Rochelle Campbell's Blog: The NoteBook Blogairy, page 4

Pressing Our Luck…

When the world seems a frightful place, your back is almost against the wall and you’re too scared to move left, or right — what do you tend to do?  Freeze?  Start planning?  Run?  Or, just faint away and let Fate do what it does?

Allowing others, or circumstance to dictate one’s Fate is not the way that will lead us to ultimate happiness.  What will is work.  Work towards what we want.  What we desire.  What we dream about.

How do we get there?  We have to sit down and think, plan then take action.  Action that will lead us inexorably to where we want to be.  But, those actions come with commitment and sacrifice.  The amount of passion we have for our end goal is how much effort and push we will give to our naysayers, and our own inner demons.  And yes, we will have to fight our inner and outer demons to get to where we want to be.  What’s more, the challenges will come when you least expect them.  In fact, you can almost guarantee the challenges will show up when you feel your weakest and most vulnerable.  This is the way of things.  This is when you are being tested.  Is this what you really want?  How badly do you want it?  Can you surpass this obstacle to achieve your goal?  This is what is being asked of you when you face down the thing that is preventing you from moving to the next step, or level, of your journey towards your goal.

Finding ways that you can motivate yourself to keep yourself going and moving towards the goal is what you have to find and remember to use when the challenge time comes.  For instance, if you know you get tiny prickles along your arms, or legs when you feel fear.  Visualize yourself with your favorite comfy sweatshirt on that keeps you feeling safe, loved and warm.  Bye-bye prickles!

Or, if you instead, you feel like you’re going to hyperventilate, learn a deep breathing technique.  Then, as soon as you feel the panic/worry/anxiety coming on — start doing your deep breathing exercise.  Get as much oxygen in your lungs as possible as you continue to do the thing that scares you.  That’s how you work through the fear, you pre-arm yourself with the “antidote” of your Achilles heel.  Even if on the first attempt at challenging your fear, you will get the hang of it and persevere the next time, or two.

You’ve had this challenge walking with you for a long time, don’t expect it to move over with a snap of a finger.  However, if it does — go with it!!  That simply means you’re good and ready to kick that things butt!

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This is what it truly means to press our “Luck.”  It’s not luck, it’s when preparation meets opportunity.

So, let’s do the work so we can get to our goals as soon as we can.

Ta-ta for now.

Vegan: Back-in-the-Day Healthy

Years ago, I was a vegan foodie.  I made ALL of my own food.  Yes, breakfast, lunch and dinner for my two boys and my husband.  We ate tons of tofu, veggies, pasta, a variety of grains, legumes and salads.  We even had a special littler concoction for getting our Omegas in.  Something like, fish oil, COQ10, water and an Emergen-C pack.  Stir and knock back.  We were so healthy, we glowed.

We religiously carried our Hyland’s Kids’ Kit with us everywhere we went.  This way, we were never caught unawares when a sniffle, a boo-boo, or a tummy ache struck.  Arnica gel was an absolute necessity (it still is!).  Anytime we had a fall, adult, or child, we’d whip out the Arnica gel by Bioiron and put on the cooling salve to immediately calm the pain and reduce the redness, or swelling fast.

And, who dared enter the winter season without a large dose of Nat Mur (say, 200c)?   Nat Mur kicks out the excess salt out of one’s body which helps one to avoid catching colds.  (Works for when you decide to indulge in Chinese fast food, too.  Kicks the salt right out.)

Those were my Golden Days of eating well, and paying attention to what went into my body.

However, I did not take into account the large amounts of soy (plant-based estrogen) I was ingesting.  Nor, did I think about the high amounts of gluten (plant-base source of high protein made from wheat flour) I ate on a monthly basis.

Now, 25 years later, I have a marked gluten sensitivity as well as an autoimmune issue where my body attacks healthy skin and forms blisters all over my body.

I am not blaming a vegan diet for my health issues.  I am saying I should have been more mindful in the quantities I ingested.  We all know the golden rule is moderation.  Tofu every day, sometimes 2 – 3 times per day (with each meal) was the order of the day because to feed a family of 4 on a strictly vegan diet with a hefty vitamin supplement monthly budget is a lot.

If you go Vegan, or already are vegan, I urge you to add lots of raw green veggies, fresh squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, stay away from the readily available processed vegan fake “meats” (which are full of gluten, soy and sodium!), and make your own foods from scratch.  You will be healthier, and much happier down the road.  And, yes, it’s a better diet for the planet.

Here’s a great vegan starter meal kit: http://vegankit.com/eat/. This is to give you an idea of how you can structure your meals.  You can also glean some more from RealSimple magazine’s 20 Easy Vegan Dinner Recipes.  Oh, and One Green Planet has a list of 10 vegan recipes everyone should know how to make.  Number 9 is Veggie burgers and OGP offers several recipes for hearty burgers such as Zucchini and Corn burgers, Chipotle Maple Sweet Potato burgers, Roasted Beet burgers, and many more!  Go check it out here: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/easy-vegan-recipes-everyone-should-know/.

Whatever your diet may be, it’s always a good idea to mix it up and eat different foods each week.  If you eat the same thing over and over, this puts you in a rut and sets you up to binge on items that may not be best for you.  This is especially true if you’re on a restricted meal plan choice like the vegan diet.

Well, ta-ta for now,

Rochelle

 

 

Lion Princess, Hear Us Roar

When the world gives you lemons, what are you supposed to do?  Make lemonade.  Beyonce did a fabulous job at it.  But, the rest of us don’t have access to the samae resources as the Diva, do we?

So, the rest of us have to find other ways to be creative and go around the obstacles that Life throws our way.  It’s funny.  Life’s curve balls seem as if they are out to destroy us.  Losing a job, a limb, losing a best friend — all these things look like out and out loses, right?  But, what if the job would have lead to an even bigger lose?  Like because you have to travel for the job you’re in an accident while on a business trip?  What if you lose that finger but save the hand?  The arm?  What if that best friend was only after your connection to the boss?

But we can’t know what’s down a particular road.  We can only hope to understand the bigger picture.  Because there is a bigger picture.  Right?  I believe there is a Grand Plan for us all.  I believe we can tap into that plan by quieting our minds and bodies for at least 20 minutes while breathing deeply.  I believe we can find a quiet stillness within.  A stillness we can merge with to gain the merest scent of what our future holds.  And that’s all we need, a little whiff of what’s to come.  Because, if we know too much we might get in our own way.

But what about Divine accidents?  Do they even exist?  Things that happen to us that have no true place in the Grand Plan.  You were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  Or, innocently, you did something that unleashed an unexpected (disastrous) consequence?  What do you say/do then?

Does going into the stillness help?  Or, is that just a reminder of the pain and suffering you’re experiencing?  I wonder because Singh Kaur, a vocalist known for her angelic harmonies, died of ovarian cancer.  Yet, Kaur was a Sikh.  She followed the teachings of Yogi Bhajan, a master of Kundalini Yoga.  Bhajan commissioned her to record a series of mantras.  Her voice, her music, uplifted thousands across the world.  Yet, she died suddenly of ovarian cancer while in the process of giving light to the world.  Why??

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Here we could inject the idea of a Divine accident.  One that has no fault to the person, or to the powers that be.  Kaur could have walked past one too many corners littered with smokers on a break.  She could have had an unexpected blow to her abdomen by a kid playing little league ball.  She could have had a predisposition for cancer due to the genetics in her family…one could do this all day.  However, there are no answers to be had.  A gifted, blessed voice came, then left too soon.  Yet, there is the music still left for us to enjoy, to use and to utilize for inner growth.

So, I say forget about it!  Leave the Divine accidents to those that need to deal with them.  Let us shake ourselves off, go within to the place of stillness and continue getting those hints of what is to come so that we can get back on our own particular path.  The ultimate goal is to achieve one’s destiny — whatever that might be.  Even if we are taken off-track momentarily, maybe we needed some time to slow down enough to hear what we previously did not.

Sometimes a Divine accident is needed to help bring us back to our path.  Therefore, does it still qualify as an “accident”?  You know, that whole the ends justifies the means thing?  Yeah, that.

I’ll leave you with the last musical offering from Singh Kaur.  [Did you know her name literally means the Lion Princess?]

 

Finding Balance in Dis-ease

Dear Friends,

In the past four weeks, you may have noticed that I have virtually disappeared from the social media world.  This is because I had a very sudden onset of skin eruptions.  On Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune blistering disease; my immune system is attacking healthy skin cells.

As you can imagine, there are all types of day-to-day life decisions I now have to make, and new ways of functioning to consider and implement.  Why?  Because unfortunately, since skin is the largest organ of our bodies, it’s difficult to conceal all of the expressions of this condition especially in summer attire.  I have to wear long sleeves and long flowing skirts/full pants in order for my clothing not to irritate my skin.

I have to pad my desk edges, the seat edge of my office chair with soft material so that the regular everyday banging, rubbing, and friction our skin is used to dealing with, does not irritate and break out my new, more fragile skin, blisters.

I stopped counting the large blisters (aka: bullas) after the first eight big ones.  These 8 all formed within the 1st 2 weeks of this condition’s onset.  This included the biggest, a lightbulb-sized one on the side of my left arm at the tail-end of week 1.)

I have been to the dermatologist’s office, and the ER more times in the last month than I have been in the last 15 years.

This blistering disease is rare and most GP and ER doctors have only heard about it via textbooks, or a seminar, or two, while in med school.  Thus, making it difficult for them to help me deal with the day-to-day issues of the condition.  The main problem is the intense itch; it drives me to distraction.  In the last several weeks, I have figured out that movement greatly helps alleviate the desire to itch.  So, I move around a lot while working!

The medication prescribed will take 4 – 6 weeks to take effect.  So, in the interim, I’m still experiencing the effects of the blistering condition.

Please know that this condition is in no way contagious!  It’s not even genetic.  It is a condition that sometimes has no specific cause, or trigger.

Here’s more information if you wish to read about it: https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/autoimmune-blistering-diseases/.

There are three pictures posted below.  But, my friends, it’s not a pretty-looking thing especially when the bollas burst and they begin to draw, pull and crust over.  It’s especially not fun when more bollas form around the original site of the initial bollas!  The two pictures are of my right arm on May 12th, 2017.  The one on the left is at 12:12 am EDT.  The one on the right is at 7:39 am EDT.  The picture beneath them is what my arm looks like today — a week later.

In the days and weeks to come, I will be venturing back into the fray as my energies get stronger (and as the medicine kicks in!).  But, until that time, I will post infrequently.

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Today, 5/18/17 – one week later

Okay, it’s time for me to wrap up.  I suppose there should be wise words.  Some epiphany, or enlightenment.  Not sure I’m there yet.  Give me a few more weeks.

However, know that I am at peace.  I am as comfortable as is currently possible.  And, that each day, I know my body is healing and is finding its way back to balance.

Here’s to wishing you all a Happy Friday and a blessed weekend.

 

 

Day 1: I-CON 32 – SciFi Con

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Wow. I’m here. I’m attending, and vending, at I-CON 32. The cosplay costumes are pretty amazing! The thought, the energy, the attention to detail — gorgeous! I’ve seen a full Victorian dress complete with bustle in gold satin!  I want to dress in a costume!!!

But, I’m “working” so the dress code is simple — book t-shirt & jeans.

Alrighty, it’s time to figure out how to cover stuff down for the night.  End of  Day 1 approaches.

 

Get your #horror fix: Fury From Hell

Here’s the quickest update you ever did see: https://www.inkshares.com/books/fury-from-hell.

That book that first came poking around back during Hurricane Sandy in ’12?  It’s getting a re-do, re-vise and and upgrade.  A slightly expanded version will become available via Inkshares.  Once the book reaches 250 pre-orders, Inkshares will edit it, put it into production and publish it!

What do I have to do in the meantime?  Uhm, figure out how to tell 246 more people that this great cop thriller with strong brushstrokes of horror is available for $10.  Here’s a teaser to whet your reading appetite.

Fury Abatu seeks revenge for abused women.  Yet, when on Earth, Abatu must find a human host & eat men’s flesh to survive…

Buy a copy.  Support a starving novelist.  Put me out of my misery. [So, I can go back and start this all over again with another book. :-)]

Now, lets’ get our sexy horror on by pre-ordering today — while dancing with JT.

Saturday Show & Tell

Thanks Julie for hosting me on your blog! This was the most fun I’ve ever had doing an interview. Happy Saturday!!

Persephone Knits

A special guest Show & Tell!

Rochelle Campbell has a BA in Written Communications with an emphasis on Digital Media. The SciFi End of the Supernatural will be her fourth published book. It will be available on January 30th in both print and e-book on Amazon and CreateSpace.

We met online during the #Storydam Writer’s Group, and her productivity and attitude are a great fit for the Saturday Show & Tell. (You can find her on twitter @NotebkBlogairy.)

JR: You started in journalism and public relations. Can you talk a little about how those experiences from your early writing career shaped who you are as an author today?

RC: Sure!  I think you’re the first to ask me about those yesteryear experiences! The main thing journalism did for my current writing was force me to think of plot – What’s the story?  My editor, at The City Sun…

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Captivate, Inspire…Dream.

Sometimes writing’s hard to do.  At other times, it’s effortless.  But then there are the times when you’re like — Writing, who?

I’m a writer and I confess.  I get writer’s block.

Most of  the time the wordless time periods come from having a lot going on in my personal life.  For instance, the last 3 years has been rather dry.  Why?  I am an older woman who now has a 3-year-old, a son in college and one in his last year of high school. 

That leaves me in a position of parenting up, and down.  Needs have changed.  Diets have morphed.  And my need for sleep has skyrocketed.    Then, there’s just the shocks of life, the absence of life via passing to that next realm of which we know little.  That happened late last year to three close family members.  I was devastated.

How do you move forward without negating their existences?  Without “properly” mourning them?  This is what I’ve finally learned — you LIVE.  You continue to do what you know you’re supposed to do.  For me, that’s to write.  To go to my day job.  To have deep conversations with my children.  To play with my daughter.  To wrestle with my budget to make it stretch further.  To be human.

That’s why I’ve stopped the madness and forced myself to look at my ‘inventory.’  My longer works still are in need of editing.  However, my short fiction was in pretty decent shape.  So, The SciFi End of the Supernatural, a collection of science fiction short stories came into being.  It will be available on Jan 30th in print and ebook formats.

This book wouldn’t have been possible without my writing communities #WriteStuff and #StoryDam.  Both groups support me, and listen to me, and I them.  They help me get it that writers are a kooky bunch.  We’re NOT normal, nor were we ever meant to be.  That’s the way it is.

Our job is to translate the madness in our psyches into readily digestible written forms of entertainment so that you can pass the time away when your life becomes overwhelming.  That’s what we do.

What do you do to captivate, inspire and dream?

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New Year, New Reads

I think we’re all ready for 2016 to move over and allow some fresh 2017 air in.  We lost some special people this year as they made their ultimate life transition.  Here’s a list from NBC News…

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-year-in-review/look-back-all-famous-figures-who-died-2016-n698791

But, I digress.  The whole point is to welcome in 2017 and get some new energy going.  What better way of doing that than to pick up a new read?!  StoryDam and its community of writers is offering up a 99-cent book sale!  How do you find them?  Go to the #NewBooks4Me hashtag and all of the lovely books for sale will be there waiting for you on Sunday, January 1st, 2017!

So, what are you gonna do with that gift card you received for the holidays?  You betcha!  You’re heading straight for — #NewBooks4Me!

Who are some of the authors participating, you ask?  Ahem, we have…

Patricia Lynne

Tui Snider

Christine Rains

Tyrean Martinson

A.A. Chamberlynn

Connie B. Dowell

Jemima Pett

M. Pax

Diane Burton

Jessica Coulter Smith

Neal Roberts

Paige Warren

Kenna McKay

Pembroke Sinclair

Tara Tyler

Rochelle Campbell

See you in 2017 — on the new reads side!

 

 

Day 1: MDC3 Con: Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Conference

Friday, September 30, 2016 — At the Sheraton Columbia Town Center Hotel, Columbia, MD

Website: http://creaturescrimesandcreativity.com/

PANEL: Writing Outside the Box: Crossing Genre Lines to Tell Your Story

Panelists: Dana King (moderator), Bruce Kingsolver and Sandra Webster

Sandra’s salient points:

Write for the art of writing, OR write for the business of writing — you cannot do both and do them well
She ignores “genres.”  She allows others to put the genre(s) to her books (after the books are written).  Instead (of writing to market), she strives to tell a story that pulls you in, and the story she wants to write.
Question from audience: If she sees an opportunity to add a genre trope to the story will she go with it?  Yes, she will if it will not take away from the story.  She will do it, if possible, in order give that particular group of readers what they are expecting.
Some people write their endings first and then write the rest of the book

Bruce’s salient points:

When you cross genre, you can do anything you want.  But, there are certain tropes you must have, within the book, if you claim that genre.  If you miss a trope of that genre (you claim) it’s unforgivable.
He analyzes his work and will decide its genre after reviewing what’s in the book (after it has been written).  If the tropes of a specific genre are not there, or not strong enough, he will refrain from using that genre category in his marketing efforts.
Question about where do writers get ideas from.  Ideas are not the problem.  It’s the implementation and the expression of the idea that is the issue.
Question about how to keep a story moving throughout the middle.  He remembers a quote but cannot recall who said it, “In the middle, make sure no one has time to sit down.”

Dana’s salient points:

He does a simple chart of the book and writes a sentence for each chapter of the book.  Then, when he sits down to write, he knows what has to happen for the chapter — but doe not know how it will all come to pass.  He has to write it to find out.
Ideas are everywhere.  We trip over ideas, but which one will we write.  And, more importantly, which idea(s) do we have the expertise to write?

PANEL: Mysterys – Noir, Cozy, Police Procedural, Detective, etc.  What makes them so different?

Panelists: Allan Ansorge (moderator), Dana King, Donna Andrews and Millie Mack

Donna’s salient points:

In complete battle with the term “cozy”; her books do not contain recipes, nor tips on a craft.  She feels that a sub-genre has colored the entire term and therefore, many expect organizational tips, recipes, and step-by-step how-to’s within a book in the genre “cozy”.  She feels this expectation should not be the case.
Any subject can be used (within a story/genre) if you handle it properly.  She had pornography in her first cozy book but she did not tell the reader about the images seen.  She instead described the character’s reactions to what she was seeing on the computer screen — multiple screens popping open, the character’s facial expressions, etc.
Definition/distinction — Mystery: Is a Whodunit and then solve it.  Thriller: Something bag is going to happen but what, and where will this bad thing happen is unknown.  This is what the hero must figure out.
Show your detective character and how they can assist cops in seeing what the cops cannot/will not see

Dana’s salient points:

Writes hard-boiled cop procedurals
A typical police procedural = Barney Miller
A typical classic mystery = Agatha Christie
An awesome line of detective mystery are the Mickey Spillane books [Mike Hammer]
Current forensics are currently changing constantly. It’s always being upgraded.  So, if you write about a specific forensics test in your book, by the time it’s published it could be out of date and no longer utilized.  This is why his books are set in a small town with limited forensic resources.
90% of the crimes that take place today are solved by cops talking to people; not by forensics.
Forensics rarely solves a case; forensics come more into play for the court case if the results come back in time.
DNA testing results take 16 – 18 months to come back, if it comes back at all.
Important to take note of: In most states, there are no medical qualifications are necessary to become a coroner.  A coroner is an appointed position.  So it becomes very difficult to label a murder, a murder, if the coroner doesn’t say it is.  There’s no leverage for anyone to say, do an autopsy because the corner has no medical knowledge!
The biggest asset to cops in the solving of cases is TIME and the changes wrought in the people involved in the cases.  In cold cases, a man now with a daughter approaching the age of a girl murdered, may have a change of heart and spill his guts about his doubts/observations of what he knows of xyz during the time(s) in question.  Thereby giving the detective new pieces to add to the puzzle of the long cold case possibly enough to solve it.

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