Jo Robinson's Blog, page 35
May 5, 2015
Gone Fishing
I’m going to be away from blogland for the next two weeks, due to a life event sort of speedbump, so apologies for not getting to comments until I get back. But I will get to all of them then – promise! Have fun in the meantime, and see you in two weeks time. I’ll be checking my emails every day in case anyone needs to get in touch. :) 
May 1, 2015
Five Star Treatment – The Mistreatment of Zora Langston by Lisa Tetting
If you fancy some five star treatment for your book, head over to Sally’s and find out how.
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
Cannot believe it is Friday already.. I know time flies when you are having fun but���.
I would love to hear from you so that I can feature your book. As well as the blog the post is promoted across my other social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest.�� All the details are here.
Today a book by Lisa Tetting is featured��� The Mistreatment of Zora Langston.
About the Book
Zora Langston is nine years old when her father dies, leaving her in the hands of a mother who is anything but loving and siblings who never considered her family. Without her father, she is truly alone. Before the dirt has even settled on his grave, there���s a new man of the house, and he has no interest in being Zora���s father.
Despite her hardships, Zora remains true and allows faith to help free her���
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#Read about Guest #Author Bob Van Laerhoven
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog:
From rags to���eh���more rags���.
I won���t go so far to tell you that I���m one of those examples of the classical ���The American Dream��� ��� from rags to riches ��� but it���s still a fact that nothing in my youth prepared me for being an author. A Belgian author. A Flemish author. A Belgian/Flemish author published in Holland, Belgium, France, Canada, the US and next year in Italy.
I never dreamed it would come this far. Being the second son in a Flemish workers��� family, my destiny was to become a civil servant, my parents��� dream. A civil servant was synonymous with climbing the social ladder.
There was a problem. A lot of problems, really. I was a dreamer. I was a reader. I wanted to become an author. There were no books in the house. Reading was considered to be laziness, although I must say that my parents didn���t���
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Dying Every Single Day for Months in Manhattan…
Originally posted on mira prabhu:
A brilliant monk held a motley crew of us dharma students in thrall for many years in the Big Apple. All right, he���d drawl as his eyes lazily scanned the room. Soyou���re all so cool with your stylish black wardrobes and your sophisticated friends. You live in the hippest city in the world and you think you���re doing great. And in the eyes of the material world, that���s true���fat paychecks, nice apartments, great social life, lookin��� good, lookin��� good.
He���d pause for effect then continue into rapt silence. But tell me: what���s the one thing your bosses can never recompense you for? Ah! You got it, smart people���it���s precious human time! Some of you are doing wonderful things for the sake of humanity. Yes, there are literally thousands of good things you can do with your lives���but, if you listen��to��the great mystics, the highest goal of human life is���
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April 30, 2015
My summer begins and the garden is decked out in colour.
Spain is gorgeous – lovely photos of Sally’s spring garden. :)
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
We live in the mountains to the North of Madrid at 900 metres and whilst we get really cold nights during the winter months, summer and the more settled weather seems to take place around May 1st which is always a Bank Holiday here in Spain.
I decided to take an hour out after lunch and walk around my garden and take some photographs of our seasonal favourites. It may be the last year that we will be living in this house if we sell in the next few months and I wanted to make sure that I had some memories to takes with me.
I hope you enjoy the stroll with me.
This is the view from our front patio where we sit every evening after work is done to enjoy a glass of beer or wine and watch the swallows as they give a stunning aerial display
The���
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Smorgasbord Health – IBS Part Three – Identifying Trigger Foods
A very timely article from Sally – the whole world needs to look after their guts even if they think that they’re healthy. I also follow the daily food window, and it really leaves you feeling great.
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
This is the process that I used successfully for myself originally 20 years ago and also with my clients since then.. It may seem a real pain to keep a food diary and to pay so much attention to what you are eating, but it will pay off when you have either reduced your IBS symptoms or discovered the cause of the disease.
Intermittent Fasting.
In the last couple of years there has been a lot of press about Intermittent Fasting. The theory behind the concept is that by restricting your eating to within certain time periods that it gives your body a chance to process your food efficiently and also to rest the major organs active in the digestive system.
There are a couple of choices. You can have two days a week where you only have 500 calories during the day with fluids and then you eat normally���
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Have a Little Faith in You
Originally posted on Most normal human beings have inner critics. I think that writers and creative types get to hear them more clearly because we spend so much time inside our heads, which is bad enough, but I���ve heard that we have more to contend with than that rotten little guy who whispers in our ears that our words are rubbish and the world will die laughing if we ever publish them. Apparently it���s normal human behaviour to sabotage ourselves. That���s according to Freud by the way ��� he called it the death wish, and although I have absolutely no clue what the theory behind it is, I can���t deny that he���s right. This is more insidious than actually thinking that you���ll never succeed. It���s an unconscious attempt to stop you from succeeding by distracting you apparently. Could be we���re born that way, or maybe the ways that we are raised can also���
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April 26, 2015
Happy In The Jungle Thanks to Fabulous Amazon Suggestions!
I download a huge variety of books from Amazon for research purposes either for straight away or for later on, so I suppose that when it spins its computer head trying to figure out what I really, really, really like for recommendations, it could get confused. Any non-writer would probably be appalled if they happened to eyeball some of the wild stuff I have lurking on my Kindle, and confirm all their previously unproven suspicions about me in general. Anyway. So there I was, downloading a pile of prepper and how to bug out books, as you do, when up pops an advert for Teriyaki Zombie Jerky. Of course I had to look, but the first review that caught my eye said that it tasted like kelp and ass cheeks, so I decided not to take the kindly Amazon up on this particular offer.
I can���t imagine why anyone would actually put that stuff in their mouths unless they feel honour bound to for the purpose of leaving an interesting review. I was actually hard at work before I remembered that I wanted some bug out books for later, but that Jerky threw me off my game a little, so I hung around a bit instead, and found to my horror that not only are Amazon purveyors of the flesh of the undead, but also of some kind of unicorn Spam! The unspeakable horror!
And finally a book ��� could very well be some sort of secret code in there I think, so now I���m off to get it. I MUST have this book to learn how to avoid huge ships right away! Thank you lovely Amazon reviewers for showing me what I need!
April 25, 2015
A Man and his Music – William Price King meets Roberta Flack part three.
There’s some FABULOUS music here – love it all!
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
This week William Price King is going to follow Roberta Flack���s career and collaborations in the 70s and 80s. Enjoy the story and the music.. The previous posts in the series can be found in the links at the end of the article.
The 70s, 80s and collaborations.
Following on from her success with The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face in 1973 Roberta Flack also celebrated that year with her second No 1 hit with Killing Me Softly With His Song.
The song, originally performed by Lori Liebermann in 1972 was written by Charles Fox, a composer who worked mainly in television and film. The lyrics were written by Norman Gimbel a veteran in the music industry whose English lyrics to the Brazilian hit The Girl From Ipanema made the song a global success.
Roberta���s version of Killing Me Softly was awarded Record of the Year and Best���
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…Authors… the phrase, ‘that���s not my job���, is NOT part of yer lexicon…
Ha haaaa! Spot on Seumas – and you should see the brainstorming sessions when the employees disagree around here. :D :D :D
Originally posted on Seumas Gallacher:
���no matter how much research yeez employ, it���s unlikely yeez will find records of the likes of Billy Shakespeare, Enid Blyton or Chuck Dickens having to do their own artWURK, or distribution channel placement for their masterpieces��� nor the copy-editing, proof-reading or bookstore signings��� changed days indeed��� the modern wannabe classic scribblers are obliged to have more arrows in the��things-yeez-have-to-do-yerselves quiver���
���at the last count, I���ve managed to find an assortment of operational obligations required to get yer books out there��� and this holds for whether yeez are an independent self-publishing stoic or shepherded by either/or an Agent (a what thing??) or a real-live Publisher (they do exist)��� but this ol��� Jurassic is��fortunate (?) in having found a person for each function, viz:
writing the bluudy thing in the first place��� er, that���ll be me..
initial editing���. that���s down to, well��� me again���
copy-tracking for plot holes������
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