Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 99
March 29, 2016
Bye Bye Darlings: The Editing Gauntlet by Alice Zorn
The author of today’s re-blog suffered through the pains of traditional publishing; though, even self-published writers could learn from what she learned from her editors…
Alice Zorn’s new novel,Five Roses,is named after the FARINE FIVE ROSES sign that marks the southwest horizon of Montreal and Pointe St-Charles, where the novel is set. Photo: Alice ZornYou’ve finished your novel manuscript and you even – finally! – get a publisher. It took ten years. You have Neanderthal m...
March 28, 2016
Can Fiction Really Be Good for What Ails You?
My Best Friend sent me a link to a fascinating article on a fascinating site…
Image Courtesy of Adam Ciesielski ~ http://www.freeimages.com/photographer/adamci-33882
First the site—Book Riot:
*We create.
* We always prefer the book to the movie.
* We riot as a team.
*We geek out on books, embarrassingly so.
*We’re leaders.
*We practice charity—we give two percent of gross revenue…to organizations whose efforts promote social justice in the areas of literacy, health, gender or educational equi...
March 27, 2016
The Daily Habits of Bibliophiles: Observations
I’m not sure I’m a real “Bibliophile”—though I may come close…
They do seem to be rare and lovely creatures…
Today’s re-blog gives a rather complete profile of these amazing souls :-)
The distribution of these omnivorous mammals does not discriminate between gender, sex, culture, race and geographical location. They pop up anywhere and everywhere (though there are larger concentrations near places like bookstores). One way to identify a bibliophile is by the book bags they carr...
March 26, 2016
Thinking Critically, Thinking Positively by Corinne Duyvis
Ever wondered why there aren’t more books with disabled folk in them?
Read today’s re-blog :-)
As a kid, I wrote princess tales. As a preteen, short stories. As a teen, hundreds of thousands of words in fandom. Now, as an adult, I’ve written enough novels to lose track.
It’s one of the upsides of being autistic—when I go for something, I go for it. Even if I don’t always succeed, I push myself to do better, and to take full advantage of the versatility and freedom within the s...
March 25, 2016
Almost Missed It ~ National Tolkien Reading Day
Well, it’s already over in places like Tbilisi, Georgia or Melbourne, Australia but, for most of my readers, it’s time to CELEBRATE !!
Dramatic Reading from “The Hobbit” ~ Click This Image…
And, I got tipped off, while doing my Google News scan, with an article onNJ.com—“New Jersey’s largest website for local news, sports, entertainment, jobs, autos, real estate and information…”.
Would Not have thought to look there… :-)
From the NJ.com article (do go read the rest...):
Finding the Right Kind of Espresso in Paris
Actually the kind of espresso I’m talking about can also be found in Sacramento, California.
Writers can publish their own books using the Espresso Book Machine at the MSU Library.
Or, New York City or Darien,Connecticut or many other places…
This espresso won’t make you jittery or power an all-night reading session.
But, it will print books…
I wrote about it in my past post,Should We All Self-Publish ABook?
And, I only thought about it as making self-publishing more accessible.
Now, though,...
March 24, 2016
Busting the Myth of Work-Life Balance by Susan Olding
Keep reading today’s re-blog ’til you get to this:
“For ‘balance’ implies stasis – and stasis is antithetical to the creative life.”
After that, you can thank the author for her wisdom :-)
About a year ago, I was invited to give a talk to some graduate students at Queen’s University about what was billed as “work-life balance.” Sure, I said. Why not? That should be easy.
There was only one small problem. For me, “work-life balance” is an unattainable mirage. I am the farthest thin...
March 23, 2016
#Writing Can Be All #Fun & #Games . . .
Anyone who’s been following this blog should be able to tell that the title of this post must have an interpretationbeyond those words’ surface meanings…
Those who may be reading one of my posts for the first time may wonder about my mental condition since writing can often be anything but fun and games…
So, I must quickly reference a past post—Storium — The Online StorytellingGame.
When I wrote that post, nearly two years ago, Storium was still in Beta and looking for support on Kickstarter....
March 22, 2016
If a Writer Remote Control Existed.. #writerslife #writers #amwriting
Oh, my! Today’s re-blog has 34 things writers might (maybe?) do remotely—some?day :-)
Writing can feel so difficult, almost torturous at times.
There are days when there are so many distractions that writing goes out of the window.
There are occasions where you are plagued with fear and low self confidence.
There are some days where you just want to hide under the bed from social media. You whimper ‘do I have to promote my stuff?’
Wouldn’t it be great to just sit down and wri...
March 21, 2016
#E-Books Inside The Digital Book World
So much business these days is built on lies and broken promises.
Image from Wikipedia ~ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mia5793
But they package it as Branding and Influence.
We’re led to believe (if we’re unthinking folk) that dealing with a top brand that has market influence is the best thing we can do.
The fact that our world is splitting some seams and losing its stuffing through climate change and economic peril (to mention only two of the major crises underway) is primarily du...
