Pat Bertram's Blog, page 249

On-Page SEO and Keyword Usage

I give my blog spam folder a quick look now and again to make sure that non-spam comments don’t get relegated to spam limbo. Sometimes the spam comments are totally absurd, such as this one: Nice tips. It is actually incomprehensible opinion now, but also from general, that usefulness in addition to significance is usually overwhelming. Thanks once again and all the best.

And then there was this one:

Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings. You now NEED On-Page SEO.

So what is good On-Page SEO? First your keyword must appear in the title. Then it must appear in the URL. You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1, H2, H3 tags in your article. Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword. There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….

Considering that this was posted by someone trying to get me to subscribe to their Search Engine Optimization company, and considering that the comment actually made sense (or would, once I translated the jargon) and considering that my website domain provider has been trying to get me to buy SEO Visibility to the tune of $36.00 a month, I decided to research the topic a bit.

I started with “keyword.” Obviously, it’s the key word in the post or web page, but more than that, it’s a word or phrase people use when searching the internet. There’s no doubt that using the exact search terms adds to one’s search engine visibility. I often check the terms people use to find this blog, and then use those search terms as topics for articles. I made sure to use the search term in the article and in the title, since it stood to reason that if people were looking for such topics, I should make it as easy for them to find as possible. (A few of those articles are among my all-time most viewed posts: Describing a Scene in an Interesting Way, Describing a Winter Scene, and What Do You Say to Someone Who is Grieving at Christmas?) Apparently, although I didn’t know it, this was good On-Page SEO.

Luckily, I never had to worry about the keyword being in the URL — if the keyword is in the title of the article, WordPress automatically adds it to the URL of article. I used to try to write cute titles, such as Writing to the Extremes for a post about hands and feet (the extremeties), but not surprisingly, that post didn’t get many hits. So I try to keep the cuteness to minimum. (The key word here is “try.” Sometimes I let my attempts at cleverness get the better of me.)

Also, the title of the post uses H1 — Heading 1, so that fulfills one of the requirements for H1, H2, H3 tags. Since I try to follow good essay styling when writing, I generally include the keyword (the topic) in the first paragraph and then bring things full circle by referencing it in the last paragraph. I’m not going to worry about H2, H3, bold or italics in the body of my posts — I don’t want to lose the stream-of-consciousness flow that so many of my posts have by kowtowing to SEO.

I have recently begun to use an internal link in all my blog posts as a hedge against content scraping and plagiarism. And now it turns out to be good on-page SEO usage. I also use an image for each post, as suggested by WordPress in their articles about how to get Freshly Pressed, so now all I have to do is add the keyword to the alt tag. (When you upload an image, there is a place for Alt Text. I never knew what it meant, but apparently, if for any reason the image can’t be displayed, the alt text will be shown.)

Which brings us to the final point — Latent Semantic Indexing. Search engines have the capability to scan articles to see what they are about. A page with both the keyword and semantically related terms has a higher search enging ranking than one using only the keywords. (In this article SEO, search enging ranking, search engine visibility, and Search Engine Optimization are semantically related terms.)

Whew! All that research because of a spam comment! I learned something tonight, and I hope you did too. (Hmm. I might have learned something, but I didn’t follow through — there was nothing about SEO in the first paragraph, and until this sentence, nothing about SEO in the last paragraph. So perhaps this article is really about spam!)

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: blog spam, H1 tags, Keyword Usage, Latent Semantic Indexing, On-Page SEO, search engine optimization, search engine terms

Is Talent More Important Than Passion and Persistence?

In my Suspense/Thriller Writers’ group on Facebook, one author mentioned that she was skeptical of her ability to come up with an interesting idea. H orror writer Rob M. Miller gave a wonderful response that I’m reposting here. Considering the ephemeral nature of Facebook, in a couple of days his comment would have disappeared into the great maw of FB, and I didn’t want it to be lost forever. As to why Rob leaves such helpful and detailed comments, Rob told me, ”I’ve been very blessed.  Have had several incredibly talented writers, authors, and editors … well, just give, and give so freely.  Facebook, and blogs like yours, offer opportunities to pay-it-forward.” So, here’s Rob’s take on talent:

Let’s shoot the elephant first: Maybe you have no talent.

Ouch.

But, hey, maybe…?

Talent, though, is over-rated. Heart trumps talent. As does persistence. Talent, or natural ability, only carries a person so far, and then it comes down to heart, passion, time, and yeah, work. Workworkwork. This holds true with just about anything. Certainly with the arts, but also with athletics. Is Michael Jordan a gifted athlete? Absolutely. But such an assertion also masks, or can easily gloss over all of Michael’s hard work.

Personally, I do believe that writers are born with some kind of special something, some X-factor, some proclivity for story, character, situation. It’s indefinable. Writers often don’t necessarily have genius intelligence quotients (I.Q.), but often do have very high emotional quotients (E.Q.).

One might theorize that writers are most often inherently empathetic, or for our sci-fi lovers, are empaths.

Maybe that’s it. At it’s core, maybe it’s about the ability to feel the pain of others.

Author and writing instructor Maralys Wills has put out that in her many decades of experience, she’s found quality writers to have two domineering traits: a) that the writer has been through trauma; and b) they tend to be optimists.

I tend to side with Mrs. Wills on this. (God help the writer who’s a pessimist.)

With that out of the way, let’s presume (’cause it’s better to be an optimist) that you have been born with that magical W chromosome that producers writers, then it can be a confidence issue.

This is common.

Jack Ketchum (or Dallas Meyer), one of Stephen King’s favorite authors — and one of mine — has mentioned more than once of having a writing friend, a gentleman with more “talent” than Jack, but who keeps his writing to himself, afraid to have it seen, afraid of rejection.

And, of course, even amongst the greats, or the commercially successful, one might be surprised to find that even these icons are still (and always have been) quite human. Stephen King has talked about finishing one’s various projects, that even when a writer thinks they’re producing crap, they can be wrong. The cliche is true: We are our own worst critics.

With writing books, classes, critique groups, online writing groups (like this one), etc., there’s often an arrogance involved. Even a necessary degree of arrogance — after all, if a writer didn’t have passion, and passionate opinions, what would they have to say or write about? End of the day, though, despite there actually being sound writing principles worthy of a craftsman taking the time to learn, writing well is often more about what not to do than what to do.

Proof?

Look at the number of times writing rules are broken, and with great impact, such as with Cormac McCarthy work “The Road,” where established guides of good and proper grammar were tossed for the sake of story and delivery.

Sometimes a writer, even those blessed with talent, needs to simply put in the time. Often, this is easy, what with the necessary and very true maxim of: write write write, read read read, write write write.

Sure. But write what? Read what? Practice with what?

As a general rule, I say have your car book, your bedroom book, and yes, a bathroom book … works that are always being read. Always be reading something within your favorite genre of fiction, but always reading a non-fiction work, too, as well as a work on the craft of writing, and another tossed in that’s outside of your favorite genre … perhaps even a work that’s in a field you might not normally consider. For me, that’s chick lit. Though it was akin to pulling teeth, I determined to read Billie Letts’s work “Where the Heart is,” and “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” by Rebecca Wells. With Letts, I remember being alone in my apartment, taking a bath, reading the final pages, and bawling my eyes out, thankful that no one was around to see me break down. (So much for ever denigrating chick lit again.) And, of course, the novel by Wells is simply brilliant, and brilliantly written.

What else might a writer do?

The could — and probably should — write a bestseller.

In 2001, I attended the annual World Horror Convention in Seattle, Washington, where I met the iconic Michael Slade (pseudonym for Jay Clarke). This brilliant author, during one panel, suggested that developing writers could do far worse than sitting down and transcribing, word for word, one of their favorite bestselling works of fiction, the entire book, front to back.

Sound tedious? It is. And, at times, can be boring. But it helps. A lot. In my case, I spent a bit more than a week transcribing Stephen King’s novel “The Dark Half.” The rewards were many.

Doing such an exercise helps to force a writer to reverse engineer the structure of a book, of a part (i.e., Part I, II, III, etc.), of a chapter, of a scene, and yes, even with paragraphs and sentences. Grammar and punctuation is absorbed as well. So’s how to build suspense … how to characterize. Hell, a lot of things.

I’m thankful I took Mr. Slade at his word; I know many did not — and still don’t. It’s not hard to imagine, is it, that such an exercise would be off-putting? After all, it seems like work.

But that’s the answer for the writer, or a significant chunk of it: putting in the work. Optimism and work. Passion and work.

We should read garbage once in a while to bolster our self-confidence and the greats to remain humble. We should be happy where we’re at, but never satisfied.

And we should work.

We can do that.

Was I born with that amount of talent? With that? Have I been mightily blessed, or merely cursed with a love and desire to write, but without that special something?

Such questions don’t really help. They can, however, hobble an artist, which is never a good thing.

Better to persevere, remembering that those things which are too easily given are often too lightly valued. Better, perhaps, to, through blood, sweat, and tears, develop ourselves.

In the meantime, for something practical, if your own work appears to be missing some needed bit of pixie dust (and maybe it’s not), you might consider Michael Slade’s advice.

And do consider mine: there’s always better and worse writers out there besides ourselves. We are what we are, and we are stuck with ourselves. We have a tendency to flip back and forth between being very thin-skinned (’cause we’re emotionally connected), and covered in rhino-hide (a covering we also need), but let’s never get too wrapped up in comparing ourselves with others, or our work with the work of others. It’s a fruitless waste of time.

All we can really do is write the best we can, practice and learn, and do it all over again.

What fun, what pain, what adventure.

***

[image error] With a love for reading and writing that started in his youth, Rob has traveled far to get to the place where he can now concentrate on breaking into the horror market.

Born and raised in the “micro-hood” of Portland, Oregon, he grew up as the oldest of three children, the son of a book-lover and a book-hater.

It was after two years of free-lance stringer work, and a number of publishing credits, that he tired of non-fiction and decided to use his love of the dark, personal terrors, and talent with words to do something more beneficial for his fellow man -– SCARE THE HELL OUT OF HIM.

Tagged: Rob M. Miller, talent, what makes a writer

Desensitizing People to Violence

Clint Eastwood posted a status update on his FB profile today. No, I’m not a “friend” or a fan, don’t “like” him or “subscribe” to him, but his comment is making the rounds of FB, and it ended up on in my news feed. Several times. I found the comment interesting because of my research for More Deaths Than One, a book about mind control, and what I learned about how the military desensitized recruits to killing.

Eastwood wrote: With a lot of thought on this in light of all the shootings in the past few weeks I am very concerned that the left is now going to hit hard on pushing the 2nd Amendment over the cliff.

This is the only amendment that the ‘O’ can attack with any chance of repealing. If this, and God help us if he does, will lead to a barrage of attacks on all the amendments and socialism will be a forgone conclusion.

If anything should be shut down it should be the violent video games. Really, and I know everyone likes their electronics but these are the things that are taking kids and young people out of interacting with society and their peers.

I know I will probably take a lot of flack for that last observation but I’ve taken the flack before.

Have a great Sunday and hug your family.

I’ve written about this before, most recently in If Everyone Wants Peace, Why are there Wars? As I said, many of today’s — and yesterday’s — video games were developed by the military because studies had shown that repeated images of violence and death inured people to killing. During World War Two, as many as 85% of soldiers fired over enemies’ heads or did not fire at all. After World War Two, there was a concerted effort by the military to overcome this natural reluctance to kill, and apparently they succeeded because during close combat in Vietnam, only about 5% of soldiers failed to aim to kill. These same desensitizing “games” were later released as toys for children. Is it any wonder that many people — teens and adults — now seem desensitized to violence? They are playing games that were purposely created to foster killing.

I am not a fan of guns, though I have attended a couple of shooting clinics sponsored by a local gun club. As an author, I thought it important to know how it felt to shoot a weapon at a target. The targets we used were the round kind rather than a silhouette of a human. (Not so incidentally, those human-like targets were also created by the military to get soldiers used to firing at people.) I enjoyed learning how to shoot, but handling the pistols, revolvers, shotguns and rifles did not create in me any desire to shoot at another human being. Guns by themselves do not encourage violence or a desire to kill. Certain video games do. Sociopathic tendencies do. Psychotic characteristics do. Military think tanks do.

Author Lee Child says that we don’t write what we know, we write what we fear, and that certainly is true in my case. I fear the machinations of the powerful, deadly, and calculating men and women who control our lives behind the scenes. And I fear politicians who use tragedies to further their own ends.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: Clint Eastwood FB status update, desensitization, desensitization to violence, mind control, More Deaths Than One, video games and insensitivity to violence

Story Excerpt From “Second Helpings” ~ The Gift by Pat Bertram

Second Helpings

An Anthology of Holiday Recipes and Short Stories

From Authors of  Second Wind Publishing

A perfect gift for short story lovers and food connoisseurs!

From sweet childhood remembrances to fanciful solutions of family dramas to romantic relationships that begin–or end–during the holidays, Second Helpings is an anthology of stories and memories, but most especially of recipes. Our end-of-year celebrations are occasions that bring reunions with unforgettable feasts and that one special, treasured dish. At the end of each story, vignette, reminiscence, you’ll find a recipe or collection of recipes that will make your next holiday memorable as well.

EXCERPT FROM:

The Gift

By

Pat Bertram

Monica Dryden hummed along with the Christmas carols on the radio as she pulled the chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. They were David’s favorite, and she’d baked them for him every Christmas Eve for as long as they’d been together—five years now—continuing a tradition his mother started when he was a boy.

Still humming, Monica transferred the baked goods from the cookie sheet to a plate she’d purchased for the occasion—white china with a cheerful holly border. Her family had been too poor and too indolent to do much for Christmas, so making the holidays special for David brought her extra joy.

David Hollister. Even his name seemed to promise holiday cheer.

She put the plate of cookies and a glass of milk on a tray, added a sprig of holly from the bowl in the center of the table, and bore her offerings to the living room where David watched television.

He didn’t take his eyes from the screen when she nestled against him, but he didn’t pull away either, as he sometimes did. She smiled to herself, thinking how pleased he would be with the burgundy sweater and pinstriped shirt she’d bought him.

“Do you have to do that?” David asked.

“Do what?”

“You’re humming.”

She clapped a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“Are those chocolate chip cookies?”

“Of course.”

He clicked off the television and turned to face her. “We have to talk.” He spoke the words softly, almost kindly, but still they chilled her.

“Talk about what?” she asked warily.

“It’s not working out.”

“What’s not working out?”

“Us. We’re not right for each other. You’re too . . . predictable.”

She stared at him as if he’d spoken in an alien tongue. “Predictable? Me? You’re the one who insists on my doing the same things the same way. Remember those throw pillows I bought? You said—”

“That’s the old me. The new me wants . . . change.”

Her head snapped back as if she’d been hit. David wanted change? Since when? She opened her mouth and said the only thing that came to her stupefied mind. “Do you want me to make you a different kind of cookie?”

“This isn’t about cookies. It’s about . . .” He looked at her, expecting her to supply the words as she often did. She usually knew what he was thinking and could easily fill in his missing words, but now she couldn’t even hazard a guess.

David’s eyes shifted from side to side as if he were searching frantically for a way out of the conversation. Finally his gaze settled on his hands. “I want a divorce.”

Monica froze, then, getting control of herself, she pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “You can’t have a divorce.”

He jumped to his feet and all but screamed, “I knew you’d be difficult about this. Why can’t I have a divorce?”

“We’re not married,” Monica said evenly.

He gaped at her for a moment, then a grin that broke her heart spread across his face. “That’s right. I forgot.”

Monica slumped forward, elbows on knees, head in her hands. He forgot? How was that possible? Just last week they’d talked about getting married. No . . . wait. She’d talked about getting married. He’d nodded with a faraway look in his eyes that made her think he’d been seeing their future together but apparently only meant he hadn’t been listening.

David’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “I’ll guess I’ll be leaving.”

Monica jerked upright. “You’re leaving? But this is your apartment.” And then, all in an instant, she understood. “Who is she?”

***

Second Helpings is available in print and all ebook formats from Second Wind Publishing.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: Anthology, cooking, holiday, Pat Bertram, recipe, short story, The Gift

After Grief: Crashing the Party of Life

Once a long time ago, I crashed a Halloween party. It sounds as if I am very bold, doesn’t it? But truly, it was out of character for me, and besides, I was in costume. I remember that the party was given by a friend of a friend, but I have no idea how or why I decided to go — perhaps as a joke to see how long it would take for people to realize they didn’t know me.

I dressed as a comic-book witch — the whole bit: long black scraggly hair, puttied nose and chin almost meeting, heavy black brows, green-tinged skin, cackling voice. I walked into the party as if I belonged there, and for a while I was the belle of the ball as people tried to guess who I was. It finally occurred to one guy that I was a total stranger. So I left. Rather hurriedly.

That’s how I feel now as I am reawakening to the world after the numbness that gripped me during the long dying of my life mate/soul mate and the grief I experienced after his death — as if I have crashed a party, and I don’t know myself or any of the guests. Everyone seems costumed in happiness and success, though I know those facades are as misleading as mine. Our smiles and even our laughter hide old sorrows and new insecurities.

I couldn’t follow my mate to wherever he went, so I this is what is left to me — trying to find my way alone, wondering why I am at the party. I don’t belong, but where else would I be?

I remember the quiet excitement I felt at that Halloween party, the adrenaline rush of stepping out of my normal life, and occasionally I feel that now, as if the world is opening to me, if I only knew what to do with it. I left that Halloween party when the situation became too uncomfortable, but I don’t have that option now. Even though I am not comfortable with life’s party I have inadvertantly ended up attending, I have to stick it out, waiting for . . . what? I do not know.

And so here I am, boldly acting as if I belong, but secretly wondering if anyone will guess that I am a stranger in a strange land.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: after grief, crashing a party, death of a soul mate, Halloween party, surviving grief, witches

What Do You Say to Someone Who is Grieving at Christmas?

Reblogged from Bertram's Blog:

Christmas is a hard time of year for those who are grieving. Not only does the festivity of the season remind the bereft of all they have lost, but it’s a time for getting together with loved ones, and the goneness of that one special person seems even more unfathomable when you are alone or alone in a crowd.

Grief makes everyone uneasy.

Read more… 432 more words

***





I hope you read the whole post --- it's an important one, but if you didn't, I'll tell you the answer to the title question.






So, what do you say to someone who is grieving at Christmas?






You say, “Merry Christmas.”

12/12/12 — A Wonderful and Wonderfully Mystic Day

12/12/12 is a date that comes around every hundred years. Today should have been a mystical day, a momentous occasion with awesome happenings all over the world, though for the most part, it seemed to be a day like any other.

Twelve is a number steeped in our culture, in our heritage, in our very lives. To the ancients, it was a divine number. There were twelve major heavenly bodies in our solar system (the sun, the moon, the planets, which included Pluto and a far-flung planet as yet unknown to modern man, though currently hypothesized as Planet X). There were twelve gods. There are twelve signs of the zodiac, each representing 30 degrees of the heavenly arc. (Thirty is another divine number. If you are expecting the present era to end this month as the Mayans supposedly claimed, you will be disappointed. The Mayans used a mystical calendar with 360 days — 12 x 30 — rather than our 365.25 days. Hence, the so-called Mayan apocalypse won’t happen until 2087.)

There were twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, twelve disciples of Mithras, twelve stations of life in Buddhism, twelve labors of Hercules, twelve sons of Odin in Norse mythology, twelve knights of the King Arthur’s round table.

Twelve is also a practical number, the lowest number with multiple divisors, making it a preferred method of organization, such as a dozen doughnuts or a dozen eggs; twelve colors on a color wheel; the twelve numbers on a clock face, the twelve inches to a foot, the twelve months in a year.

I’m sure there are dozens more instances showing the specialness of twelve, so why isn’t this day of twelves a momentous day of mystical happenings?

Well, for one, our calendar is arbitrary. The year could have started at a different time, perhaps in tune with the seasonal cycles where the first day of the year was the first day of spring. In certain cultures, the new year does begin on different dates, for example, the Chinese New Year was on January 23 this year, and the Jewish New Year was September 16th. The year itself is an entirely arbitrary number. Though this common era supposedly begins on the birth of Jesus, he was born no later than 4BC. (Though of course, back then, they would not have called it BC since the current calendar had not yet been invented.

And for another, this is a momentous day of mystical happenings. We are alive, aren’t we? That in itself is an awesome, momentous, and mystical experience.

Wishing you a wonderful and wonderfully mystic day.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: Chinese New Year, divine number 12, Mayan calendar, Planet X, the number 12, twelfth planet, twelve

Celebrating Life and Offbeat Occasions

I like to celebrate offbeat occasions, or at least acknowledge them. For example, I celebrate the anniversary of my connection to the internet with a sacrifice to the online gods to ensure the safety of my travels in cyberspace. In other words, that’s the day I renew my virus protection. It’s also the day I celebrate the birthday of my online persona, “Pat Bertram.” (The persona I established then has now become the real me. Odd that. The name, of course, has always mine, or at least a version of it.)

And just few days ago I celebrated my father’s 35,000th day.

Years before these celebrations were other offbeat parties. One of the most fun was the long ago day my best friend and I had a birthday party for a tree. There is (or was, anyway. I don’t know if it is still there) a stunning elm in the corner of Denver’s City Park at Colorado Boulevard and Seventeenth Street. A plaque beneath the tree said “Shakespeare Elm: The scion from which this tree was grown was taken from the tree at Shakespeare’s grave at Stratford-on-Avon.” The plaque also noted that the tree was planted on April 23, 1916, which is exactly 300 years after Shakespeare’s birthday. (April 23, 1616).

How could such a momentous occasion not be celebrated? So my friend and I baked elm tree cookies, made a “pin the leaf on the tree” game, stirred up gallons of green punch, even baked a tree shaped cake with candles. We sent hundreds of invitations to friends, family, Denver notables, the media, but on April 23, only family and friends showed up. And two cops.

The cops stood apart from all of us, though they did nibble on cookies and take tentative sips of punch. At one point, one of the cops turned to the other and said in amazement, “They really are having a birthday party for this tree.” Apparently they had been dispatched to the site in case we were staging a drug rendezvous or some such. As it turns out, it was lucky that no one showed up. Since it ended up being simply a family picnic, we weren’t fined for putting on a public event without a license. Whew!

Another idea my friend and I had was for a restaurant in the mountains. I don’t remember much of those elaborate plans, but I do remember that the menu was going to feature Alferd Packer pancakes and democratic sausages. That still cracks me up.

Well, life had its own plans, and when we grew up, it flung us separate ways. Over the years I looked for her, but it wasn’t until recently, thanks to the internet, that we reconnected. (See why I celebrate my connection day? What a wondrous thing the internet is!) And now we are planning to meet in person next year.

I wonder if she still has that creative mind and wacky sense of fun? I wonder if I do?

At the very least, it should be a great celebration.

(BTW, I am on the left in the photo. My friend is on the right.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: connection to the internet, Denver, offbeat parties, Shakespeare's Elm

In Memory of My Mother

My mother died  five years ago today, almost exactly a year after my brother. (This is the last photo of the two of them together.) To understand the sly humor rather than the pathos behind that sentence, I’ll have to tell you a bit about my mother. She spoke with perfect diction, in unstilted, unaccented English, and she loved words and word games, especially the kind of game where you take a word or phrase and find as many smaller words as possible. For example: in “almost exactly,” you can find most, call, cell, yell, exact, alas, and so on (Me? I hate that game, perhaps because I could never win when I played with her.).

It came as a shock to me when I realized as an adult that my mother was a first generation American who grew up speaking a language other than English. I always knew that, of course, but as a child you accept your mother for who she is without seeing her in the broader context of life. We often think of first generation Americans as people who have a rough time speaking English (or who speak rough English), but neither she nor any of her siblings had a hint of that other language in their voices.

She raised her family with a respect for language. No slang at our house. No “ain’t” or “we got no” or any other example of language slippage. My parents were strict, and we children seldom talked back,  but there was one thing we all argued about with Mother: “almost exactly.” She claimed “exactly” had no degrees. A thing was either exact or almost. The rest of us knew the truth: there is a world of difference between almost and exact. (My brother who is gone was the one who argued most vociferously with her, but of course, he argued vociferously with everyone. He was a bull of a boy and then a man, but never a bully, just strong and adamant about his beliefs.)

Though occasionally I use “almost exactly” in speech, I try not to use it in my writing. It’s one thing to use such a construction when talking and something else entirely to commit it to the permanency of writing, and I don’t want to meet her on a cloud in some afterlife and have her start in on that old argument with me again.

On the other hand, it might be nice.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: almost exactly, death, first-generation american, loss, memorial to mother, respect for language, word games, words

Is a Blog or a Website Better for Reaching Out to Readers?

A new author with little internet experience and no money recently asked me which he should set up, a website or a blog, and which was better for reaching out to readers.

As for which is better to reach out to readers, a blog is. A website is generally static. A blog is a fluid site that is updated frequently, and sites that are updated frequently get better exposure in search engines. Also, a blog is a place where author and reader can communicate instantaneously. It doesn’t always work that way, of course, because first you need readers to communicate with, but that also holds true for a website — generally, you need readers first. Just because you have a website doesn’t mean that anyone will see it.

I have a website (http://patbertram.com) but I seldom update it unless I have a new book available or other such news. It’s mostly there just to be there, a landing place for people who Google me or my books. I paid for the domain, but not much else — I even used a template to make it easier to set up. Still, it does exactly what I want it to do — let people know that I am an author, what books I’ve written, and where they can buy them.

This blog doesn’t have a domain name — I’m sticking with ptbertram.wordpress.com for now. Some people say it’s unprofessional, but it gives me what I need — a place to write about what comes to mind each day, a place to talk about what matters with those who follow this blog, and a place to promote my books. (In case you didn’t realize it, all the books on the right side bar are mine.) In fact, if I’m asked for a website when I comment on a post, I use this blog for a web address rather than my official author site. Not only does this blog show my books and bio, my posts reveal way more about me than my website does.

I recently found out I’ve been doing this website/blog stuff all wrong. (So feel free to disregard everything I’m saying.) Each of my blogs should be a subdomain of my website, so that combined they get a higher ranking than each separately, but then I would need to pay a yearly fee for a domain name for each blog, and I’d have to hire someone to set it up for me. If I ever become a world famous writer with sales in the millions, then perhaps it would be necessary to do things right, but for now, I’d rather just have fun playing with my blogs and letting the website take care of itself. Besides, this way I can do it all myself.

As for deciding which to set up, a blog or a website, that’s an easy choice to make. A blog is a website. If you set up a wordpress blog, pay for a personal domain name, and set up a static landing page, then you have both a website and a blog. http://lazarusbarnhill.wordpress.com and http://rubiconranch.wordpress.com are blogs set up as websites, though as you can see neither paid for their own domain name.

(To set up a static front page on your wordpress blog, write your post as always. Then go to “Visibility: Public” on the right hand side of the page, click on edit, and check “stick this post to the front page.” Then publish the post as always. If you want to set up an already published post as a sticky post, you can edit the post, edit the visibility, and then click “update”.)

As with everything else on the internet, setting up a blog or a website or both can be as easy or as involved as you want it. Me? I choose easy every time.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Tagged: blog or website?,