linking structure that creates paths, which make it easier for people to find what they are looking for and/or what you want them to find.

Follow these practices and you and your brand will be on the right track for success. For more assistance, enlist the aid of an amazing online presence management company. If you are having specific problems updating text content on your website, you may also check out this industry guide for quick content editing tips and fixes found in HTML code.

 

 

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From Austria to America: The Origins of the Waltz

You may have seen it performed in a film, a competitive dancing show, or (if that’s how you roll) a ball of your very own. Whatever your experience, to most, the waltz represents a conservative dance that radiates classic sophistication, à la Cinderella and other timeless fairytales. However, few know very much about the dance’s origins.

Ballroom Beginnings

The waltz is the oldest ballroom dance, dating back to the Eighteenth Century. Contrary to how it is viewed today, when it was first introduced the waltz was considered quite scandalous. This was because it was the first recognized dance where couples moved in very close positions with the man’s hand around the lady’s waist.

A German folkdance called the “Ländler” is said to have been the dance that the waltz was based on. This dance was set in ¾ time and was popular in Bohemia, Austria, and Bavaria – spreading from the suburbs of these regions to the cities.

The Walzer & the Viennese Waltz

Another dance credited with influencing the modern waltz is the “Walzer.” The word “Walzer” was developed from the Latin word “Volvere,” which means to turn in a rotating motion.

During the Eighteenth Century (more specifically around 1750) peasants in Tyrol, Bavaria, and Styria began practicing this country-dance. And while noblemen of the region initially scorned the close, intimate dance, soon its popularity overtook that of the conventionally practiced social dance known as the minuet.

In the mid 1800’s the Austrian composers Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss II set the traditional standard for the “Viennese Waltz”. This waltz was faster than the traditional version, set at approximately 55 – 60 beats per minute. The increased speed made the dance more upbeat, but also made it more difficult for couples to keep up with the tempo.

Spreading Popularity

Napolean’s army is said to have been responsible for spreading the waltz across Continental Europe from Germany to Paris. The dance later spread to England by 1815 and then finally across the Atlantic to the U.S.

By the mid Nineteenth Century, the waltz was well-established in Unites States high society. In the second half of the Nineteenth Century, the United States’ version of the waltz separated and wound up forming two distinct modifications of the dance.

The first modification was known as the “Boston Waltz.” This waltz was much slower than the Viennese Waltz – involving long, gliding motions. The Boston Waltz also had fewer steps, slower turns, and more forward and backward movements than its predecessor. Meanwhile, the second modification of the Viennese Waltz was the “Hesitation Waltz.” This dance was characterized by taking one step to every three beats of a measure.

The Boston Waltz would later develop into the official “International Style Waltz” that is still practiced today. There also remains a more American variation of the dance, though: the “American Style Waltz.” It is fairly similar to the International Style Waltz, except for the fact that it has open dance positions. The Hesitation Waltz, however, is no longer danced in full in the modern era. Though some of its basic step patterns are still utilized.

In Closing

Both the traditional Viennese Waltz popularized by Lanner and Strauss, and the slower International/American waltzes are practiced and beloved in ballrooms across the world today. They are the elegant numbers we fawn over on Dancing with the Stars, the beautiful scenes we see in fairytale films, and (in my humble opinion) the whole reason behind the ball gown department of any Bloomingdale’s or other women’s clothing store out there.

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For Katie (a.k.a. Advice for an Aspiring Writer)

Someone recently asked me if I have any tips for younger writers out there that are passionate about improving their craft. Like Stanford Pines when he came back through his inter-dimensional portal in Gravity Falls or Earth Two Harrison Wells when he came back through his inter-dimensional portal in The Flash, I have learned a lot in my explorations of the writer and author worlds. And, as such, I am more than happy to pass on the following five tips to being a successful writer.

#1 Don’t Cower to Writer’s Block

Imagine you are watching a mouse run a maze. At some point that mouse reaches a dead end and he faces the wall ahead in frustration with seemingly nowhere else to go. Such is the feeling of writer’s block.

All writers experience writer’s block at some point. But instead of banging my head against that wall in the narrative, my response is usually to go somewhere else. I lift that metaphorical mouse out of his entrapment and deposit him somewhere different in the maze where he is free to pursue his goal once more, but from another approach.

Whenever I reach an impasse with my writing, I accept it and choose to move on to some other part of the story. By doing this I don’t waste energy being frustrated, I stay productive, and the problem I was having can simmer on the backburner while I work on something else, which inevitably tends to inspire a solution to the earlier problem. Such is the beauty of the “Bounce Around Theory.”

#2 The Bounce Around Theory

I have been working on The Crisanta Knight Series for some time. And one thing each book’s narrative has in common is that it wasn’t written in chronological order.

I bounce around when I write. I’ll work on chunks of the middle, chunks of the end, chunks of the beginning, and so on because that is how the pieces come to me.

Sometimes this is in response to writer’s block (As in, if I don’t see what happens next I’ll ask myself “What do I see?” and then write that scene, no matter how far away in the narrative it is.) However, a lot of the time I’ll do this on purpose too.

When I start writing I may know Points A. B. J. K. L. Q. R. S. and Z, but filling in the absent sections is no different than completing a puzzle. There’s no right or wrong order to fill in the missing pieces, so long as you keep at it and stay focused, eventually you will complete the whole picture.

In fact, in bouncing around filling in random chunks here and there, I have found the brain starts to make connections that it might not otherwise have made. It figures things out. It sees more broadly. It gives you answers to questions you hadn’t even thought to ask. In sum, bouncing around (particularly when facing writer’s block) is one of the most helpful pieces of advice I can give to any fiction writer, whether their genre be fantasy, mystery, comedy, or anything in between.

For it is by constructing chunks of my story and characters’ futures that I am able to go back and create a much richer past that will eventually lead them there. By seeing what the tree will require down the line, I am able to do a better job of planting its seeds in the beginning.

#3 Read

Reading is to writing what stretching is to exercise. It flexes, expands, and strengthens your muscles in small ways that may not seem noticeable at first, but pay off over time.

It can be hard to find time in your busy, daily life to read. However, I can firmly attest to the long-term benefits of squeezing in even an hour a week. It makes you better. It just does. While I may not love every book I read, seeing things from other characters’ perspectives and immersing myself in the writing styles of different authors augments my own perspective and impacts my style.

If people are the whole of their experiences, then your writing is the whole of all your experiences regarding the written word. Thus, if you want your writing to be as rich as possible, you need to immerse yourself in as many stories as possible.

#4 Write What You Know

The best writing comes from truth. Characters, storylines, plot twists, etc. are all a hundred times better when they (on some level) originate from something real that you as a writer have either experienced, felt, or believed in.

Readers can sense that kind of raw honesty. And that element allows them to connect and relate to what you are saying more easily. Because, well, chances are they might just understand it too.

Overall, there is no substitute for soul in writing—that perfect combination of your head and heart, which you dare to put on paper for others to read.

Accordingly, I encourage you to put yourself into your writing as much as possible. When you feel sad, write the sadness. When you feel joy, write the happiness to its full extent. I have on countless occasions channeled the emotions I feel in a specific moment into specific scenes of my books that I know will require them.

Seriously. For example, I don’t get angry very often, but the last time I was super ragey I poured myself into a chapter of a future book that I knew needed that kind of fire. In fact, while still writing Book One I came up with a major plot twist for Book Four as a result of an experience I had, which I wrote a scene about. Eventually that scene ended up impacting a huge part of my series’ development.

So you see, never waste an opportunity to channel what you know or feel into your writing. A great book needs soul, after all, and only you as the author can provide it.

#5 Relishing Unconventional Practice

In school a lot of my creative writing was put on hold due to, well, the schoolwork. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that while papers on Lord of the Flies or Economics 101 might not have floated my boat, they all mattered to the development of my craft.

Every race an athlete runs can make them faster. Every song a pianist plays can flex their music muscles further. With writing it is no different.

With practice comes improvement. As such, every paper you write, every blog you type, and every report you compose contributes to the development of you as a writer.

At the job I have now I have a lot of dental and orthodontic clients I have to write content for. But despite the fact that dentistry and orthodontia are far from the subjects I am most passionate about, I am passionate about writing. So I take every piece of content I have to write as an exciting task. It challenges my creativity and my skill to constantly come up with fresh, well-written ways to talk about, say, braces. And as a result, my skill and my brain get sharper.

So with that in remind, remember that no writing assignment is beneath you. A good writer can breathe life into any topic. And a great writer can find joy in doing so.

Well, Go Write!

That’s really the least piece of advice I can give you. Aside from the following, that is:

Go write whenever and wherever you get the chance. Don’t give up. Don’t get complacent. And carry the spark that you felt when you wrote that first paragraph all the way until the very last. For that combination of passion and persistence is key to everything!

The post For Katie (a.k.a. Advice for an Aspiring Writer) appeared first on Geanna Culbertson.

A Tale of Two Golf Carts

In my adventures I have found that golf carts and I, when combined, lead to some pretty interesting, precarious times. The following is an account of two such exploits, the likes of which are kind of ridiculous, but also oddly true.

Like, seriously; I may be a YA fiction and fantasy writer, but this chiz is not make believe.

What can I say—sometimes life really is just as farfetched as the fiction a writer can construe…

Storm Chaser

The Year: 2013 — late in the month of May

The Location: The Exumas — a subset of islands in the Bahamas.

The Atmosphere: In a word — Gripping

The first five days of my family vacation had witnessed the most beautiful of weather.

Blue skies, relaxed, turquoise waters, a bright sun that shimmered on the surf and made the colors of every tropical plant glow with radiance—yes, the Exumas had been paradise. Until day six, that is…

The resort I was on had a grand golf course that stretched across the entire island. I had been headed there to meet my brother for a round of the sport. I did not like golf (it was too slow-paced for my taste) but I did like spending time with my brother, so I told him I’d come along.

Having lost track of time when I was doing my Little Mermaid bit in the ocean, I was running about twenty minutes behind. Texting my brother, he told me that he had gone ahead on foot, but I could grab a golf cart when I arrived and drive the course until I caught up him.

I was moving with such a haste to get there, I did not notice how quickly the skies were turning dark. By the time I arrived at the entry to the golf course the sun was gone—hidden behind 15 shades of gray.

There was one golf cart available at the time, but the caddy on duty told me he would have to come with me if I wanted to drive it, as the trails ahead were complex.

The caddy creeped me out slightly. He had an accent I couldn’t place that sounded like a cross between Jamaican and Texan, and the hole between two of his teeth whistled when he talked. Regrettably, I had no other choice but to ride with him, because that’s when the storm warning was issued.

Apparently lightning was approaching the island at a shockingly fast speed. Once I learned this, it took me about two seconds to properly grasp what that meant.

Holy bananas! My bother is holding metal golf clubs and standing near the metal pole markers of golf holes somewhere out there.

He’s basically surrounded by lightning rods!

Afraid for him, I switched to action mode. I hopped into the front seat of the cart with the caddy riding shotgun and pressed down on the gas.

Now, I feel it’s important to note here that this was actually my very first time driving a golf cart. I’d ridden in many before, but had never physically been the driver. I just figured that between my actual car driving skills and Mario Kart experiences, that would be enough to compensate.

The result was mixed. On the one hand the whole time I drove I felt very unstable. However the conditions surrounding the circumstance escalated so quickly that I think some Die Hard-esque adrenaline imbued be with the skill I shouldn’t have had.

About twenty minutes into the adventure I was on the other side of the island near Hole #9 and had not found my brother. Meanwhile, the storm was coming in fast. It started to rain at that point and (since golf carts don’t traditionally have windshield wipers) my entire front view was warped by the water splashing against it.

Suddenly the lightning started. White, angry crackles seizured across the sky violently. I executed a sharp right turn to avoid driving into a mudslide that occurred in the road. The caddy and I were forced to take a detour off course.

Previously undisturbed plants thrashed against the cart as its wheels sped over uneven dirt and stone. The lightning was getting louder and more frequent. And we were running out of gas.

That’s when the wild dogs appeared…

So, apparently wild dogs were a thing in the wilderness of this island, because just as the caddy and I were trying to escape the storm chasing us, they too were making a break for higher ground. About six to eight miscellaneous hounds (I can’t be certain as I didn’t exactly pull over to Instagram it) began running behind our cart.

Punch it! I mentally yelled at myself.

“Hang on!” I actually yelled at the caddy.

We took off anew to the sounds of barking dogs and more lightning. After a minute I saw an entryway back to the main path and turned onto it. The dogs followed, but here I was able to make the cart go faster.

I continued the search for my brother while monitoring the mutts and doing my best to get us back to the front of the island. As the caddy and I zoomed past the remaining holes, he gave me live directions. I listened while wiping my hand across my face to keep from being blinded by the rain. The amounts pouring on me were so thick you’d think I just sat in the splash-zone of a Sea World show.

Finally, we bolted over the bridge that took us to our final destination. The dogs pulled off our trail and dashed into the surrounding marsh. I swerved the cart in front of the main building and pumped the brakes—slamming us into an open parking spot.

Epilogue

The caddy and I jumped off the cart and raced down the street in different directions. He was heading for the hotel lobby. I was aiming for the hotel bungalows hoping to take cover in my room and find my brother in his as well. Alas, I never made it there. The water and wind and lightning were so strong that I was forced to duck inside a café.

I was alone except for a barista reading a magazine behind the counter. I had no cell signal, but I was able to use their landline to call my brother’s room. He was, in fact, safe and sound inside his room—he had been there for the last half hour. When he’d seen the storm coming he’d left the gold course, but had just forgotten to tell me.

Great. Thanks for the heads up, bro.

Trapped in the café until the storm blew over, I ordered a pastry, broke out the Sherlock Holmes book in my backpack, and pondered the madness that had just unfolded.

The Young & The Reckless

I have worked at several studios in my life, and also spent brief amounts of time at a few others that I don’t often talk about.

The following story takes place at one of these studios, and it is quite epic.

I warn you though, while I am glad for the story it provided, do not try this at home (or anywhere else for that matter either). I would be lying if I said the experience wasn’t fun, but I would also be lying if I said it wasn’t stupid.

Okay, here we go…

One brisk winter morning in years past I found myself on a studio lot. The building I worked in provided employees access to golf carts, which, of course, made me smile. However, after the aforementioned storm chaser story, I wasn’t entirely comfortable driving a golf cart in the heavy, mixed traffic of a poppin’ studio. Thus, I elected to practice in the early morning before the normal workday began.

I put this off until one fateful Friday when shockingly light traffic through downtown got me to the studio at seven o’clock. It being so early, the studio was all but deserted. Thus, I decided it was the perfect time for my long-put-off golf cart test run.

Excitedly I grabbed the keys and settled into a cart. Pulling out gingerly, I proceeded down the vacant studio alleyway at microscopic speeds. For about ten minutes I drove carefully, practicing turns, parking, etc. until I felt comfortable enough to increase my speed to a non-snail level.

Over the course of the next few minutes I slowly grew my skill, confidence, and speed until all my nerves rescinded. I didn’t know what I was so worried about. I was good at this. Moreover, I was having a great time.

The air smelled of coffee and bacon, which I imagined was wafting from the lot’s coffee shop and cafeteria across the way. That combination was a compelling odor, heightening my already chipper outlook on the day. Yes, everything about this was grand. All senses were a delight. And that, naturally, is when I got carried away.

It’s hard to say whether it was the thrill of vehicular mastery, the confidence that comes with nobody watching what you’re doing, or the sheer joy that often infested my spirit on Friday mornings, but (for whatever the reason) I suddenly felt the urge to “gun it.”

My combat boot pressed down on the gas pedal further and further until it was completely on the floor.

I zoomed in and out of alleyways across the lot—wind flapping through my hair, cold slamming against my face, and not a soul around to witness my fast & furious adventure. It was exhilarating… until I came to that fateful sharp right turn.

One of my favorite parts of this studio (like all the others I’d been to) was that they had a small section of lot dedicated to filming, which indefinitely was modeled to look like New York City.

I loved these areas, and often liked to stroll through them. But, while strolling through such deserted streets was peaceful, zipping through them on a golf cart was precarious at best.

Small apartment buildings, fire escapes, and worn down store fronts blew past me. I was intending on continuing straight; up ahead “Little New York” let out into a direct shot back to my building. But all of a sudden I saw a truck in the distance pull into my path. The only other option, therefore, was to execute a quick right turn into the adjacent street.

Now let me just say that if I had been any less in shape than I was at present, I would have gotten seriously hurt. At that speed and angle, with no seatbelts or doors to support me, the turn was so hard my entire butt and body lifted off the seat—the force careening my body outside of the cart.

Thankfully, I held on.

My arms stretched to maximum capacity; my hands gripped the wheel and kept the turn going while I harnessed all of my strength to keep from flying out of the cart and keep the cart from flipping over.

Somehow, I managed to achieve both. A few terrifying seconds later and the wheels leveled out and I thrust my body back into the cart.

Whoo, that was close. Thank you, core strength.

Epilogue

Very aware of how dangerous these shenanigans of mine had been, I slowly and carefully drove the cart back to where it belonged.

Then I parked, put the keys back, returned to my desk, and began checking my morning emails like nothing out of the ordinary had happened while mentally lecturing myself about my own reckless behavior.

In Summation

Needless to say I took away my own golf cart privileges for the foreseeable future. Apparently that mode of transportation and I do not mix well. Makes for some good stories, but still pretty dicey.

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Fire & Ice & Glitter

I never liked this poem.

No offense to my man, Robert Frost—his poem “The Road Not Taken” is practically my jam—but I’ve always just found this particular bit of writing to be too dark.

When my 8th grade English class first analyzed the poem long ago, I immediately had one question in response to Mr. Frost’s proposed viewpoint. Isn’t there another way?

My professor, a soon-to-be-married woman who always seemed to be in a good mood, described how the “fire” in this poem symbolized a form of chaotic destruction for the world, like war or your average bloody, violent equivalent.

Conversely, the “ice” could be a form of much more subtle, cold devastation. Students in my class suggested that maybe this could be referring to a natural disaster like the ice age, or a man-made virus, or even just some form of cruel intention that backfires and leads to our own demise.

Heavy stuff for a class just before lunch.

 Aw, middle school.

Anyways, who could say then and there which of my classmates had best analyzed the specifics of Mr. Frost’s beliefs. Poems like this can be interpreted in so many different ways, after all.

Based on his phrasing, for example, I always thought Mr. Frost was referring to his world, not the general one. Or maybe it was each person’s individual world?

I don’t know. What am I Shakespeare? I may be a writer, but I am not about overanalyzing things that don’t matter. And this poem—at least the general theme expressed therein—doesn’t matter to me. It is inconsequential because I disagree with the sentiment behind it.

Mr. Frost’s poem expresses a darkness that I have never believed in.

Throughout my life I have been hurt. I have known pain. I have hated. I have had my heart ripped from chest evil queen style and been forced to go on, despite that tear in my soul. But I have never, not once, ever believed that the whole world, any individual person’s world, let alone my world, has to end in either fire or ice.

There is another way.

No world or life is set on a path of inevitable destruction. There are dark times and hard times. Bad things happen; sometimes by our own hand and sometimes without our provocation. But the world turns on. We don’t have to be defined by the darkness. There is always another path and the possibility of a brighter future.

As such, I would like to propose the following:

Glitter.

Yes, some people do say the world will end in fire. And some people say it will end in ice. But personally, I think it will end in glitter.

It is the third option. The one that the more serious, somber, and self-destructive part of our culture would rather bury beneath viciousness, selfish agendas, and Schadenfreude. But, just as doggedly, it is an option that can never be extinguished.

Glitter is everywhere.

Life is full of too much wonder and light and fun to be written off by pretentious cynicism. We can be better. We can be brilliant. We can lead lives that shine and sparkle.

There will be hard times along the way. They’re more guaranteed than a complimentary breadbasket at an Italian restaurant. But they don’t have to be the end of the world if you choose not to let them be.

Throughout my life I’ve chosen to proceed under this principle. It, in turn, has helped fuel my relentless drive for chasing my dreams, pushed me to be more, and inspired me to live every day with my heart and head working in perfect synchronicity under the ambition of getting where I want to go in life and enjoying every step along the way.

This, dear reader, is the Path of Glitter. Now, take my metaphorical hand and let’s journey down it together, shall we?

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Congratulations on Solving the Puzzle!

Welcome mystery hunters! Congratulations on making it this far, but the game’s not over yet . . .

The cure to the Michael Zombie virus is locked in a safe in the fridge of the outside cafe area. To open the safe you need a code. I trust you will Rise to the challenge. The QR puzzle tells you the numbers for this code, but not the proper order. For the right combination of the numbers you will need this last riddle:

The order of the numbers is in the second of the three,

Your clue for this riddle is the website that you see.

 

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