Pratap Divyesh's Blog, page 18

Molly Muse

Five years ago a muse nibbled on my brain and created a neat nest for herself. She built herself a comfy homestead. No matter how many times I advised her to move along, she blatantly refused and entrenched herself deeper. Molly is her name. She is my alter ego who encourages me to do better, learn more, and leave my hermit writing cave to buy groceries. She could very possibly be the warden at the station of the obsessive-compulsive disorder of my writer self.

Molly is self-employed, an entrepreneur so to speak. Her business includes the tasks already mentioned in addition to suggesting better vocabulary, plots, characters, She often reminds me to be careful with character motivation and hooks. She will encourage me to rewrite narrative as dialogue and remembers to advise me to create a balance between description and conversations. She insists on character and plot arcs, on black moments, on the heroine’s journey. She likes strong women with self-determined lives. She leans towards love stories during or in the aftermath of war.

Imagine brain synapses as bridges and highways and Molly proposes stopping along the way to think deeper by asking What if…? While I develop my wip, she races around my synapses causing major traffic disruptions and delays halting the traffic of plotting to force me to think, think, think deeper and deeper one level at a time.

I have to say Molly’s adrenaline is high with imagination and low on physical activity in the real world. She often proposes in the middle of the night that we go to yoga class or the beach the instead of writing. In the morning she forgets about yoga or the beach and leads me directly to the keyboard with the cola in hand. Right, a cola. I’m not a coffee drinker but need the caffeine and cola does quite well so I can keep up with Molly.

I love Molly, but I have to say her sense of time is off. She has none. No sense of balance between the fantasy world of writing and the reality of my physical world. No sense of day and night. Minutes and hours are all the same to her. Never mention a calendar to her. She has never heard of one. She is a muse for independent authors. The word deadline means nothing to Molly. She will interrupt a line of thinking for a work in progress to put forward another plot or character. She will have two works in progress at a time.  There are times I want to slow her down, but no, I really wouldn’t do that. After all, she is a muse, my muse and I couldn’t live being an author without her no matter what my opinion thinks of her faults.

This post is contributed as a Guest post by Sarina Rose.

About the author:

My writing career was born in 2012 at age sixty-nine although I had taken Creative Writing 101 a number of years ago. My inspiration to begin in the last quarter of my life came from an acquaintance who suggested I join her in a memoir writing class. For me, it was a short leap to creative fiction, then to publishing. I have published three.

Contribute a post to Being Author Blog [Submit NOW]

The post Molly Muse appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall by Shannon Kirk

What if you could choose your heaven now? Go on a celestial shopping trip of sorts? Thirty-five-year-old Vivienne does just that, as she lies dying in the ICU; a fatal walk into the path of a truck. In her final week of life, Vivienne treks through the Heavens of a priest, a best friend, a homeless child, and a lover who never was. Vivienne’s guardian angel, Noah, who may just be her soul mate, escorts her through selections of Heavens and through the confusion Vivienne experiences as she flounders between a doubt of life and the certainty of death. Although her visits to varied afterlives provide peace and beauty, choosing proves not so easy: Vivienne’s love for her young son and her earthly father pull her from her colorful journey—and from her divine love of Noah.

The nature of love, the variety and magic of life, unending hope, and the importance of saying goodbye are central to this uplifting tale.

Amazon Barnes & Noble

The post The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall by Shannon Kirk appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

Duty & Betrayal – The SS Brotherhood & the NASA Connection by Toby Oliver

Everyone has a different agenda when a former Nazi scientist and a current NASA rocket expert arrive in 1960s London for a conference. International spies and war criminals alike are still looking to settle old scores from World War II.

Monitoring the conference are Spencer Hall of MI5 and Jack Stein of the CIA, top agents who became fast friends while fighting side by side for their lives. They’ve been called to protect their nations’ vital secrets, but one of them harbors his own plans for revenge. Meanwhile, Bernard Zimmerman, the NASA scientist, wants everyone to forget his past work with the Third Reich so he can create a new life in America. Unfortunately, both the Soviets and the Germans remember him all too clearly.

Thrown into the mix is Joyce Leader, a beautiful double agent with contacts in both Britain and Germany. If secrets from her past missions fall into the wrong hands, her life may be in jeopardy.

Filled with drama and double-crosses, this suspenseful tale unfolds inside a dangerous web of top secret knowledge and unknowable loyalties. These spies and ex-Nazis can’t help but get further entangled as they seek their own justice for past wrongs.

Amazon Goodreads

The post Duty & Betrayal – The SS Brotherhood & the NASA Connection by Toby Oliver appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

How To Crush Social Media In Only 2 Minutes A Day

Assimilating the fact that a faker does not have much in depth in his work. Not enough quality values in the things. He is a facking or a pretending to be.

How to avoid the fakers? How to differentiate you from the fakers?

Good questions!

I never took the time to think about it.

These could and would help:

Social proof
Questionnaires and survey
Recommendations (keep them coming in)
Reviews from readers
Photographs and video to proof what you are doing and also fight the fakers. Who usually wants the easy and fancy part of the job.
Interviews are also a good way to show, talk about the quality of the work done or research etc…
Vlogging about the book
DVD (talking about the book and the marketing of it)

For example, as a travel writer, I shared anecdotes and short stories about my experience. I talk about inside of the book and add a lively and live point of view. In videos, emotions aren’t disguised. It will be easy to see if it is true or a lie.

Goodreads grant a badge to authors. This is a good way to recognize the fakers from the non-fakers. to recognize the badge users as Goodreads authors. On different platforms, there are ways to differentiate me from fakers.

Traditional authors have an easy way they get credit out of their publisher. Indie authors are fighting the most to differentiate themselves from the fakers. No publishing company to back them up. The author does everything unless he hires a public relation or PR for the book. The PR the credibility needed from critics and influent people or Media.

Ndeye Labadens

Amazon Barnes & Noble Goodreads Blackwells

This post is contributed as Guest post by Ndeye Labadens.

About the author:

Ndeye Labadens, BSBA, MBA, DBA candidate. Multi-Best-Selling Author, Vlogger, Entrepreneur, and World traveler. I l

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP by M J Manley

There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to serial killers. Some are captured and sentenced to death, while others still lurk in communities throughout the world.

Author Michael J. Manley contends that you can’t truly write about something unless you experience it yourself. He lived in the same neighborhood of one of the most notorious serial killers in Los Angeles, and he visited Springfield, Massachusetts, where nine serial killings were committed. He writes of the pain and horror that entire communities experience, as two contemporary serial killers on opposite ends of the country leave their dead to be found in bodies of water or alley ways.

Based on true stories, the novel Still Waters Run Deep: The Tales of Two Cities That Suffered from Serial Killings: Springfield, Massachusetts & Los Angeles, California delves into the behaviorism that serial killers have in common. What is it that drives these mass murderers to kill?

Still Waters is a must-read for those who need to know the mystery inside the murderous minds of serial killers.

Born in the Los Angeles community of Watts, Michael J. Manley graduated from the School of Forensic Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He interned at the University of California. Now retired, this is the author’s seventh published novel. He does not just write, but researches his stories to “script” the concepts and theoretical premises of people with obstructive, compulsive behaviorism.

Available on : AMAZON

More Details – VISIT: sbpra.net

About the Author: 

Born in the Los Angeles community of Watts, Michael J. Manley graduated from the School of Forensic Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He interned at the University of California. Now retired, this is the author’s seventh published novel. He does not just write, but researches his stories to “script” the concepts and theoretical premises of people with obstructive, compulsive behaviorism.

Mike J. Manley – @thtidesoftime

The post STILL WATERS RUN DEEP by M J Manley appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

Science Fiction vs Sci-Fi vs Space Opera.

A friend of mine bought a copy of my science fiction novel, The Chronocar, with the simple intention of supporting me. Then he decided to read it to see what it was all about. He was surprised that he enjoyed it so much because, as he told me later, “I hate science fiction!” At least two other people have written reviews where they clearly express a dislike or ambivalence for science fiction, yet they admit that they enjoyed the story.

A young lady I know on Facebook was singing the praises of the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise and how much she enjoyed science fiction. In a comment, I corrected her. Star Wars may be great entertainment but it is not, I explained, science fiction.

“But, it has space ships and aliens!” she countered.

Here’s my favorite definition: in science fiction, the science, whether real or imaginary, has to be so central to the story that without it the story would fall apart. Star Wars does not fit this criterion. You could give the characters metal swords, horses and sea going ships and tell essentially the same story; rebels fighting an evil empire. Star Wars is Space Opera, where space is merely the setting and the technologies are props.  In fact, the science and technology doesn’t even have to be logical. Just cool and exciting. Like light sabers.

Lest Star Wars fans take offense, this is not a put down. I’m a fan of Star Wars, particularly the earlier films. It’s just that science fiction is not the proper category.

Sci-Fi is yet another animal. Usually more science fiction than space opera, but not by much.  You get Sci-Fi when you start with some science fiction and try to popularize it by punching it up and sometimes dumbing it down.  For example, the finest science fiction film ever made, in my humble opinion is 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was almost brutally accurate.  The scenes in space often had music in the background; like the Blue Danube waltz playing while a shuttle docked with a space station. Not only for the beauty of it, but director Stanley Kubrick realized that there would be no sound in space, so you would not hear engines firing.  In the sequel, 2010, made 20 years later, when the engines lit, the theater rumbled with the sound.  Fun, yes.  Accurate, no.

In a now rather famous TV rant, science fiction author Harlan Ellison outlined what he felt was the difference between science fiction and Sci-Fi, on the Sci-Fi Channel of all places.

So, in a nutshell, Sci-Fi tends involve a lot of excitement and explosions; the stuff of epic movies. Science fiction is often more cerebral, although there can be intrigue and action.  Science fiction usually follows some sort of logic, the best involving the logic of real science. Sci-Fi, quite honestly, does not have to be logical. As long as it is exciting, scary, and mind boggling, it’s acceptable; think sharks in a tornado.

Star Trek, at least in the beginning, kind of skirted between the two. Cerebral enough to worry the producers that no one would understand it, but it still had its share of explosions and monsters.

Since the first Isaac Asimov novel I read as a kid, I have loved science fiction.  Yes, I have enjoyed a lot of Sci-Fi, space opera and fantasy. But, as a writer, my goal is to help introduce readers to science fiction. Logical, thought provoking science fiction. Sort of “old fashioned” science fiction that can be enjoyed by many people, including those who don’t like Sci-Fi.

This post is contributed as Guest post by Steve Bellimger.

About the author:

Steve was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago by a single mom who worked nights for a printing company. She would bring home books and magazines to encourage him to read. This is how he discovered Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and the other masters of classic science fiction. It didn’t take long for him to get the itch to

Contribute a post to Being Author Blog [Submit NOW]

The post Science Fiction vs Sci-Fi vs Space Opera. appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult Entertainment

Especially as parents, many of us have expressed concern about what our children and grandchildren are exposed to at what ages. With respect to literature, one way that publishers and book reviewers describe a story is by labeling it as Young Adult (YA, adolescent), New Adult (NA, college-aged), or Adult based on the ages of the primary characters. This article is a critique of the strict application of that practice, and touches upon issues related to maturity rating based upon violent and sexual content. It has already been well established that popular YA novels are rife with profanity. http://www.slj.com/2012/05/research/y...

Many adult readers remember the infamous line screamed by a thirteen year old in The Exorcist: “…Your mother sucks cocks in Hell….” — a line that’s hard to forget. The movie was rated age 16+ but tons of younger kids read the book and watched the movie. The adolescent insult in ET: “penis breath” is also unforgettable. Elliot was ten years old when he insulted his brother by revealing his awareness of oral sex, about which his mother didn’t blink an eye. This story was vigorously consumed by appreciative YA and younger audiences. I remember being personally shocked when I watched a cartoon X-Ray of a gerbil climbing within a gay teacher’s rectum on South Park as he had orgasms on TV. This show is highly popular among kids, as were some of the sexual puns and potty humor on the Beavis and Butthead show. Age of the primary characters may not always be descriptive of maturing rating, whether the content will take us too far outside of our comfort zones, or whether it is appropriate for children.

Another strategy for defining maturity ratings that has been applied relates to violent content. I’m not sure how it happened, but, ironically, some of the most violent content in the marketplace now appears to be within YA novels and video games for kids. One of the bloodiest scenes that I’ve ever read was in a book that I was assigned to review through a Goodreads program. It was a labeled to be YA vampire story but was filled with violence, teenage angst that bordered on soft pornography, and included substance abuse. I won’t mention its title because my review was a low rating, but that book caused me to drop out of the Goodreads program and vow to avoid reading YA novels without fully checking them out first. At age sixty-five, I guess that I’m just not mature enough to handle the violence in some young adult literature.

Now let’s get to the nasty — sexual content about which I feel comfortably numb. Much more so than violent content, parental guidance ratings appear to be related to sex. Of course, any person of any age who has access to the internet could watch hardcore porn given an interest. Still, laws that restrict access are a positive symbolism.

If one takes sexual content down a notch from eroticism, romance literature appears to be highly popular, including with teens. Personally, I love a good Nora Roberts story but I usually skip past the kissy/kissy scenes. This type of entertainment appears to especially target young adult and new adult audiences when genre is based on the ages of the primary characters, i.e., NA for college-aged kids.

I suppose that there could be negative impacts of exposing children to romance novels, but nobody seems concerned enough to study such a proposition, especially since most people experience their first romantic crush at age five or six. http://www.parents.com/kids/developme.... Most people report falling in love for the first time at age fifteen or sixteen.http://www.bustle.com/articles/160133...

At the same time, many people draw a very heavy line between romantic love and sexual content of entertainment. Sexual content nevertheless persists, has invaded venues in some of the least likely places. For example, there may be more comedic sexual innuendos in a half-hour of the Family Feud TV show than within the entirely of most novels considered to have been written for an adult audience because of sexual content. Sitcoms like 2 Broke Girls and The Big Bang Theory, and crime dramas like Bones, are full of sexual content.

With respect to genre confusion, it appears to me that maturity rating could be applied by producers, editors and reviewers by weighing content and target audiences outside of simply the age of the characters or the violent and sexual content of the works. Some people will never be mature enough to “get” the satire of some stories, and some children are much more astute about their worlds than many parents want to believe. Personally, I’m going to try and ignore genre classification as I decide what entertainments to consume during the short period of time that humans are allotted. From now on, I vow to read reviews in their entirety. I would hate to miss something great because of a label.

Personally, I decided to implement a conservative interpretation of community standards with classification of my debut novel, Rarity from the Hollow. Although most of the profanity used by two characters in the story is mild colloquialism, and there are no actual sex scenes, the social commentary, satire, and political parody seem to fit mature readers. It also has much more literary content than found in most action driven YA stories. So, I call my novel a children’s story, for adults. It is available on Amazon if you would like to check it out. Your comments about the advantages and disadvantages of labeling a book as one for adults vs. young adults are welcome.

This post is contributed as Guest Post by Robert Eggleton.

The post Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult Entertainment appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

Most Effective Ways to Overcome Your Writing Problem

Writers face diverse challenges. Sometimes, these challenges may not surface letting you write as much as you can. But other times, they just stir at you in the face, keeping you from writing something meaningful.

Things like the fear of failure, writer’s block, procrastination and loss of ideas are some of the challenges writers face. You will feel helpless and frustrated. Many writers also seek expository essay help to fix their writing tasks.

There are ways you can overcome any problem that is preventing you from writing. Some of us have been in this horrible situation before, so it is a pleasure to help you solve yours.

Below are ways you can overcome those problems you are facing as a writer. Read on to learn more.

Identifying the problem

Identifying that there is a problem is the first step to solving it. When you feel the urge to write but can’t even form a sentence, know there is a problem.

You need to find out what is creating the problem for you. Are too tired to write? Are you going through emotional challenges? Are you sick or hungry? These are some of the questions you should ask yourself.

If tiredness from stress is the cause of the problem, all you need to do is get better sleep or rest for a while. If the problem is emotional, get it off of your head as soon as possible.

Get all ideas together

You need ideas to write. In fact, the quality of what you write depends on the ideas you conceived. We often make the mistake of discarding ideas when we feel they are bad. No idea of yours should be labelled as bad when you are still in the brainstorming process.

Get all ideas you have generated together even if you think some are not relevant. You will find out which one of them is relevant when you start writing.

Before you start writing, have a brief brainstorming session. Write down any idea that comes to your mind create bullet points for all your thoughts or ideas so you can get back to them easily. After finishing the brainstorming session, rest for a while and come back to review each idea you have generated to find out which one fits the topic you are writing on.

Deal with Procrastination

The root cause of most of our problems as writers is procrastination. Remember the last time you made plans to finish a particular task but ended up postponing till it was close to the deadline.

Writing under pressure isn’t good for you as a writer. And it happens when you don’t manage time properly. You’ll find yourself racing to meet the given deadline without considering the quality of what you’re writing.

Procrastination is a serious problem that any writer looking to succeed must fight to a standstill. Let’s look at ways to overcome it.

Tips#

Make detailed schedule for the writing task
In the schedule, write down the deadline you will be completing the rough draft, revision and proofreading.
Agree on a deadline to publish the book or whatever you are writing.
Have some break so you can come back with a fresh mind and perspective to complete the job.


Build Your Confidence

Fear is one the problems writers face. Fear of work being rejected or criticized, fear of not presenting a book that is up to expectation.

You need to build your confidence as a writer. If you have confidence in yourself, it will reflect in your writing. Remember that the only achievement you can get from being afraid is making regrettable and avoidable mistakes. Fear breeds mistakes. If you don’t trust whatever you are writing, then don’t expect others to.

Once you have already accepted that you are going to fail, there is a high possibility it is going to happen. The following tips will help in this scenario.

Tips#

Believe in yourself and show positive attitude
Get a close friend to review your book or writing. From the review, you will know the area you need to work on and what you need to do.

These are some of the most effective ways you can get rid of your writing problem and become that author you have always wanted. These problems are the limiting factors, preventing you from moving further. You have to believe in yourself, take your writing tasks seriously and follow the tips listed here to eliminate your writing challenges. Once you are able to get rid of your writing problems, you will achieve more as a writer.

This post is contributed as Guest Post by Mia Stokes.

The post Most Effective Ways to Overcome Your Writing Problem appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

How do I start my story?

How do I start my story?  This is a question that many authors face, as they stare at the blank page.  I am going to share my method of starting to write that really works for me.  The method is called jam writing, or writing for ten minutes without stopping to edit or worry about flow.  I was taught this form of writing in high school, where I practiced jam writing daily by keeping a journal.  Back then, I would write about something that was bothering me, or about an event that I wanted to remember.  It was a rewarding process, that resulted in me being able to clear my mind and work through my feelings.

 Now as the journaling has evolved into story writing, I still use the jam writing technique at the start of every story.  Getting all my ideas down on the page is the first step in my writing process.  For me, the continuous flow of writing gives me more ideas.  There has been times that I have wrote that I don’t have enough ideas for a story, or the story idea doesn’t work.  Usually, after writing these statements one or two times, I will have an idea come to me.  The one idea is all I need to give me confidence in my idea, and then more ideas come to me as I continue to write.   From that written page of ideas, I can then organize them and build my outline.   

I hope the jam writing technique can help writers overcome the fear of where to start in the writing process.  It has helped me tremendously, and I encourage other authors to try it.  

The post How do I start my story? appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.

My little People a social worker’s journey by Annie Brown

“Life is uncertain, but death is sure” is a saying that I heard many years before I started my professional journey in social work. Death is a bleak subject; who wants to discuss dying? Even though the Holy Scriptures speak much about the subject, it is not one of those subjects that the average person is comfortable about discussing. While God is a healer, it remains a mystery why some people with certain illnesses live longer and others die sooner. In the midst of the whys and how comes, many things we will not have an answer to until the return of Christ. As we have moved from generation to generation, we have learned new ways to take care of a person who has a terminal diagnosis and has been given a time limit on their life. When I was a child people died at home, but they did not have the comforts that have come into existence for people in the twentieth century. So what has changed? It is called hospice…

ANNIE CLARA BROWN is passionate about her work in hospice. It is gratifying to have embraced the social work profession in this manner. She cares deeply for her patients and caregivers, and she has developed a healthy sense of humor working in an area that can be demanding physically and emotionally.

Amazon Barnes & Noble Goodreads

The post My little People a social worker’s journey by Annie Brown appeared first on Being Author - Book Promotion & authors BLOG.