Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 134

WHAT YOU KNOW THAT JUST AINT SO!

THE BANE OF THE ALARM CLOCK "Some mornings it is just not worth chewing through the leather straps."   - Hannibal Lector

 You don't need to be a doctor to appreciate that the sudden shrill of an alarm could be bad for your heart. 

But scientists have now proved this is true. 

In a study conducted by the National Institute of Industrial Health in Japan,

participants who were forced awake by a loud alarm clock had higher blood pressure and heart rate,

increased levels of stress hormones which stayed with them most of the day which hurt their immune system.


THE EARLY WORM GETS EATEN!

 "Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy, wealthy, and dead!"  - James Thurber
 Ever had the Sunday Night Blues?  Sure we all have.

But the end of the weekend might just be more than depressing!

New research shows the transition of sleeping in on off days to 

rising early on work ones to an early morning alarm

increases the risk for diabetes and heart disease.  Ouch!


DIE IS THE FIRST SYLLABLE IN DIET!

"No one wakes up in the morning and says:  'I want to gain 150 pounds, and I want to do it now!'"  - Orson Welles
Repeated crash dieting increases metabolic hormones 
such as insulin and elevates sex hormones such as estrogen.

These changes cause you to start putting weight around your middle. insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Double Ouch!!


YOU TALKING TO ME? “Courage isn't having the strength to go on - 
it is going on when you don't have strength.” - Napoleon
Napoleon at 5' 7" was actually taller than the average man of that time. 

AH, ARE YOU LOST? 
  “Sometimes when you lose your way, you find YOURSELF.”    - Mandy Hale
The Earth does NOT revolve around the sun but around the solar system's center of mass!

The center of mass in the solar system is called the Barycenter. 
Usually it’s contained within the mass of the sun, but not always. 
When it’s outside the mass of the sun, the Earth is just orbiting around empty space!
DO YOU KNOW ANY OTHER FALSE "FACTS"?  

WHAt FAMOUS WRITERS DID WHILE WRITING

I'm a writer so I can say this:


Writers can be strange sometimes.  Take Charles Dickens and his deaf cat, Bob.  

Bob would watch Dickens as he read by candlelight.  

If he felt in need of play time, 

he would put out the candle with his paw repeatedly until the author got the idea.

Like Macak did with Nicola Tesla as a child, 

Bob would follow Dickens about like a dog.

Dickens loved Bob.  So much so that when Bob died, the master turned him into a letter opener!!

Not the whole cat, actually. Just a single paw, 

which the author had stuffed and attached to an ivory blade. 

The blade is engraved “C.D. In Memory of Bob 1862″ 

which is more grave marker than most pussycats can hope for.



LYING DOWN ON THE JOB
 Among the successful novelists who wrote lying down are Mark Twain, George Orwell, Edith Wharton, Woody Allen and Marcel Proust. 

They were all known for churning out pages while lying in bed or lounged on a sofa. 

American author and playwright Truman Capote even claimed to be a 

“completely horizontal author” because he couldn’t think and write unless he was lying down.




LET ME TAKE A STAND ON THAT

 Writers like Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll, and Philip Roth all liked writing standing up. 

These great thinkers have been inspired to pen their finest pieces at their standing desk. 

For health-conscious writers, this technique might work for you because standing desks offer many proven benefits.


LOOK IN THE INDEX!!
 Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, was very particular about his writing instruments. 

He composed all his works on index cards, which he kept in slim boxes. 

This odd method enabled him to write scenes non-sequentially and re-order the cards any time he wanted.

 Nabokov also stored some of his lined Bristol cards underneath his pillow. 

This way, if an idea popped into his head, he could quickly write it down. 

You can use index cards when doing your note-taking or plotting too.

 It’s a different way to construct your story that can knock fun things loose.



BLUE IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S ... FICTION?  
For decades, Dumas used various colors to indicate his type of writing.
 Blue was the color for his fiction novels, 
 pink for non-fiction or articles and yellow for poetry.
And you thought writing to music was strange when you did it?!
And we won't even get into Dan Brown hanging upside down to stir up his muse!

WHAT DO YOU CALL ...

On my early morning work break, 

I was trying to conjure the word which described a woman who had contempt for men for my latest story.

My supervisor passed by, and I asked him, 

"A misogynist is one who has contempt for women.  What is a woman who hates men called?"

Without missing a beat, he said, "A feminist."  

The speed with which he responded plus the look on his face when he did so me laugh.

Misandry is the word if you are wondering.

The word misandry may not be in everyone's computer dictionary, 

but the reality is out there. A reality without a name, however, is largely invisible.

Hard to deal with an invisible enemy.

Most of the major villains of the last century have been male.  

And misogynists both on the world scene and in the private lives of women are not helping any.




But I am not talking of Misandry today.  I will in the future if any of you are interested.

No, I am talking genre.

Despite my last experience with anthologies being ugly and sad, I decided to enter the contest above.  I will not win, of course.  But suffering builds character, right?

I was three-fourths finished with my Native American ghost short story 

when it hit me that the judges might not consider ghosts, even Lakota ones, fantasy.

The genre for the contest is fantasy, and the theme is Hero Lost.

Send your polished, previously unpublished story to admin @ insecurewriterssupportgroup.com before the deadline passes if you, too, are interested.

So I stopped writing LOST SOULS.  Sigh.  

A lot of work went into it.  I may eventually finish it.

I came to the decision to stop writing it last night, going to bed feeling blue for a variety of silly reasons.

I awoke with the idea for a short story that could not be considered anything but fantasy, its title, and its first sentence.


 {Image purchased from Pixabay}

FIRST SENTENCE:
I am the Caretaker.
Like I said: I will not win.  Still, I will give it my all.  
I would say it will keep me off the streets, but I am a rare blood courier!
Anyway, even though I am two-fifths through with this story, tell me: 
Do you think ghost stories fall in the fantasy or supernatural/horror genre?  
Just wondering.  :-)

WE TOO SOON FORGET and so tragedy's lesson is never learned_Ghost of Mark Twain

"It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man,

all unprepared,

can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live.

There is but one reasonable explanation of it.

The intellect is stunned by the shock

and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the words.

The power to realize their full import is mercifully lacking." 
- Mark Twain.

All the talking plastic faces from your fancy television screens seem to want to have their say on September 11th today. 

I ... I almost could not bring myself to speak on it. Not on this day.

The dark winds of the Shadowlands are filled with the wailing of the lost souls remembering the horror, panic, and fear of their dying.

The shadows will soon be quiet. 

I look about the land of the living and know most will have shrugged off the remembrance aside by tomorrow ... if it has even occurred to them today.

Old news. Bills to pay. Lives to live.

There is too much tragedy each heartbeat of each day for us to hold onto any one moment of keening for long ... especially if it is not our own pain.

No pain is so easy to bear as the other fellow's.

Yet the world is drowning in tragedy.

The rain forests are still burning, and our attention span has turned off the smoke detectors.

An African child's emancipated face wails on our TV screen, and we change the channel.

The Twin Towers were gutted by planes filled with screaming passengers.

And into today's camera lenses, faces are screwed and fists are shaken in hate, 

as America is berated for its bigotry by those whose faith was shared by those terrorists.  

We have learned nothing.

Each day we pass individuals who are struggling with their own private 9-11, 

and we hurry by, perhaps irritated by their slow pace or distant, inward directed eyes.

We honor the valiant, the orphaned, and the murdered of 9-11 when we remember that tragedy has a very long shelf-life

and act with compassion towards each person we meet, knowing that everyone is having a harder time than they appear.
***

THE LEGAL SIDE OF WRITING FOR ANTHOLOGIES

Anthologies offer writers an excellent platform for shorter works and create opportunities for reader cross-pollination. 

As always, authors should look before they leap.


1.) CONTRACTS ARE FLUFFY KITTENS IN THE AWE OF BEING INVITED

But even kittens have claws and sharp teeth ... and make sure that contract is not a TIGER kitten! 

Every anthology should use a professional, written publishing contract (or release) 

containing industry-standard terms for anthology publication. 

If the publisher is taking only non-exclusive rights, and not limiting the author’s right to reprint and re-use the work in any way, 

a simple release will often suffice, but even this should be in WRITING.  

My latest anthology contracts reads in part: 

This contract may be terminated by either The Author or The Publisher within a thirty day written notice, 

and all rights granted to The Publisher will revert to The Author at that time.



2.) NEVER SIGN AWAY COPYRIGHT TO WORK 

Anthology publishers do NOT need, and should not ask for, ownership of copyright in the individual works that make up the anthology.

 Anthology publishers need only a limited license to publish the contributed works as part of the anthology –

 and the contract should expressly limit the publisher’s use of the work to its inclusion in the relevant anthology or collective work.


3.) DYNAMITE AT THE END OF YOUR FINGERTIPS!

What if your anthology seems log-jammed, never to be published?  You can pull your story out, right?

Did you have an attorney read the contract before you signed it?  I hope you did.  

As mine told me: 

"You have dynamite at the end of your fingers, Roland.  Make sure your contract is not a lit fuse." 

If contracts have been signed, authors' rights could be tied up for an indefinite period of time while the publisher tries to figure out what to do. 

Not to mention, whatever payment structure may initially have been promised may now not be possible.


4.) CONSIDER THE SOURCE

 Before submitting your work or signing a contract for anthology publication, consider the experience level and reputation of the publisher (or anthology sponsor), 

the editor (if one is named), the terms of the publishing contract, 

and all other relevant aspects of the deal. Select anthologies that match your plans for your work and also offer appropriate contract terms.


5.) FINAL WORD FROM THE GHOST OF MARK TWAIN

"Trust everybody, children, but cut the cards yourself.

Read that darn contract!  And then have a lawyer you trust read it for to explain those long, legal-like puzzles of words!" 

HOPE THIS HELPS A FEW OF YOU OUT THERE.

For myself:

I never loan money
nor
submit a story to an anthology
that I cannot afford to lose.   

BENIGN!

The results came in from the biopsy today ... and it was benign. 
What a relief!

It will make my DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour a lot easier to do in October and that is for sure!
What book you ask?
THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE
 a sequel that is also a stand-alone novel with an amazing cast of characters:









There are still some slots left in October for my DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour.  
Come on!  It will be fun!
Just drop me a note in the comments section.

TIME'S CURRENCY_IWSG POST

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land.  There is no other land; there is no life but this one."
 - Henry David Thoreau


"The cost of a thing is the amount of life required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run."
 - Henry David Thoreau



Time resides in the strange realm of grim mathematics: 

where he who works adds, and he who retires subtracts.



The question for this month is:  How do you find the time to write?

Mark Twain warned us that each day is a coin: we can spend it any way we wish BUT we can only spend it once.


The ledger that shows us how many coins are left to us is hidden beyond our sight.  We may have many coins of days or only a precious few.


Thoreau would ask us what we purchased with the irreplaceable coin of yesterday.


Our desperate dream to be a writer seduces us to spend those rare coins in a pursuit of a goal that many pursue but few reach.



HOW TO SQUEEZE THE MOST PENNIES OUT OF EACH DAY'S COIN?


What did Lewis Carroll write: "Oh, if I had but the time, and you had but the brain!"



1.) MAKE WRITING A HABIT SET TO A DEFINITE TIME


Discover the part of the day where you can squeeze in a few minutes and NO MATTER IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE, write! 


Promise yourself to write at least two sentences.  By the time you get to the end of the second, the third sentence will occur to you.


The water only comes on if you turn on the faucet.




2.) MARK YOUR TERRITORY


Pick a spot where you feel comfortable and safe from interruption.  Write there.  

The very sight of the surroundings will shift your mental gears into the writing mode after a month.


Every ship has its own berth, so should your writing mind.





3.) THE CROW-BAR APPROACH


Fifteen minutes of writing squeezed in three times a day come what may will get your book done faster than 30 minutes every Saturday.


Passing by the place where you write?  Pick up a pencil and jot down the first thing that occurs to you.  When you sit down again, reading that phrase will bring back more than you think.





4.) BLOOM WHERE YOU'RE PLANTED


I know what I said about your own writing place.  But do not sacrifice a great idea or a splash of time obeying routine. 

Get a great idea as you are drifting off?  Get out of bed, write a short paragraph, and you will sleep more relaxed.

Waiting in the doctor's office, standing in line at Wal-Mart, taking a shower ...


these minutes add up.  Make them count for something. 

Carry a small notebook and jot down those bits of dialogue or plot twists or descriptions of how a person moves or speaks.




5.) BE YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW


Be Ruthless.  

Don't let yourself off the hook.  So you want to write a book?  Well, stop talking and start doing.  

Ever have a maddening itch you couldn't get to?  You found a way, didn't you?

If you want something bad enough, you find a way.

Facebook calling you with cute kitten videos?  Ignore it and them, ignore the urge to check in on your friends, and WRITE ... or stop calling yourself a writer.



6.) BE A MULE

Look at all the famous writers.  It was not their talent.  It was their sheer stubbornness that drove them to keep writing until things turned around for them.

Set a writing goal and stick to it.  Didn't write the number of words you wanted?  In the attempt, you wrote more than if you had given up.




7.) ENTER THE TIME OF STRANGER THINGS

Emails and cell phones do not exist once you sit in YOUR WRITING SPACE.  Break your email and cell phone addiction.

And many are addicted to them both.  Dare to go HOURS without either. 

Have we gotten so terrified of being alone with our thoughts that solitude is threatening somehow?

Use an hourglass or a kitchen timer to go A WHOLE HOUR without checking your email or touching your cell phone and WRITE!

Our concentration and attention span have become fragmented by our obsession with social cyber communication.

Without time for contemplation and reflection our creativity resources have become shallow and dried up.


8.) YOU DONE GOOD

Write any at all on a day when you didn't think you couldn't a sentence?  Reward yourself in some small, meaningful way.


Promise yourself that lusted-for second cup of coffee when you finish one more page. 


Hey, those gold stars worked in Kindergarten.   :-)



A WORD OF CAUTION


Yes, we want to prosper in writing, but please do not overlook the loved ones or hurting ones in your life to follow the Will O' Wisp of Success.



Remember the words of Charles Dickens:

"No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused."

Just because I wanted to:
 

BE KIND. REWIND.

  Old Fashioned Phrase, right?

Like Kindness, Consideration these days to the minds of so many we meet in life.
We Indie Authors are different.  We've struggled so long that we know what it is like to swim against the tide.
Now, there are only TEN ZILLION new titles put out by our friends monthly.  
We want to do right by them, be nice, courteous.
But there are just so many pennies left in our pockets at the end of the day ... 
and even less free time to read if we did buy those books.
Here's what all of us can do (and what I try to do for all my fellow writing friends) 
that are small but oh, so influential in helping a new book take its first few baby steps.
I call them my ...
MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
 
1. Add the book to your Goodreads bookshelf or, better yet, purchase the book. (99 cents for my new one coming in October.)  2. Once you have finished reading, rate the book on sites like Amazon, B&N, or Goodreads.  3. If you love the book, vote for it on Goodreads's Listopia here.   4. Post a review or comment about the book on a book blog or website.  5. Post a pic of the book on your social media account(s) (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest etc), or use the book’s hashtag (if it has one). A few (shameless) examples: #TheNotSoInnocntsAtLarge or #NotSoInnocents  6. Share an enjoyable quote from the book on a social media site.  7.  Suggest the book to a book club group.  (Both of my NOT-SO-INNOCENTS books have sections at the back to facilitate book club discussions.)

Every little boost we can give to our fellow authors helps in BIG ways.
Still waiting for the results by the way in case you were wondering.  
Have a great weekend.  
I will be working solo both days at the blood center.  Whew! 

GOING FORWARD

"Every once in a blue moon a book captures the imagination, providing a portal into magical places unknown. 

So it was with The Never-ending Story," says Google of the book's 37th anniversary.

Don't we all wish we could have that said of one of our books?  :-)

Still, no news on the medical front, 

but life is not meant to be put on freeze frame, so let's go forward, shall we?

In my latest book, THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE, 

Meilori and Samuel are facing their imminent demise.  The shadows flow close:



My smile grew sadder as I looked into the encroaching darkness.  “We all die alone, Meilori.  But if we meant something to someone, if we helped someone, loved someone and was loved back …  who knows?  Even if only one soul remembers us, perhaps we never truly die at all.”


Which leads me to going forward with my dream and asking any of you who would like to help me in the Month of October 

with my infamous DON'T BUY MY BOOK Blog Tour to say so in the comments:


I promise to strive to be amusing, entertaining, and to wipe my cyber-feet before I visit your blog for a day.

Let me know, all right?

NO NEWS YET

No news yet.  Still waiting.  There are worse fates.
Keeping positive in a potentially negative situation is not impossible ... just challenging. :-)

We must acknowledge our anxiety and realize it is merely being human.

Deep breathing exercises are helpful ... no hyperventilation allowed though!

Focus on helping others while we wait.  

Focus on endeavors that we once found enjoyable and might take our minds off the wait.

Then there is my writing and sometimes Samuel McCord's words come back to help me:


WHAT GOD LEFT UNTOLD


We live in an ocean and hours are the islands, linked in ways we cannot imagine while we are hopping one from the other.   It is only in looking back that we can see the path we took … and whether it was a wise one or not. The Lakota call God the Great Mystery.  I do, too. I am a man or I once was.  What I am now is a mystery to me.  And maybe to the Great Mystery as well. But men are creatures who tell stories. This is a gift from the Great Mystery, who spoke our species into being, but left the end of our story untold. Perhaps that is why the Lakota call Him The Great Mystery.  Anyway, that mystery troubles us. How could it not? Without the final part, how are we supposed to make sense of all that went before: which is to say, our lives? So we make stories of our own, in stumbling imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.  Maybe it will work.  Maybe not.  Only the Great Mystery knows, and He comes by His name naturally.